Football Supporters Europe
With our involvement in European football for the last 3 seasons, 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 some of our Europa matches. We are sometimes joined by someone from the Club/LS185 and also the police match commander before any high risk UEFA match.
28th February 2024 - Freiburg v West Ham United
Football Supporters Europe hosted a meeting to discuss arrangements for our forthcoming matches against Freiburg in the Europa League.
Helen Breit, a member of Supporters Crew Freiburg, gave us some insight about visiting Freiburg.
We detailed places to eat and drink, places to avoid and getting to and from the stadium.
Full details in our news item at:
https://www.whust.org/news/freiberg-information-for-travelling-supporters
17th October 2023 - Olympiakos v West Ham United
The main concern raised by supporters is the mandatory coach travel to and from the stadium and the cost of this travel that was only announced when the tickets actually went on sale.
This arrangement has been in use for all the European Olympiakos matches played at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium during the last few seasons. FSE cited examples of Eintracht Frankfurt, Freiburg, Genk and Nantes all having to use coaches. It seems that West Ham were late in informing supporters when this should have been known about well before the announcement.
FSE are generally in support of coaches being used for matches at Olympiakos and that the arrangement is in place for the safety of supporters.
Full details in our news item at:
https://www.whust.org/news/olympiakos-away-details
European Football Fans Congress 2023
The European Football Fans Congress 2023 was held in Manchester and WHUST were involved in submitting a motion proposing the arrangements for fans at UEFA European Finals, which was adopted at the Annual General Meeting
Proposed by: Arsenal Supporter Trust, West Ham United Supporters’ Trust and Manchester City Football Club Supporters Club (1949). Included in the motion:
- that the ticket allocations provided in 2023 still resulted in many supporters of the clubs involved being unable to attend the games, with particular problems following the staging of the Europa Conference final at a very small venue in Prague
- giving the FSE a say in the selection process for the host stadia
- staging finals in large stadia with good public transport links
- securing a policy decision that at least 66% of the stadium capacity is made available to supporters of the two competing teams
4th May 2023 - FSE review of arrangements for Europa Conference Final
FSE facilitated a joint session with supporter organisations from the 4 semi-finalists in the Europa Conference (Alkmaar/West Ham and Basel/Fiorentinato) to outline supporter arrangements for the 2 clubs that actually reach the final. FSE went through a review of the UEFA presentation previously given to the 4 clubs’ themselves outlining ticketing arrangements, location of fan parks, travel logistics and security and entry to the stadium.
Should we quality for the final, UEFA recognise that we will have the largest following of supporters and will allocate us the largest fan park which will be at Letná Park for our supporters. Due to travel logistics from the fan parks, this will then mean that West Ham supporters will be in the home end of the ground, rather than being allocated to the notional home and away clubs in the draw.
4th May 2023 - AZ Alkmaar v West Ham United Supporter Briefing
Members of the WHUST board today had an online session with Football Supporters Europe and supporter reps from AZ Alkmaar. We exchanged information concerning supporters for the home and away legs of our Europa Conference semi-final legs.
The main change from previous European matches hosted in Alkmaar is that West Ham supporters will be encouraged to go to the fan zone set up in the Paardenmarkt in Alkmaar as Waagplain is now a designated home supporters location for this match.
Supporters who do not have match tickets are advised not to travel to Alkmaar itself, although the police are currently not intending those without tickets to be stopped. There will probably be no bars in Alkmaar showing the match to encourage those without tickets to stay in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has a lot of large sports bars that can accommodate football supporters.
Free buses will be provided before and after the match for West Ham supporters. They will depart from Paardenmarkt to the stadium before the match and from the stadium after the match to the railway station for supporters to return to Amsterdam. The last train back to Amsterdam will be held to ensure that all supporters on the coaches are able to catch it.
Full details in our news item at:
https://www.whust.org/news/az-v-whu
25th April 2022 - West Ham United v Eintracht Frankfurt Supporter Briefing
This was a typical call that WHUST has with the FSE before a European match and we were joined by Dario Minden from the Eintracht Frankfurt fan organisation and Superintendent Jo Edwards from the Metropolitan Police who is the match commander for Thursday’s game.
Full details of the session are in our news item at:
https://www.whust.org/news/west-ham-vs-frankfurt-supporter-briefing
11th April 2022 - UEFA Champions League Reform
At today’s meeting of the Football Supporters Association Premier League Network of supporter groups, we heard from Ronan Evain from Football Supporters Europe. Ronan described the current proposals for the reform of the Champions League.
Premier League Supporters groups oppose Champions League changes that will entrench the richest clubs; damage the English football pyramid; and rip off fans.
Our groups represent fans that support teams across the Premier League.
We are united in opposition to proposals to reform the Champions League that are a back door attempt to return to the discredited idea of a European Super League.
Last year it was our supporter groups that united to force the collapse of the European Super League. At the time UEFA told us that fans were the heart of the game and promised our views would be centre stage in deciding what came next.
So it is with great dismay that we now face the prospect of changes to the Champions League that will mean many more group games being played and entry for some clubs being based on a so called ‘five year European co-efficient’.
These proposals will only make the gap between the rich and the rest bigger, wreck domestic calendars and expect fans to sacrifice yet more time and money attending meaningless group games.
Fans do not want even more European games, especially drawn out group stages of ten games and then an extra knock out round. As a cost of living crisis hits Europe it is irresponsible and out of touch to even be considering imposing yet more games on loyal fans who face a doubling in the number of home games they will have to attend before the last 16 knock out round even begins.
We also fear for the future of the FA and League cups which are vital redistributive mechanisms in our football pyramid.
We are calling on UEFA and the UEFA Exco to specifically reject any plans that:
Do not base entry to the Champions League on sporting merit performance in that season’s domestic league.
Increase overall the number of games in the competition. If this goes ahead it will put further pressure on the pockets of fans and also damage the welfare of players who are being asked to play too much football.
Premier League fans do not want ten group games and a small cartel of rich clubs further distorting competitive balance. We want strong, competitive domestic leagues, an equal opportunity for all to qualify for Europe based on sporting merit, and fairer sharing of the game’s wealth from the revenues the competition earns.
Last year we engaged in constructive discussions with UEFA President Ceferin who committed to us that fans would be listened to in this process. Our collective voice is clear and unified and our position clear.
It is time for UEFA to demonstrate that it acts in the interests of the wider football community and its supporters, not just the interests of the few rich investor
OCTOBER 2021
Ahead of the European group games, WHUST met with Football Supporters Europe, the Club Head of Match Day Operations and SLO.
West Ham United vs Rapid Wien
After crowd trouble and objects continually being thrown between rival sets of fans, we sat down with FSE to discuss the issues. They provided input from Rapid Wien supporters that had been at the match to try and get a balanced view.
Genk vs West Ham United
Following crowd trouble during our Europa trip to Genk, the Club were banned from selling tickets for the next away match in Vienna. This came as a shock to many supporters that were present in Genk who could not understand the reason for the ban, with many calling for the Club to appeal the decision. The Club did not offer much further information
We had a meeting with x from FSE who went through the UEFA disciplinary process with us, concluding that it was not very transparent for supporters who are the most affected by the ban.
We had a meeting before the home match against Dinamo Zagreb with concerns after there were crowd issues at the home league. We had scheduled the meeting and representatives from WHUST, Football Supporters Europe, the Club from Operations and the SLO team, Metropolitan Police (including the match commander) and LS185 covering stewarding and operation