Maybe clubs will now respect deflated fans

THEY were supposed to be ordinary mannequins – not blow-up dolls.

Easy mistake to make, huh, when you need to find replacement supporters...

Officials at Korean League side FC Seoul were whacked with a £60,000 fine for using the sex aids instead of something a little less risque ahead of a game against Gwangju last week as they sought to, ahem, pep up the atmosphere.

Borussia Moenchengladbach offered up more suitable substitutes yesterday.

‘The Foals’ slapped pictures of punters on to cardboard cut-outs (below) and placed them in the stands at Borussia-park for their game against Bayer Leverkusen.

It’s all part of the ‘Stay at home, be in the stands’ campaign – an idea which may be exported here as clubs seek to recoup lost revenue. Three Premier League clubs are in discussions with manufacturers to do the same should the season ever get underway.

Gone

Meanwhile, former Manchester United and Spurs forward Dimitar Berbatov added his voice to the debate, saying a game without crowd noise is like a training exercise.

The result of all of this is that the decision-makers are now toying with ideas such as piping crowd noise into stadiums.

It’s at precisely this point that the saying: ‘You don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone’ springs to mind.

And that’s probably the first time anyone, ever, has written such a sentence about your average football supporter.

Honestly, has there been a more downtrodden ‘customer’ in the history of entertainment than the poor swine who chooses to follow their team through thin and thinner?

They are taken for granted. Actually, it’s worse than that – they’re treated like absolute mugs.

The clubs they support become the playthings of dubious chancers from home and abroad.

They are forced to swallow price hikes on season tickets with little, if any, consultation. Annual changes to the replica kits? That’s a given – and at £70 a pop, it is not loose change.

Football’s authorities treat them little better. If you support a Premier League outfit, how does it feel to be a Newcastle United fan heading to a 12.30pm kickoff at Bournemouth? Or a Liverpool devotee attending a match in east London at 8pm on a Monday night?

There’s never a moment’s consideration for these people who will put up with taking a day off work, or two half-days, just to say: ‘I was there’.

Allegiance

Or those who travel thousands of miles slavishly lapping up the trials and tribulations of Wimbledon, Leyton Orient or Plymouth Argyle.

Every man, woman and child among them – they do it for the love, not the glory. Without their unstinting allegiance, football wouldn’t exist. The pyramid would collapse.

Since when are they consulted about anything, ever?

Well, perhaps now that football is facing a huge upheaval, now that it’s being forced to really think about its existence, these supporters might warrant a moment’s consideration.

At the bigger clubs they are all-toooften trampled over. Why, for instance, is any Premier League club charging young fans to be a matchday mascot?

It’s a disgrace. Especially when some useless mercenary player has just trousered a £10million contract.

Why don’t they just give shirts away with season tickets? The manufacturing cost of them is minimal. Tiny.

No, the attitude is: ‘Let’s fleece the fans – they’ll stand for it’.

It’s taken this pandemic for everyone to realise how important the average punter is to the wellbeing of the sport.

As the late, great Celtic boss Jock Stein once said: ‘Football is nothing without supporters’. Somewhere along the line we have lost sight of this fact.

And now is the perfect opportunity to put that right.

The ex-stoke boss revealed Arsene Wenger wrote to the authorities to have long throw-ins banned.

Could do without the so-called ‘revenge’ missions against the Germans, but it’s welcome therapy for a few ex-players.

He expressed revulsion at Manchester Ciy’s proposed third kit for next season.

WHO’S NOT