London, Thursday March 4th 2010, 7pm
Every day the FSF hears from fans telling us that they’re sick of being treated like criminals by over-zealous police, tired of taking orders from doormen dressed up as ‘stewards’, and had enough with clubs forcing them to sit down when they’d rather stand. Is this now the typical matchday experience?
Sit Down, Shut Up: Are Football Supporters Discriminated Against? is the FSF’s free Question Time-style debate and gives you, the match-going fan, your opportunity to tell it how you see it to our expert panel of football journalists, police, and solicitors (see below for full event details).
Why are football supporters treated differently from other groups in society? Go to Wembley for a pop concert and you can stand without fear of ejection. Head to a rugby league match and you can drink in your seat but try that at a football game and you'll get a criminal record. Why does the Crown Prosecution Service push for the most severe punishment in most cases involving football fans? Would this not be illegal if they followed this procedure with any other group in society? Are we seeing the return of the dreaded section 27?
Have we reached a tipping point and what role can we all play in improving things for the better?
We really hope you can make it - the event takes place at Brick Lane's Vibe Bar on Thursday March 4th 2010 (7pm kick-off).
Panellists
As any manager will tell you a team is only as good as its individuals and likewise Sit Down, Shut Up: Are Football Supporters Discriminated Against? is only as good as its guests and we've got no worries on that score. Your hostess with the mostest for the evening will be Amanda Jacks, FSF policing and stewarding lead, introducing a cracking panel featuring:
Tony Evans will chair the event. As well as being a Liverpool fan Tony is also Football Editor at The Times and a regular guest on his newspaper's excellent The Game podcast.
Duleep Allirajah is Sports Columnist for spiked "an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms". Amen to that!
David Bohannan heads up the Home Office's football unit.
Tony Conniford is Assistant Director of the UK Football Policing Unit, a position he’s held since 2002, and prior to that spent 30 years working for Essex Police. He’s been involved in policing football since 1996, and has worked at the previous three World Cups, two European Championships, and five Champions League finals.
Henry Porter is a civil liberties campaigner, novelist, and Observer columnist. He's so famous he's even got his own Wikipedia entry and also backed our campaign against section 27.
James Welch is a solicitor and has been the Legal Director of Liberty since February 2000. Liberty is a campaigning organisation which seeks to protect civil liberties and has worked extensively with the FSF in campaigning against the use of section 27.
See http://www.fsf.org.uk/functions/preview.php?section=1&article=2068 for more information and to register.