Why politicians should back safe standing ... No. 2

2. Because standing per se at sporting events presents no safety risk.

If it did, it wouldn’t be allowed at rugby games - including those played in football stadia - or even by the ‘Barmy Army’ at cricket.

In his report on Hillsbrough, Lord Justice Taylor cited the summary of recommendations from his Technical Working Party that stated that “standing accommodation is not intrinsically unsafe” and identified the primary causes of the disaster as poor crowd control, "lack of leadership", "inadequate signs and ticketing", the fact that "no safe maximum capacities had been laid down" and that there was "no effective visual monitoring of crowd density".

More recently the Sports Ground Safety Authority (formerly the Football Licensing Authority) has also agreed that "the injury statistics we produce do not provide firm statistical evidence that standing is less safe than seating".

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