Poor from SAFC and it's not often I say that ...
- Thread starter Smug in Boots
- Start date
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It certainly feels like the ticket office is more of an obstacle for us these days rather than part of the club trying to help supporters get to games. The strange thing is that this seems to me, and many others as completely contrary to every other part of what’s happening in the evolution of our great club under the stewardship of KLD.
I personally think it is poor behaviour by the club. If its the law the law is an ass. I am in the same position as many where i cant possibly get to all games so a season ticket is out of the question. The odd game I can get to has been helped by Smug and others in obtaining a ticket. If someone cant use their ticket I really cant fathom why they cant gift that ticket to a person of their choice.
Moronic!
Moronic!
I am glad I am an armchair fan, reading all this.
To be shafted by the club you have loved for decades must be heartbreaking, I hate to see fans punished.
To be shafted by the club you have loved for decades must be heartbreaking, I hate to see fans punished.
Does anyone have contacts for Quinny.
I used to have his number, after his 'Taxi for the lads gesture' but my phone was obliterated and I don't have it.
I'm sure one of us will have a contact, he was always great with the branches and knows how people have to help each other with transport, tickets, etc. What the ticket office are missing is that we're not Brentford who are a few hours from almost every ground ...
... Sunderland supporters have to jump through endless hoops on occasion.
I used to have his number, after his 'Taxi for the lads gesture' but my phone was obliterated and I don't have it.
I'm sure one of us will have a contact, he was always great with the branches and knows how people have to help each other with transport, tickets, etc. What the ticket office are missing is that we're not Brentford who are a few hours from almost every ground ...
... Sunderland supporters have to jump through endless hoops on occasion.
We've sorted a SC for you next season mate, so at least you can relax.
The next stage is to reinstate your carer/SC status which is being worked out.
Whatever the case don't forget you have to draw a distinction between the club you love ...
... and a ticket office manager who's out of his depth, like Beale he'll be gone before you know it.
One of our lads, who's 'corporate' has spoken to KLD today and things will happen.
Registered letters have been sent to KLD's SOL office, Paris office, Riviera home, etc, so the concerns of hundreds of people have come to his attention. The supporters of this club are the most important ...
... ticket office staff are way down the pecking order, no matter how much they overplay their self importance.
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You are a top man cheers mate
I'm only the tip of the iceberg mate, lots of people involved ...
... but I'm the pointy bit that's seen to do all the damage
In truth I'm a bit of a melt.
There were people in the Sunderland section, on Sunday, who were 'guests of the club' to put it politely, far enough.
At Wembley, for the Sheff Utd game, there were ordinary Sunderland supporters literally begging for tickets.
The ticket office are currently sanctioning people with SCs, but not always with adequate points, who's relatives/friends/branches have helped them out. One of those people was the lad who's just been banned from the SOL and told not to create any waves or legal action may result. I'm not in any branch and don't travel with this person but plenty of people have mentioned how helpful he is.
This is the same person who, at the request of the ownership and senior leadership team of Sunderland AFC, was asked if he could assist in providing 2 tickets for a father and son who had travelled over from Australia without tickets for the play off final. Without hesitation, he gave them two standard tickets and took two in corporate, for him and his father, which involved a much higher cost. Sunderland were more than happy to publish the story on the club website prior to the 1st game of the season against West Ham and take the credit ... so how does that compute?
At Wembley, for the Sheff Utd game, there were ordinary Sunderland supporters literally begging for tickets.
The ticket office are currently sanctioning people with SCs, but not always with adequate points, who's relatives/friends/branches have helped them out. One of those people was the lad who's just been banned from the SOL and told not to create any waves or legal action may result. I'm not in any branch and don't travel with this person but plenty of people have mentioned how helpful he is.
This is the same person who, at the request of the ownership and senior leadership team of Sunderland AFC, was asked if he could assist in providing 2 tickets for a father and son who had travelled over from Australia without tickets for the play off final. Without hesitation, he gave them two standard tickets and took two in corporate, for him and his father, which involved a much higher cost. Sunderland were more than happy to publish the story on the club website prior to the 1st game of the season against West Ham and take the credit ... so how does that compute?
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It's all been handled so badly by the club. A brilliant weekend ruined for so many who would have been there had the ticket office thought things through and not taken such a pathetic decision.
Excellent point Smug.... certainly looks like a case of club are out growing some of us who were there through thick & thin.
If were treating everyone the same here, by the resulting action recently, the club shouldn't be posting the Australian story, when they received from Don Hutcheon, Australia they should have replied thanking him for his honesty, however informing him unfortunately he will be banned for games for x period of time due to misuse of tickets, not celebrating the lengths some go to follow SAFC.
For the record in event the ticket office manager reads this, I sincerely hope you dont take action against Don Hutcheon, just reflect & review some awful decision making which has created serious alarm for many followers of the club through the hardest of times
KLD has now had registered letters sent to his various addresses as has the ticket office manager. The ‘club’ can, of course, dig its heels in and turn this into a protracted ‘us against them’ saga …
… surely much better that the ticket office manager acknowledges the feelings of a significant number of supporters.
A local MP, Lewis Atkinson, has now become involved and a meeting arranged with the club. At a time when so many aspects of the club are rightly praised I really hope this is sorted out quickly and quietly.
en.wikipedia.org
That derby win on Sunday was mental, wasn’t it? … celebrating that Brobbey winner with your mates, going nuts at full-time, and watching the crazy scenes in the away end on TV. But for around 60 of our fans that joy was tempered with the feeling of, ‘hang on, I should be in there, right amongst that lot’. And they should – they had the points and they’d done the miles.
These people had qualified for tickets, many in phase one (70+ points). Those tickets were purchased and assigned to their SAFC ticket account within 24 hours of going on sale... right until the club then unceremoniously removed them without notice or reasoning given.
It’s worth revisiting that again. Some of our most hardcore fans, who’ve acquired points by attending a high number of aways (in some case every away match) across the preceding three seasons and likely before, had their tickets, for our first visit to the landfill in ten years, removed from their accounts without explanation. The club responded to the understandable complaints by saying they were ‘investigating widespread misuse’ of the away ticketing system. No timescale or further explanation was offered, they weren’t told if they themselves were being accused of ‘misuse’, or why the club felt it appropriate to give out such a draconian punishment.
They were told (perversely) that they could apply again for the same tickets when they went back on sale! Unsurprisingly, only two fans were able to achieve that. The club could have undertaken this investigation after the Mags game with four weeks till the next away game. Doing it just seven days before the derby smacks of proving a point at the expense of these fans.
Some will read this and the mention of away tickets will already have them on their haunches, ready to pile in. Away tickets in the PL have been like rocking horse **** for almost every match. General sale never happens and those with a relatively small no of BCP’s are not even getting close.
If you’re well down the loyalty list, with little chance of stepping up it, you’ll feel it’s an unfair system, and it’s not difficult to see why. If you then find out people have passed tickets to their mates, whilst also retaining their own loyalty point, it’s not going to make you feel any better about it.
No system is ever perfect and it’s entirely reasonable that the club should try and make it fair and equitable for all. However, it’s likely that whatever approach the club takes when it comes their away ticketing process, they will get derision by those on the wrong side of it. And here’s the other unfortunate truth, fans will always pass tickets onto fellow fans. It might be their mates or family, but sometimes, if circumstances demand, they’ll sell on at face value to a fan they’ve never met before. I’ve benefited from it myself, and so have many thousands more… standing outside away ends on a wing and a prayer, hoping to catch lucky from someone who made a promise that you hope they’ll come good on.
I hadn’t qualified for tickets for those games because I wasn’t a season ticket holder at the time. It didn’t matter that I had been one, at both Roker Park and the SoL, or that I’d been to a substantial number of homes and away games since 1975. I knew the rules, understood them, resented them… but struggled to see a better approach. I had to look towards fellow fans, and keep my fingers crossed. That optimism has sometimes paid me back, and I’ve always ensured I’ve made the same gesture back when circumstances dictated.
This season the club had warned fans against passing tickets onto others and checks had been put in place, which was fair warning. If I’ve been informed correctly, three of such transgressions were discovered at Leeds and they all came from the same supporters’ branch, so the branch secretary was asked to explain. The response from the club to his honest response was him being given a ban from away matches across three seasons and home matches for the rest of this season; whilst the 60+ others were then (presumably) considered guilty by association.
However, this hardline, some would say brutal, position the club has taken actually creates more questions than it answers, and I can’t imagine there’s a single supporter who won’t be questioning what it now means to them, for both away and home fixtures. Under what circumstances can you pass a ticket on? What happens if, at last minute (as happened to me last season), you have a family crisis and you can’t make the game. You’re likely gutted, out of pocket because of travel, etc. and the real kick in the balls is if you can’t get a penny back on the ticket, even if there’s a long queue of potential purchasers desperate to see the club they love and snap your hand off.
Will similar sanctions be taken in every instance? If you do cross that line, whatever your logic and reasoning, will you suddenly find out that a ticket purchased legitimately has been removed without notice? Or will you face a much-longer ban? What’s more, if the current system is deemed to be unfair to those wanting to do more aways in future, but who do not have the necessary points, what are club doing about it? Will they run a ballot for those with not enough points in phase1 and if they do, which segment of fans are most likely to miss out?
Perhaps even more importantly is why now, and how does it affect fans relationship with the club going forward, particularly in relation to our Supporters Branches? Is this the club’s doing entirely, or are the PL standing over us? Let’s remember, digital tickets and tightening up on who is attending, and on what basis, is now becoming the norm in the PL. Man City are installing cameras at all turnstiles with a view to introducing a facial recognition system as you see at airports.
Another thing seen at other PL clubs is the disregard for Supporters Branches. They are seen by some as archaic and full of fans who’ve done the away trips by coach with their mates for many years, but ask awkward questions at liaison meetings, and spend more money on pints than merchandising. The Glazers were quick to target even long-standing supporter’s clubs as an unnecessary irritant when they purchased Man United and it’s taken a long battle to establish a Supporters Trust with over 200k members.
In the case of this particular supporter’s branch, they don’t run coaches. They organise train travel, to the point where they are (well, were) LNER’s biggest non-business customer and as such were able to negotiate discounted tickets, significantly lowering the cost for those making long trips across the country. What’s in it for LNER? Well, they’ve got one block booking, all in 1 or 2 carriages. No worries about railcards or the general public complaining about the lads with the cans arguing over the merits of 4-3-3.
British Transport Police also like this arrangement as this large group of fans are entering and existing stations en-masse, at the same time. Speaking of the police, isn’t our fans base one of the best behaved in the country? You rarely see bother, no matter how many aways fans we meet on our journeys... so we must be doing something right.
It’s very easy for a business the size of SAFC to take the corporate approach, point at the T&Cs and decide it’s necessary to take a hammer to crack a nut when those pesky fans haven’t followed the rules.
But our ticket office haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in the past, and I‘d argue that sometimes the DIY approach of our fans in moving tickets on is done by necessity as much as anything else. It is ridiculously difficult to get a call answered, whilst emails (or the frequent waste of time that is the ‘ask.SAFC’ function) are often ignored. Getting the paying punter in through the door should the priority task for any business but they make it unnecessarily difficult for people simply wanting to come and watch the team.
The whole saga described above must have been damaging to the club. Many fans, even if not affected directly, cannot believe how they have removed such sought-after tickets, from clearly the loyalist fand on a whim and without any meaningful rationale offered. They’re even more appalled when they realise the sanction taken against that one particular supporter - who is not only one of the nicest, easy-going men you’ll ever meet - but who has single-handedly ensured hundreds of our fans have been able to get to games over many years, as well as supporting them in numerous other ways.
And never for personal gain (worth highlighting here that is absolutely zero suggestion anywhere of anyone profiting from other fans, cos it doesn’t happen) - but always because it’s what he’s done for such a long time (he’s also, absurdly, assisted the club often in getting tickets sold at short notice when they’ve cocked up, or finding a spare for them when a photo opportunity cropped up with an overseas supporter).
We’ve all been enthused by marketing teams work in the last few years… ‘community’… ‘connection’… ‘we’re nothing without our fans’… ‘fans are the lifeblood of the club’… our players praising the vocal away support, etc. But the marketing-speak means nothing unless it’s backed-up day-to-day interactions with match-going fans. Showing distain and disregard for fans at any point is never a good look, whatever league you’re in.
The issue of fairness when demand far outstrips supply isn’t unique to SAFC. There’s no magic fix and there will always be winners and losers. The club are 100% right in closely monitoring where and how away tickets are used, but they also need to be pragmatic, have processes that are fair, understandable and consistent - and if sanctions are taken, to ensure they are appropriate and proportionate.
Those 60 fans will never get the moments they missed on Sunday back. The day has been and gone and future memories of will also have the postscript of ‘oh yeah, I wasn’t there because the club took an unreasonable, over-zealous action to unfairly ban me’
If the powers that be at SAFC are serious about fairness and connection, they need to get hold of this quickly. The dismay of many will have been tempered by the result but the bigger picture can’t be ignored. They need to ensure the fine words in the words from on-high, match the actions taken in the day-to-day fundamentals. The fan who has been banned needs bringing back into the fold and the club need to ensure the ridiculous action taken against the others is never repeated.
And most importantly they need a proper review of the away tickets process, where supporters’ branches fit into that equation, and to sort their own internal processes out into the bargain. Contact with the club needs to be much easier and supporters queries should be responded to much quicker. They need to consider how to move the bottlenecks and obstacles for all fans in obtaining tickets, home and away, not as a nice-to-have but because it’s good business sense.
Perhaps they need to think of a better ‘membership’ scheme than we currently have, goodness knows how many unused membership numbers there are out there. The only way this debacle can be a good thing is if the club works with fans to ensure such nonsense never happens again, and that future actions are consistent with the values and culture it wishes to engender.
Over to you, KLD and all before more of our most loyal fans are ostracised.
… surely much better that the ticket office manager acknowledges the feelings of a significant number of supporters.
A local MP, Lewis Atkinson, has now become involved and a meeting arranged with the club. At a time when so many aspects of the club are rightly praised I really hope this is sorted out quickly and quietly.
Lewis Atkinson - Wikipedia
WHAT PRICE LOYALTY?
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That derby win on Sunday was mental, wasn’t it? … celebrating that Brobbey winner with your mates, going nuts at full-time, and watching the crazy scenes in the away end on TV. But for around 60 of our fans that joy was tempered with the feeling of, ‘hang on, I should be in there, right amongst that lot’. And they should – they had the points and they’d done the miles.
These people had qualified for tickets, many in phase one (70+ points). Those tickets were purchased and assigned to their SAFC ticket account within 24 hours of going on sale... right until the club then unceremoniously removed them without notice or reasoning given.
It’s worth revisiting that again. Some of our most hardcore fans, who’ve acquired points by attending a high number of aways (in some case every away match) across the preceding three seasons and likely before, had their tickets, for our first visit to the landfill in ten years, removed from their accounts without explanation. The club responded to the understandable complaints by saying they were ‘investigating widespread misuse’ of the away ticketing system. No timescale or further explanation was offered, they weren’t told if they themselves were being accused of ‘misuse’, or why the club felt it appropriate to give out such a draconian punishment.
They were told (perversely) that they could apply again for the same tickets when they went back on sale! Unsurprisingly, only two fans were able to achieve that. The club could have undertaken this investigation after the Mags game with four weeks till the next away game. Doing it just seven days before the derby smacks of proving a point at the expense of these fans.
Some will read this and the mention of away tickets will already have them on their haunches, ready to pile in. Away tickets in the PL have been like rocking horse **** for almost every match. General sale never happens and those with a relatively small no of BCP’s are not even getting close.
If you’re well down the loyalty list, with little chance of stepping up it, you’ll feel it’s an unfair system, and it’s not difficult to see why. If you then find out people have passed tickets to their mates, whilst also retaining their own loyalty point, it’s not going to make you feel any better about it.
No system is ever perfect and it’s entirely reasonable that the club should try and make it fair and equitable for all. However, it’s likely that whatever approach the club takes when it comes their away ticketing process, they will get derision by those on the wrong side of it. And here’s the other unfortunate truth, fans will always pass tickets onto fellow fans. It might be their mates or family, but sometimes, if circumstances demand, they’ll sell on at face value to a fan they’ve never met before. I’ve benefited from it myself, and so have many thousands more… standing outside away ends on a wing and a prayer, hoping to catch lucky from someone who made a promise that you hope they’ll come good on.
I hadn’t qualified for tickets for those games because I wasn’t a season ticket holder at the time. It didn’t matter that I had been one, at both Roker Park and the SoL, or that I’d been to a substantial number of homes and away games since 1975. I knew the rules, understood them, resented them… but struggled to see a better approach. I had to look towards fellow fans, and keep my fingers crossed. That optimism has sometimes paid me back, and I’ve always ensured I’ve made the same gesture back when circumstances dictated.
This season the club had warned fans against passing tickets onto others and checks had been put in place, which was fair warning. If I’ve been informed correctly, three of such transgressions were discovered at Leeds and they all came from the same supporters’ branch, so the branch secretary was asked to explain. The response from the club to his honest response was him being given a ban from away matches across three seasons and home matches for the rest of this season; whilst the 60+ others were then (presumably) considered guilty by association.
However, this hardline, some would say brutal, position the club has taken actually creates more questions than it answers, and I can’t imagine there’s a single supporter who won’t be questioning what it now means to them, for both away and home fixtures. Under what circumstances can you pass a ticket on? What happens if, at last minute (as happened to me last season), you have a family crisis and you can’t make the game. You’re likely gutted, out of pocket because of travel, etc. and the real kick in the balls is if you can’t get a penny back on the ticket, even if there’s a long queue of potential purchasers desperate to see the club they love and snap your hand off.
Will similar sanctions be taken in every instance? If you do cross that line, whatever your logic and reasoning, will you suddenly find out that a ticket purchased legitimately has been removed without notice? Or will you face a much-longer ban? What’s more, if the current system is deemed to be unfair to those wanting to do more aways in future, but who do not have the necessary points, what are club doing about it? Will they run a ballot for those with not enough points in phase1 and if they do, which segment of fans are most likely to miss out?
Perhaps even more importantly is why now, and how does it affect fans relationship with the club going forward, particularly in relation to our Supporters Branches? Is this the club’s doing entirely, or are the PL standing over us? Let’s remember, digital tickets and tightening up on who is attending, and on what basis, is now becoming the norm in the PL. Man City are installing cameras at all turnstiles with a view to introducing a facial recognition system as you see at airports.
Another thing seen at other PL clubs is the disregard for Supporters Branches. They are seen by some as archaic and full of fans who’ve done the away trips by coach with their mates for many years, but ask awkward questions at liaison meetings, and spend more money on pints than merchandising. The Glazers were quick to target even long-standing supporter’s clubs as an unnecessary irritant when they purchased Man United and it’s taken a long battle to establish a Supporters Trust with over 200k members.
In the case of this particular supporter’s branch, they don’t run coaches. They organise train travel, to the point where they are (well, were) LNER’s biggest non-business customer and as such were able to negotiate discounted tickets, significantly lowering the cost for those making long trips across the country. What’s in it for LNER? Well, they’ve got one block booking, all in 1 or 2 carriages. No worries about railcards or the general public complaining about the lads with the cans arguing over the merits of 4-3-3.
British Transport Police also like this arrangement as this large group of fans are entering and existing stations en-masse, at the same time. Speaking of the police, isn’t our fans base one of the best behaved in the country? You rarely see bother, no matter how many aways fans we meet on our journeys... so we must be doing something right.
It’s very easy for a business the size of SAFC to take the corporate approach, point at the T&Cs and decide it’s necessary to take a hammer to crack a nut when those pesky fans haven’t followed the rules.
But our ticket office haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in the past, and I‘d argue that sometimes the DIY approach of our fans in moving tickets on is done by necessity as much as anything else. It is ridiculously difficult to get a call answered, whilst emails (or the frequent waste of time that is the ‘ask.SAFC’ function) are often ignored. Getting the paying punter in through the door should the priority task for any business but they make it unnecessarily difficult for people simply wanting to come and watch the team.
The whole saga described above must have been damaging to the club. Many fans, even if not affected directly, cannot believe how they have removed such sought-after tickets, from clearly the loyalist fand on a whim and without any meaningful rationale offered. They’re even more appalled when they realise the sanction taken against that one particular supporter - who is not only one of the nicest, easy-going men you’ll ever meet - but who has single-handedly ensured hundreds of our fans have been able to get to games over many years, as well as supporting them in numerous other ways.
And never for personal gain (worth highlighting here that is absolutely zero suggestion anywhere of anyone profiting from other fans, cos it doesn’t happen) - but always because it’s what he’s done for such a long time (he’s also, absurdly, assisted the club often in getting tickets sold at short notice when they’ve cocked up, or finding a spare for them when a photo opportunity cropped up with an overseas supporter).
We’ve all been enthused by marketing teams work in the last few years… ‘community’… ‘connection’… ‘we’re nothing without our fans’… ‘fans are the lifeblood of the club’… our players praising the vocal away support, etc. But the marketing-speak means nothing unless it’s backed-up day-to-day interactions with match-going fans. Showing distain and disregard for fans at any point is never a good look, whatever league you’re in.
The issue of fairness when demand far outstrips supply isn’t unique to SAFC. There’s no magic fix and there will always be winners and losers. The club are 100% right in closely monitoring where and how away tickets are used, but they also need to be pragmatic, have processes that are fair, understandable and consistent - and if sanctions are taken, to ensure they are appropriate and proportionate.
Those 60 fans will never get the moments they missed on Sunday back. The day has been and gone and future memories of will also have the postscript of ‘oh yeah, I wasn’t there because the club took an unreasonable, over-zealous action to unfairly ban me’
If the powers that be at SAFC are serious about fairness and connection, they need to get hold of this quickly. The dismay of many will have been tempered by the result but the bigger picture can’t be ignored. They need to ensure the fine words in the words from on-high, match the actions taken in the day-to-day fundamentals. The fan who has been banned needs bringing back into the fold and the club need to ensure the ridiculous action taken against the others is never repeated.
And most importantly they need a proper review of the away tickets process, where supporters’ branches fit into that equation, and to sort their own internal processes out into the bargain. Contact with the club needs to be much easier and supporters queries should be responded to much quicker. They need to consider how to move the bottlenecks and obstacles for all fans in obtaining tickets, home and away, not as a nice-to-have but because it’s good business sense.
Perhaps they need to think of a better ‘membership’ scheme than we currently have, goodness knows how many unused membership numbers there are out there. The only way this debacle can be a good thing is if the club works with fans to ensure such nonsense never happens again, and that future actions are consistent with the values and culture it wishes to engender.
Over to you, KLD and all before more of our most loyal fans are ostracised.
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@RedAndWhite2017
A little while back, we were concerned to hear of ticket cancellations for the nufc match. We have been engaging with the club to clarify issues, decision making and policies around away ticketing and are hoping for updates soon.
A little while back, we were concerned to hear of ticket cancellations for the nufc match. We have been engaging with the club to clarify issues, decision making and policies around away ticketing and are hoping for updates soon.
Not unexpectedly, on RTG, there's a handful of posters who've spent the week vehemently arguing with anyone to do with RAWA or those posting information or comments about the ticket situation. When someone seems so aggressive and angry, about an issue, you can usually assume there's an agenda.
I know little about RAWA but believe they're a group of unpaid supporters who try to engage with the club. They're clearly not a well paid rapid response outfit that the club are legally bound to keep informed daily. As with every other supporters group no one is forced to pay subs, agree with them or abide by their suggestions.
There's also the issue of people posting their experiences with the ticket office, etc. People have posted their honest opinions as well as experiences whether first hand or from friends, etc. When they're being called liars by someone who doesn't have actual evidence, to the contrary, it makes me wonder how they can be so sure. As far as I'm aware people are happy to give any information to KLD, Lewis Atkinson, Bruce, etc ...
... choosing not to post it on an open anonymous chat forum doesn't make it untrue.
I know little about RAWA but believe they're a group of unpaid supporters who try to engage with the club. They're clearly not a well paid rapid response outfit that the club are legally bound to keep informed daily. As with every other supporters group no one is forced to pay subs, agree with them or abide by their suggestions.
There's also the issue of people posting their experiences with the ticket office, etc. People have posted their honest opinions as well as experiences whether first hand or from friends, etc. When they're being called liars by someone who doesn't have actual evidence, to the contrary, it makes me wonder how they can be so sure. As far as I'm aware people are happy to give any information to KLD, Lewis Atkinson, Bruce, etc ...
... choosing not to post it on an open anonymous chat forum doesn't make it untrue.
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People who step up to try to help their fellow fans and retain dialogue with out club deserve respect
As with everything, of this nature, it's very much a 'David & Goliath' situation ...
... the supporters have to do their best to engage with the club without being seen as a nuisance or worse.
I've grown a very thick skin this week! RAWA are aware of the negative comments and behaviour of certain individuals on there.
I'm not defending RAWA but, ffs, it's a very complicated situation ...
... people demanding a rapid response and statement are being silly in my opinion.
It needs to be a thorough assessment, not a rush job that people easily pull to pieces, which they gleefully would.