SAINTS bosses have said there is a "lot to do" on the issue of away fans at home games - but confirmed around 200 have been ejected this season.

The issue was raised during a roundtable discussion run by the club and the Daily Echo.

Representatives from Southampton Football Club told Saints fans present how they intend to combat the issue of away fans in home sections of St Mary’s but conceded that “there’s still a lot to do”.

Meeting to discuss the recent closure of Block 1 of the Itchen North Stand at St Mary’s, supporters voiced their frustration at the apparent rise in away fans sitting in home sections.

READ MORE: 'We want the atmosphere back' - Saints fans meet with club bosses over block closure

And while managing director of Southampton FC Toby Steele insisted that the numbers haven’t risen this season, he said they are yet to find the perfect solution to the problem.

He said: “We know we need to work on away fans in the home areas.”

Tim Greenwell, chief governance and operations officer, went into detail on how Saints are aiming to curb the issue.

“It is not at all our intention ever to sell away fans tickets in the home areas,” he said. “It’s a very tricky situation.

“When anyone comes up to collection we try to test them out if we have any suspicion at all. We’ve improved it and the numbers do bear that out but there’s still a lot to do on that one.

“What should happen - and again this comes down to training - is if they’re openly wearing (opposition) shirts, they shouldn’t be let in. I’ve seen - and again it depends on who they’re going to and where, in terms of response - but I have seen very long conversations where people haven’t been let in.

“We had it for Man United, I saw it, and Newcastle I saw it, and there were some relatively young kids and their families and we had some pretty upset children and a pretty irate letter back but they didn’t get in which unfortunately is probably where we’re at.

“Once inside, if people openly display colours or that they’re supporting the visiting team, they should be ejected. That’s not perfect, we completely accept that, it’s something we’ve got to improve. We are really trying to improve. We’ve upped it a lot in terms of the numbers that have gone out already, around 200 already which might not sound like a lot but it is an improvement. We need to continue that trend, definitely.”

Southampton also revealed it had cut ties with a firm that repeatedly allowed away fans into a hospitality box/section.

Ticket office manager Matthew Silvester added: “Sometimes - and we see this a little bit - there’s the neutral fan who doesn’t behave how they’re supposed to in terms of supporting Saints.

"Generally, if they’re complained about we’d probably take them out but that’s when it is a grey area.

“We want more Southampton fans, we want as many Southampton fans as possible but unfortunately we don’t always have that demand and we are getting a lot of new supporters coming.

"For the cup games we do lower pricing to try and attract more people in and we had around 1,000 brand-new fans come to those cup games, which is really positive. 

“What we need to look at is how we work closer with the away teams to see how their demand is. If we see that there’s strong demand, what we’ll then do is implement a restriction in place where only people with previous booking history can do it (buy a ticket). 

“Now, that helps to a certain extent. But Liverpool/Man United, we put that in place every time but we still see people who are members buying tickets and selling them on.

“On the Newcastle game, there were 17 ejections for away fans in the home areas. Out of them, only eight were new supporters.

"The rest were members, people who had previously bought tickets. And we actually do post-code checks as well, the furthest north of any of them was Gloucester. So we do what we can and we’re trying to work closely with the away teams to restrict it."

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