Having fended off the latest Covid variant, football fans have been able to keep a hold of their seats inside stadiums in most European leagues.
After the initial stoppage in attendance in 2020, fans returned to stadiums with a renewed sense of excitement, equipped with various banners and posters.
Of these, one spotted in great frequency are those that ask for a player’s jersey mostly held up by minor fans.
But this trend has been met with much criticism by the footballing world as it becomes an annoyance for fans while watching the game and for the players when parents send their kids onto the pitch to pester players for the kits.
In many cases, fans who managed to get a shirt were also then later spotted selling such personal memorabilia for a massive profit online.
Leeds United became one of the first clubs to take action against this practice by implementing one-year bans to parents who send their kids out onto the pitch.
But none of these reactions seems to have had an effect on this trend as a few young fans were spotted trying the same trick at Old Trafford on Saturday, attempting to get a hold of United midfielder Bruno Fernandes’ kit.
However, the Portuguese snubbed their request and walked off down the tunnel during the draw with Burnley and this has fans loving him for it.
It’s bad how happy this video made me pic.twitter.com/EH5g938TMZ
— CairneyhelpyouV2🏹 (@CairneyhelpyouV) February 14, 2022
This a great victory for football
— The72 – We Love the #EFL (@_The72) February 15, 2022
pic.twitter.com/syc1DXS7k4
Fernandes perhaps demonstrated the most effective solution for this problem, even if it was unintentional. After all, footballers are role models for a lot of young fans and them discouraging the practice publicly would have an impact on them.
The reactions to this video suggest that fans were more than thankful to Fernandes for the snub as it signals a necessary recourse back to the true purpose for fans inside the stadium: to watch the spectacle unfold and be a part of it in that manner.