Aston Villa is proud to support Level Playing Field’s ‘Unite For Access’ campaign.
Level Playing Field is the leading charity advocating for disabled sports fans in England and Wales, and the dedicated 'Unite For Access' matchday is one of many happening across stadiums up and down the country over a two-week period.
The campaign is a celebration of accessibility and inclusion for disabled sports fans.
This season’s campaign takes place from Saturday, February 25 to Sunday, March 12 and will focus on raising awareness and driving equality for a more inclusive matchday experience for disabled sports fans
Villa's home Premier League match against Crystal Palace on Saturday will be our dedicated fixture, with players wearing Level Playing Field t-shirts during the warm-up and club media across all channels showing its support for the campaign.
An estimated 22% of the UK population are disabled, making disabled people the largest minority group in the UK.
Still, many disabled sports fans feel that attending live sports is not possible, due to the environmental and societal barriers that disabled football fans face, which make matchdays inaccessible.
The most recent Level Playing Field Fan survey found 28.5% of disabled sports fans considered the attitudes of others to be a barrier when attending live sport, and over a quarter of disabled fans, 36.5%, said they are unable to attend certain sports or sporting venues due to lack of accessibility.
In the past 12 months, Aston Villa has taken further positive steps to help raise awareness of good accessibility and inclusion to help drive a greater matchday/non-matchday experience, including:
- Installing a further seven wheelchair bays in the away section, bringing the total number up to 14
- Re-installing hearing loops across the stadium
- Increasing the number of rest seats in the concourses at Villa Park
- Rolling out a training programme to become a Dementia Friendly organisation, plus working towards a protocol and set incentives for matchday
- Introducing specialist Welfare Officers alongside our stewards to support with access, safeguarding and EDI on matchdays
- Development of a reporting system between safeguarding, EDI and access
- Several website amendments, including the club’s Access Statement
As a club, we believe all people should be able to attend live sports, regardless of disability. We are committed to making Aston Villa accessible to all, and will continue to take steps to improve, but we also call on all supporters to come with us on this journey - we all have our part to play.
We invite all supporters, disabled and non-disabled, to engage with us on this important campaign and to ensure access and inclusion is at the heart of everything we do.
If you want to know more about the work of Level Playing Field, click here.
Aston Villa Disability Supporters Association continue to increase membership and have now launched an updated logo, enamel badge and website. If you would like to get involved or find out a bit more, please visit www.avdsa.co.uk.
For further information on All In, the Club’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion platform, click here.
Please contact accessibility@avfc.co.uk for any information on matchday disability and accessibility.
