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Top football clubs to help turn young from knife crime
Danny Brierley, Evening Standard6 Aug 2008
London's two biggest and wealthiest football clubs are in talks to help Boris Johnson tackle knife crime.
Bosses at Chelsea and Arsenal are to meet the Mayor to discuss how they can use their money and influence to persuade youngsters to give up knives.
The Standard revealed last month that Mr Johnson was planning to lobby clubs to help fund new projects. Sources close to the Mayor said he wanted Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United to pay more to help stop knife crime, after the deaths of 17 teenage stabbing victims this year.
The Mayor wanted to use star players to spread the message that carrying knives could have deadly consequences.
Arsenal's board has now invited Mr Johnson to a meeting at the Emirates stadium where they will ask him to spell out what they can do to help.
Sources at the club said they are keen to help fight a problem which claimed the life of one young fan, Ben Kinsella, 16, stabbed to death on 29 June.
A year earlier, Martin Dinnegan, 14, was killed over a "dirty look" just streets away from the Emirates.
An Arsenal spokesman said: "Consistent engagement with young people presents other opportunities to move beyond sport and address issues that young people face growing up in an inner city."
Chelsea are also planning to speak to Mr Johnson. Chief executive Peter Kenyon is to fly to China for the Olympics this week as an "ambassador" for London and he will raise the issue of knife crime when he meets the Mayor in Beijing. Simon Greenberg, a spokesman for the club, said: "Knife crime will be one of the issues we will discuss when we meet Boris Johnson in Beijing.
"There has been contact made by the Premier League, but no detail about what the clubs can do. It is certainly on our agenda while we are at the Olympics."
One of football's biggest stars has meanwhile given £80,000 of his own money to fund a project to keep children off the streets.
The cash donated by Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp was used to renovate astroturf pitches at Elthorne Park in Islington.
They are now being used by children who have signed up to one of the club's community projects designed to keep them off away from crime.
The facility includes a pitch which is named after the retired Dutchman. It was first used at the end of last month when children from surrounding estates played a team of police officers.
But it will be officially opened in the autumn with Bergkamp - a former PFA player of the year who spent 11 years at the club - in attendance.
Fulham, Tottenham and West Ham were unavailable for comment.
