Newcastle United display group Wor Flags protested against late away kick-offs and short notice rescheduling in their latest heartfelt display.
The display revealed before the Magpies 4-4 draw with was one of the more basic displays at St James’ Park, but the message that was sent to the FA and Premier League was a strong one. “TV before fans”
Wor Flags created the display in support of Green Football Weekend, a yearly national football event which aims to highlight the importance of reducing your carbon footprint.
This season, Newcastle have only had one 3pm Saturday kick-off away from home this season.
During a cost of living crisis, Geordies have been forced to take a near 600 mile round trip to Fulham for a Saturday 7pm kick-off and a 400 mile round trip to Aston Villa for a Tuesday 8:15pm kick-off. All in the space of a week.
A Wor Flags statement read: “Today’s display in the Gallowgate is dedicated to highlighting the disgusting kick-off times that have been afforded to us by broadcasters in both the Premier League and The FA Cup since the turn of the year.
Statement about today's display pic.twitter.com/or09DwOtJG
— Wor Flags 🏴🏳 (@worflags) February 3, 2024
It’s a difficult balance really.
The club make a lot of their money from the televised games – so the more the better from the clubs point of view – and of those fans who either can’t get to the games, or those who fall victim to the crazy ticket allocation system.
But the Fulham game as a recent example – away fans should never find themselves in that situation.
The difficulty this season has been that we obviously played in the Carabao Cup, the FA Cup, the CL and the PL – televised via Sky, TNT, BBC and ITV.
It’s not straightforward. But the club are the only consistent in the arranging of the televised games & are ultimately the ones that profit from it – so I think the club need to take more responsibility on the matter too.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Your clearly wrong because the club do not control the matches selected for television, the broadcasters have full control over this.
Despite the fact that the premier league has guaranteed clubs and their supporters a minimum of 6 weeks notice will be given on fixture changes due to televised matches this rule is regularly broken.
Chris(Quote)