Premier League clubs step up safe standing talks

Premier League clubs have agreed to reconvene and hold further talks on introducing safe standing at grounds following successful discussions on Thursday.

The harrowing Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when 96 Liverpool fans died in a crush, led to top flight and Championship outfits requiring an all-seater stadium by law from 1994, but that judgement is now under review.

The "softening" on standing is due to successful examples of it being implemented at various grounds - including the 3,000 "rail seats" introduced at Celtic's Parkhead home, as cited by Premier League director of communications Dan Johnson.

"Maybe at some clubs it might be how do we create an atmosphere and maintain it," Johnson told BBC Sport. "But I think a lot of it is to do with listening to their fans and hearing they're interested in looking at it.

"It is very early stages. It's a very emotive subject still. We're acutely aware of that.

"A number of our clubs do want to discuss it so it's on the agenda."

One of the teams not in favour of safe standing is Everton, a Merseyside club hit by the fragments of what happened to its neighbour Liverpool almost 28 years ago in Sheffield. The wounds haven't healed from that day and it remains a sensitive issue, as Hillsborough Support Group secretary Sue Roberts explained to BBC Sport.

"We have a tendency to forget things in history. I think it's one step in the wrong direction, that will lead to another and another," Roberts, who lost her brother Graham in the tragedy, said.

"I would hate to be still around to say I told you so."

Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn has vowed to tread carefully when making a decision on the movement, saying that the common examples in the Bundesliga of safe standing occurred without having to endure a disaster like Hillsborough.

"We've got different history (to Germany). We've had Hillsborough, and they haven't," said Glenn.

"We have got to tread very carefully because our number one duty is to create a safe environment for fans watching football."

While Premier League sides are free to debate the subject, it would take the government to rewrite legislation that was penned in 1990 in the Taylor Report, and there appears to be reluctance from the relevant sections to do so.

A Department of Culture, Media and Sport statement read: "The government has no plans to change its position and introduce standing accommodation at grounds covered by the all-seater requirement."