Aston Villa have become the first Premier League club to publicly back the Football Supporters' Federation’s (FSF) plans to introduce safe standing areas at top English football venues.

The FSF claim that the majority of football fans would support any form of safe standing at Premier League and Championship grounds and Villa have joined Peterborough in openly declaring that they are willing to try it.

Villa chief executive Paul Faulkner told talkSPORT: "We have had a number of good discussions and meetings with the FSF over the past 12 months and fully support their campaign to allow small-scale trials of safe standing areas at grounds.

"Whenever we have discussed the topic with our fans we've found almost unanimous support for such a trial, and the concept of giving fans the choice to decide to either sit or stand at a game.

"We believe Villa Park could be a potential venue for such a trial, and would like the opportunity to progress the plans further with the wider support of the football community in this country."

Standing areas at football have become a rarity since horrific incidents’ such as the well documented Hillsborough disaster and groups of supporters will never want standing areas in football ever again.