The Football Association’s decision to insist on Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City being played at Wembley Stadium has angered and disappointed many but should come as no surprise given the governing body’s track record for putting their own interests ahead of supporters.
Both clubs and sets of fans’ groups requested the showpiece occasion between the Premier League title rivals, set to be played on Saturday 16th April at 3.30pm, be moved away from the national stadium because National Rail's long-planned Bank Holiday rail maintenance works mean there will be no trains into London from the the north west, with the very real prospect of travel chaos on the nation’s roads over the busy Easter weekend.
Despite there being a number of stadiums outside the capital capable of hosting the match and avoiding the need for tens of thousands of supporters from the north west to make long and difficult journeys, the FA have doubled-down on the commercially-motivated decision to denigrate their own competition by hosting the semi-finals there taken when the renovated Wembley re-opened in 2007 by refusing to countenance moving the Liverpool vs City fixture despite the circumstances clearly offering the opportunity to exercise some discretion and common sense.
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They may well feel that by laying on 100 free buses from Anfield and the Etihad, which will cater for the needs of around 5,000 supporters heading to a stadium with a capacity of 90,000, they have gone some way to easing the problem and displaying understanding of the issues at hand but to many supporters it is a cynical and empty ‘will this do?’ PR gesture which has actually only served to highlight the contempt paying spectators - the “lifeblood of the game” or so we were told as the game stared in the abyss during the misery of behind-closed-doors pandemic football not so very long ago at all - are still held in by those who run it.
It takes a fair bit to rile Reds supporters at the moment given the stellar season Jurgen Klopp’s men are enjoying but the Football Association has a chequered history when it comes to Liverpool and FA Cup semi-finals.
It cannot be over-looked that in 1989 it was the FA who decided Liverpool’s last four meeting with Nottingham Forest would be played at Hillsborough - a ground without a valid safety certificate - and which had experienced crowd safety problems at all three semi-finals it hosted earlier that decade, their decision-makers choosing to ignore serious concerns raised to them in the immediate aftermath of the draw by LFC club secretary Peter Robinson following issues at the previous season’s corresponding fixture. Following the unlawful deaths of 97 Liverpool supporters in Europe’s worst ever sporting disaster and 25 years of campaigning by bereaved supporters and survivors, the FA’s culpability in the tragedy was finally examined in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report with the head of the criminal probe into the disaster Jon Stoddard confirming they, Sheffield Wednesday FC and Sheffield City Council as well as the South Yorkshire Police were being investigated for possible gross negligence manslaughter.
The governing body’s then-chairman David Bernstein issued a generic “full and unreserved” apology following that watershed HIP moment of September 2012 but during the 2014-16 Warrington inquests - at which the FA were represented as an ‘interested party’ with their own QC, their 1989 head of competitions Adrian Titcombe also being called to give evidence - their case seemed to be that the organisation had in fact done nothing wrong in awarding one of their showpiece fixtures to a venue without a valid safety certificate. This was despite Titcombe accepting a breach of their own regulations relating to rule 3, which stipulated clubs every season must complete a form certifying their grounds had been inspected in accordance with safety legislation and the appropriate licence obtained. He also claimed the FA were unaware of the crush on the Leppings Lane terrace at the 1988 semi-final despite several football fans having written to the governing body to complain about crushing incidents at Hillsborough in the years leading to the disaster.
“The families were left scratching their heads over the role of the FA, which selected Hillsborough despite the history of near misses and crush injuries at previous FA Cup ties there”, Pete Weatherby who represented 22 bereaved families at the inquests told the Guardian. “What did David Bernstein give the families a ‘full and unreserved apology’ for in 2012? At the inquests, the FA’s lawyers sought to avoid any responsibility for the stadium selection or safety issues.”
Many suspected the FA would feature when the Crown Prosecution Service announced their charging decisions in June 2017 but the CPS said there was insufficient evidence to bring a case against the organisation and were unable to against any other corporate body either. Six individuals were charged (later reduced to five after charges were dropped against Norman Bettison) but only one conviction followed - for then Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell for a health and safety offence for which he was fined £6,500 - with match commander David Duckenfield found not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter after a contentious retrial and the final trial of two former South Yorkshire police officers and the force’s former solicitor on charges of perverting the course of justice for amending police statements collapsing in ignominious failure on a legal technicality in May 2021.
You might have expected the welfare of supporters to have at least become a priority for the FA after Hillsborough but Liverpool’s progression to the 1990 semi-finals revealed only more disdain after it was decided, for the first time, both ties would both be shown live on television. Despite the other semi being a local encounter, with Manchester United playing Oldham Athletic at Manchester City’s Maine Road, that match was handed a 3.30pm kick off slot while Reds fans and their Crystal Palace counterparts were made to travel hundreds of miles to Birmingham’s Villa Park for a 12 noon start (with some Liverpudlians having to put up with ‘late again Scouse’ jibes from West Midlands police officers, the force at the time instructed to examine the role of South Yorkshire Police in the disaster despite their own Serious Crimes Squad being under investigation themselves for numerous miscarriages of justice including the Birmingham Six and the Bridgewater Four, and who along with SYP agreed in May 2021 compensation pay-outs over their role in the Hillsborough cover-up).
Two years later, Liverpool supporters were made to travel even further for a 12pm FA Cup semi-final when the FA decided Graeme Souness’s team’s last-four encounter with Second Division Portsmouth should kick off again at noon on a Sunday this time at Highbury in London, the start eventually being put back one hour to 1pm after pressure from the ECHO among others. The venue of the other 1992 FA Cup semi-final? Hillsborough, where Liverpool’s Wembley opponents Sunderland met Norwich City at 3.30pm. The reputation of Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium was further rehabilitated by the football establishment by being awarded the 1997 League Cup final replay between Middlesbrough and Leicester City.
Wembley had in fact hosted its first ever FA Cup semi-final in 1991 in a move which made sense to most people at the time with league leaders Arsenal drawing north London rivals Tottenham and there being nowhere else suitable in the capital to play it. Two years later, that semi-final tie was repeated and, with the other last-four match-up being Sheffield Wednesday against Sheffield United, it was decided to play both matches at Wembley again to the agreement of most although the decision to do the same for Luton vs Chelsea and Oldham vs Manchester United the following year wasn’t universally as welcomed. By 1995 however, neutral venues returned with Elland Road hosting Everton’s victory over Tottenham and traditional (and popular) semi-final staple Villa Park used for Crystal Palace against Manchester United and there was no suggestion - or desire from fans - of them returning to Wembley until the FA decided shortly before the stadium’s over-budget and delayed £798 million renovation to play the Chelsea vs Newcastle and Aston Villa vs Bolton semi-final ties in April 2000 there.
That now appears to be the FA’s way of giving early warning that football supporters would be expected to pay the price for the project coming in at double it’s initial contracted proposed budget of £326.5 million as, when the stadium was finally ready a year after its proposed reopening in 2006 (and only just in time for the FA Cup final with the last-four ties having to be held elsewhere), it had already been announced semi-finals would be held there for the foreseeable future with them having been sold as part of Club Wembley packages that guarantee holders a series of top events.
This seems to be one of the justifications for maintaining the position that Wembley must host the semi-finals with an FA source this week not even trying to hide the fact it’s about money when saying, "The revenue generated by the semi-finals being at Wembley Stadium is incredibly important for English football as The FA is a not-for-profit organisation and ensures that it is reinvested back into the game." Yet the confirmation of the Liverpool-Manchester City kick off time at 3.30pm shows they can amend their own rules when it suits them, the blanket blackout of televised matches between 3 and 5pm which has been in place since the 1960s to protect attendances in the lower leagues being conveniently overlooked in this case (where there are admittedly only three Premier League games that day and none in the EFL due to a full Good Friday programme the day before).
Manchester United’s home game with Norwich City is one of those three Premier League games on the Saturday and is being held up as another reason why there was “no alternative” but to keep Liverpool-City at Wembley. But are we really expected to believe that Old Trafford - the most obvious and natural choice for the fixture - could not have been turned round within 24 hours (as Wembley is for the promotion play-offs on successive days every year in May) in time to hold the match on the Sunday. After all, Liverpool are facing United the following week and both sides could have agreed on the game being pushed back to Wednesday, April 20.
The reality is money and self-interest always have and always will come first for those who run the game and, for all the mealy-mouthed words about supporters being the lifeblood of the game, their welfare continues to be way down the pecking order. Earlier this week, the ECHO learned that the FA were made aware of the planned rail works for this year’s semi-final weekend as far back as November 2019 before they were written to in September to consider a move because of the potential for rail disruption. But was any kind of contingency or alternative plan put into place or even discussed? Evidently not.
The FA can remain arrogantly secure in their decision because they know the game will sell out no matter what. In 1996, when Liverpool were drawn to play Aston Villa in the semi-final at Old Trafford, large ticket price increases saw many supporters boycott the match with gaps in the stands visible and the attendance that day of 39,072 well over 15,000 below the stadium’s capacity at the time, Reds fans’ ability to harness the power of protest again being evident again in the 77th minute walk out at Anfield against Sunderland in February 2016 over further obscene ticket price hikes, which didn’t just stop their own club in its tracks but within a week led to a £30 cap on all Premier League away tickets which is still in place six years later.
But, with arguably one of the greatest Liverpool teams of all time chasing an unprecedented Quadruple and set for another mouth-watering clash against opponents from the Etihad whose rivalry has inspired each other to ever greater heights in recent years, that won’t happen this time. Yet again football supporters’ love, passion and dedication is being manipulated and monetised against them and it stinks.
