Posted on 7th December 2009
Fans of Cardiff City have criticised South Wales Police for utilising facial recognition technology without prior consultation at their game against Swansea City.
Cardiff fans protest as WBA allocation cut
This is a story from the FSF archive – the FSF and SD merged to become the FSA in 2019.
Cardiff City fans will tomorrow (Tuesday December 8th) hold a protest following West Bromwich Albion’s decision to cut the Bluebirds’ ticket allocation to 1,300 – teams are normally given around double this at the Hawthorns.
Cardiff City Supporters’ Club (CCSC), an FSF affiliate, is organising the action which will take place outside Sandwell Police Station (in the centre of West Bromwich, one mile from the ground) at 6pm for around 15 minutes. This will allow everyone to attend the game itself and will cause no disruption to locals, just the authorities who sanctioned the ticket reduction.
The peaceful protest, organised by FSF and CCSC member Vince Alm, has even gained backing from the Bluebirds’ hierarchy. “The West Brom stance is disgraceful,” said Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale “Vince Alm and the Supporters Club have done an outstanding job standing up for the rights of fans.”
While WBA tried to pass the responsibility for the decision on to the club’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) – which is made up of representatives from the football club, Sandwell Council and other licensing quangos – the FSF understands that the decision was in fact made by WBA’s new stadium safety officer alone.
A Freedom of Information request has gone to Sandwell Council’s SAG to get to the bottom of this.
West Midlands Police also asked WBA to hand over more tickets to Cardiff fans but the club has refused to do so which has lead to the away supports planned protest. Cardiff’s last two midweek away games saw more than 2,000 travel to Reading and around 4,000 to Villa Park.
Both games passed without incident.
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