The advert for hospitality at Premier League side, and local rivals Aston Villa featured in today’s Coventry Telegraph which has angered some City fans.
Alun Thorn, the editor of The Coventry Telegraph has today responded to criticism following an advert for hospitality for upcoming Aston Villa matches in today’s edition.
Some Sky Blue fans believe the Premier League club are trying to take advantage of the ground share at Northampton Town’s Sixfields stadium by running the advert in a ‘Coventry paper’ and entice a future generation of potential Sky Blue fans from the club.
The advert is featured on page 11 of today’s paper and has been met with mixed reactions on social networks by Coventry City fans.
Thorne however has responded via his own Twitter feed stating; “To those complaining about #avfc advert in @covtelegraph, it is illegal to refuse to carry adverts because of footballing preferences!”
The Coventry Telegraph has received a number of complaints regarding the advert, however the paper is printed, not written in Birmingham and is such going to receive advert requests from businesses in Birmingham as well as Coventry.
But should The Coventry Telegraph have run the advert, or should they have found a way to refuse?
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Aston Villa are the club of the Midlands and represent everybody in the region. Villa are the only club with the history, size and potential to beat the best of London and the North so surely it’s better to get behind them than to allow local football fans to “follow” clubs two hundred miles down the road? We need Villa, at the very least, in the Champions League putting the region on the map.
Posted by Macca | October 16, 2013, 6:10 pmNo one should be getting upset about this. First of all it’s a business trying to sell and nothing wrong with that. Secondly it’s a chance for people in this city to watch top class live foorball whilst we wait for City to recover. Does anyone seriously think supporters are going to desert City because of this advert? No our owners and City Council are doing a fine job of that.
Posted by Justin | October 21, 2013, 3:58 pm