I GOT into an interesting spat on Twitter last week and I’d welcome your thoughts on the issue of whether Wales are right to commit to the Cardiff City Stadium for the remainder of their Euro 2016 qualification campaign, as they have done.
The arguments against my point that the Football Association of Wales have made the wrong decision seemed to be in the majority, with few Welsh fans or soccer writers on my timeline agreeing with my viewpoint.
Which, for clarity; is simple. Wales should be looking to go back to the Millennium Stadium as soon as possible, in order to get the maximum number of eyes on Chris Coleman’s side.
I’m well versed in the arguments against. The players prefer the Cardiff City Stadium. The players are worried about 20,000 fans rattling around a huge stadium. Wales have built momentum in this campaign, or in other words, it isn’t broken, so why are we trying to fix it?
That’s a pretty simple point to answer. Because it’s for the greater good, in the long term.
If you look at international attendances you’ll mistakenly believe Wales to still be a rugby country, but club attendances show that to be a total nonsense.
The appetite is there to follow football in Wales, to pack out the Millennium Stadium like in the Mark Hughes era. Fans have just fallen out of the practice of doing so.
Wales haven’t had a star shining as brightly as Gareth Bale since John Charles and Aaron Ramsey is also now a star of the world game, while Wales’ status in qualifying Group B is ever more encouraging.
Why wait until World Cup qualifying and potentially until after the European Championships, to let the stay away supporters return and jump aboard the bandwagon?
If Wales need three points against Andorra in their final group game, to qualify for a first major tournament in half a century, then you can bet your life that they’d pack out the Millennium Stadium with ease.
Wales have made giant strides in the past couple of years and that doesn’t need to change just by moving stadiums. It’s a sign of progression.
Because fear of things going wrong if we change them, isn’t by any means a compulsive enough reason to maintain the status quo.
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