Our Work

The Conservative government’s Football Governance Bill was ‘lost’ when the General Election was called. All three main political Parties subsequently included a commitment to legislate for independent regulation in their Manifesto’s. The pressing need for regulation is widely recognised and has strong support in Parliament across Party lines.

West Ham United have recently published the Club’s approach to Fan Engagement.  The ISC are negotiating on the Clubs’ proposals.  The context is set by the Fan Led Review and the commitment to set up a Statutory, Independent Regulator for English football as announced in the Governments’ recent White Paper and confirmed in the subsequent consultations. 

Independent Advisory Groups (IAGS) are set up to allow groups of people to act as that “critical friend” to the Police, in our case the Metropolitan Police. At IAG meetings questions are asked, police actions and initiatives explained/questioned and information shared.

We meet regularly with Football Supporters Europe to discuss issues that impact supporters across the whole of Europe and also for individual briefing sessions before our Europa League matches.

Our recent meetings have been to discuss our matches against Olympiakos after which we were able to publish the reasons and details for the mandatory coaches to and from the ground.

Welcome to the second annual report of the West Ham United Supporters’ Trust (WHUST).

The trust grew from the previous West Ham United Independent Supporters Association. The origins of that, along with other fan groups, was widespread discontent among the fan base with the ownership and direction of the club. It’s fair to say that many of those concerns remain.

We continue to engage positively with the club, along with other supporters’ groups, to improve the experience of all fans, and you can read reports of the work of the trust in this report.

WHUST has prepared the following 'ticketing manifesto'. We believe it is a set of commitments the club could make on ticketing that would improve the experience for fans. Some of these are quick-wins, some may take longer and some are on-going - always looking to improve if possible.

There are women of all ages who are passionate about West Ham. We think it’s time to give female supporters a voice and a platform to promote a more diverse fanbase. Consequently we are launching a female-run supporters group called Intrepid Irons. The concept has been in the making over the past twelve months after listening to women share their matchday experience at home games, away and online too. The aim of Intrepid irons is to improve the female matchday experience.

We are actively involved in an on-going campaign with the Club called: “Taking Back Control of the Matchday Experience”.

Through our annual membership surveys and comments received from supporters through our ‘Matchday Service’, one of the main concerns that West Ham fans have is poor stewarding.

WHUST, as a founding member of the ISC, has continued to work with fellow ISC members on issues such as digital ticketing, ticketing options to reflect covid-19 implications, Covid-19 procedures including return to the stadium as restrictions lift and safe pick up/drop off for women supporters.

One of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is a rise in mental health issues. #TerraceTalk is an initiative from the FSA . The aim is to support people at risk with a focus on mental health issues. WHUST is looking at how we could develop Terrace Talk at West Ham United and who we would need to work with to bring this in.

We’ve long argued there is a tradition of fans standing at games as it increases choice, improves atmospheres and ensures supporter safety when hosted in properly managed and licensed standing areas.

The latest phase of the decades-long safe standing campaign began in January as trial areas saw their first official use in the Premier League.

The FSA have a working group that looks at the implications of VAR for supporters, particular those in attendance at matches where VAR decisions are made. We regularly provide input to this group after canvassing the experiences of our members and other West Ham supporters.

One of our WHUST board members is part of this working group, along with representatives from Arsenal, Brentford, Newcastle and Spurs.

An aim of the group is to minimise the disruption caused by games moved for broadcast to match going fans and to voice supporter sentiment to decision makers at Sky, TNT Sports and the Premier League.

WHUST is one of the Premier League trust representatives that is working on a response to the partnerships that are developing in the PL with Socios. This includes having interviews with National and International journalists on why there are concerns with cryptocurrency and implications for supporter engagement.

Football not only has the power, but also the responsibility, to lead and influence change, to use its unique influence for good. There’s a great opportunity for collaboration on sustainability initiatives between clubs, governing bodies and football supporters.

The issue of there being a World Cup scheduled every 2 years instead of 4, has had WHUST members concerned and asking us to consider this as an action point.

We agreed unanimously that we at WHUST are opposed to this idea as it has the potential to dilute/impact our game nationally whilst detracting value and status from what is currently the 4-year cycle.