Liverpool FC ‘named and shamed’ in disabled seating scandal

LIVERPOOL football club has come under fire for failing to make enough space for devoted disabled fans - while splashing cash on money-spinning hospitality seats.

It joins seven other Premier League cubs that will miss a deadline to put in a minimum amount of wheelchair places, campaigners claim.

Despite years of campaigning, many sports fans with disabilities find there are poor facilities at billion-banking sport stadiums.

To date six of the top 20 ranking clubs do not allow disabled fans to sit with their own fans and are forced into the away stand.

Regulations state that Premier League football clubs must have a certain amount of wheelchair seats by August 2017.

But it has emerged that many will fail to meet these targets ahead of the deadline.

"It's obscene"

Joyce Cook

Joyce Cook, of Level Playing Field, told an inquiry by MPs that the attitude of many of England's top clubs towards disabled fans was "shameful".

She claimed:

"At least eight of their clubs are not going to meet that pledge by August 2017.

"And, actually, we have been told by some of those clubs that they are only expected to come up with a plan by August 2017. I find that deeply worrying."

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"I find it obscene when you look at the money now available, particularly at the top end of football at the Premier League level."

Her fiercest criticism was aimed at Liverpool, whose Anfield stadium will gain an extra 8,500 seats over this summer.

This will help create what the club boasts is "one of the largest all-seater single stands in European football".

But, the chairman of Level Playing Field said, much would be "hospitality seating" - so that Liverpool would still have only three-quarters of the wheelchair places required.

She said: "There will still be a deficit of 25%, when there's a huge waiting list - and phase two will only go ahead if they raise enough money for sales of hospitality in phase one.

"Given how long disabled fans at Liverpool - home or away - have had to put up with extraordinarily poor conditions and a complete lack of facilities, they are completely demoralised."

Justin Tomlinson, the minister for disabled people, insisted Premier League clubs were required to complete the work by August next year - not simply to have drawn up action plans.

Yet Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham, Watford and West Ham still all require wheelchair-using home and away fans to sit together.

And he warned that clubs which failed to act would face a backlash, saying: "If there's 18 that have done it and two that have not done it, I would not want to be their PR people.

"Our expectation and our challenge to them is that they would be compliant by August 2017. They have been given the warning."

Liverpool FC declined to comment on the matter.

They will provide 110 disabled seats by the 2016/2017 season.

But the stadium will soon seat 54,000 after a revamp

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