Jordan Henderson wants FA to change the semi-final venue as he sympathises with fans
Liverpool will tie knots with Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday, April 16 at Wembley and Jordan Henderson has urged FA to change the venue.
On Friday, the Football Association (FA) confirmed that Liverpool & City will play their semi-final at Wembley. However, the Reds & the Citizens fans are upset with the location of the venue. This is because the supporters will find it hard to travel to London to watch the north-west giants. As West Coast Mainline train services will not be available during the concerned date due to a pre-planned engineering work, which is going to take place at the Easter weekend.
Thus, the FA have promised to provide 100 free Buses for the Reds and the Sky Blues spectators. The Buses will make the travel convenient for around 5000 Reds & City’s fans. Moreover, FA has also advised the fans to resist from travelling via trains from the north-west wherever possible.
Meanwhile, the Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson completely disagrees with FA’s decision. The Reds captain still thinks that it would have been better if the venue would have been switched to a different stadium.
Henderson comments on the decision of FA to keep the venue unchanged to Wembley
On sympathising with the Reds fans, Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson said
I think this time, I’ve been thinking a bit more about the fans,
In many ways, it’s their day, and not being able to get down to London for different reasons – the cost of that…
In my head, it would make sense obviously to change it to a (different) neutral venue, especially with it being two teams from the north-west.
The 31-year-old further also mentions how much he loves to play at Wembley. Hendo added
That’s just my opinion. There’s obviously complications within that I’m sure which the FA have got to overcome but looking at the fans, which is probably the most important thing for me and something that we’ve learned over the past couple of years how important the fans are to football, that it is really disappointing to see that it’s a struggle and it’s got to be expensive for them to get there.
To be honest – again, my opinion, and I love playing at Wembley – I would like to keep Wembley for finals anyway. I think (we should) play semi-finals at neutral grounds like it used to be.
I think that was quite exciting, quite good and then obviously the final at Wembley to make it extra special.
FA’s final verdict
Moreover, The mayors of Manchester and Liverpool had urged the FA to change the location to accommodate fans. However, the FA has made it quite clear that the Venue will remain to be unchanged.
It was in 2003, that FA decided to hold the FA Cup semifinals at Wembly starting from 2007-08 season.
The FA statement went on to say that
It was working with Highways England to attempt to ensure smooth road travel, with roadworks being halted to help fans travelling from the north-west.
It will be really harsh on fans who wanted to witness the semifinal but the struggle might be worth it.
