Simon Jordan slams Crawley Town owner for going on the pitch after emphatic Fulham victory

Crawley fans rushed to the pitch on Tuesday night after their club knocked Premier League side Fulham out of the EFL Cup. Amongst the crowd though, was Orrell, one of the clubs many owners who captured and posted the scenes to his social media.

“They don’t take it seriously,” said Jordan, as a former football owner himself. “The people with supposed authority, with the responsibility of being the custodian of a football club, to set the example, to be the standard bearer and to tell others how to behave are the ones on the pitch.”

The EFL have stated they don’t encourage the glorification of fans entering the pitch and are in contact with Crawley to “identify the individuals involved”.

Jim White, a long-standing sports presenter said, “Videos of owners on the pitch is wholly unacceptable because it gives some other fans the green light to go on the pitch.”

“It validates it,” added Jordan. “If he can do it, we can do it.

“I don’t really want the football club sanctioned because you can’t always stop fans, but they’ve got a bloody owner going on the pitch.

At the end of last season, three off-duty police officers were involved in Bournemouth’s pitch invasion after their promotion back to the Premier League. Soon after the incident, the EFL’s chief executive, Trevor Burch stated capacity reductions and fines were being considered as potential punishments for such actions.

“We were going mad when off duty police officers were running on a pitch,” added Jordan. “We all thought what chance have we got if a police officer is doing this?

“I mean Trevor Burch must be sitting in his office going, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Did you not read the edit, we don’t want fans on pitches, we want to maintain football to a decent level’ and an owner goes on the pitch. Worse than that, if it can get worse than that, he takes pictures of his gormless self for social media.”

The Professional Footballers Association has stated that since lockdown, fan disorder is on the rise which has included assault on players by fans. On Tuesday no one was hurt but it marks as another case where players aren’t entirely safe.

Crawley have drawn Burnley in the next round of the cup and following their poor league form, will want to progress past the Clarets on the 8th of November.