CAS Trust board member Aaron Bowater gives his view on the Government Expert Working Group on Supporter Ownership and Engagement.
It says something about the situation football finds itself that quite mild encouragement of fan involvement is greeted by the FA as a “breakthrough.”
Following the publication of the final report of the Government Expert Working Group on Supporter Ownership and Engagement, there has been widespread heralding of a report that, in this writer’s opinion, does not go far enough to solve the destructive force of incompetent or frankly crooked owners that run rampant across the Football League.
But before we turn to that, let us first review exactly what is included in the report. Following 12 months, 10 meetings and countless submissions, the final report was unveiled by Sports Minister Tracey Crouch on Tuesday 19th January. The press release, optimistically titled ‘More Opportunities for Supporter Ownership, Involvement and Engagement in Football’, highlighted Ms. Crouch’s desire to give fans a greater voice. The report purports to contain:
- New opportunities for supporters to bid to own their football clubs in an insolvency situation
- Leagues endorse the introduction of regular structured engagement between clubs and supporters
- Clubs to meet with a representative group of supporters at least twice a year.
- Additional £1 million funding proposed from Premier League for supporter groups on ownership and related issues and access to emergency funding to help supporters fund bid costs when formulating an ownership bid
In and of themselves these are by no means daft proposals. In particular, the report’s main conclusions aim to strengthen to role of supporters when their football clubs become insolvent. Specifically, the report recommends that in cases of insolvency, administrators should meet directly with a club’s supporters’ trust to invite a bid for the club. The report even has a recommendation that reflects the fact most trusts (including this one) may struggle to reach the high financial threshold of a credible bid. The report highlights that funding should be made available to trusts to help them develop bids for clubs, as well as hire and work with professional advisors.
Further, the report calls on Government to investigate whether they, and the football authorities, should provide greater tax support to Supporters Trusts and Supporter owned clubs. It calls on authorities to “consider if a Community Owned Sports Club model, similar to the Community Amateur Sport Club (CASC) scheme, should be accepted as a legitimate operating model giving supporter owned clubs tax breaks.” In normal speak - let those Trusts who have got the cash use more of it in their bidding, and running, of their clubs.
The report even contains calls for a structured engagement process between trusts and ownership, with regular meetings as well as a requirement for ownership and management to speak with fans’ groups when seeking to change club colours or crests (Cardiff and Hull fans take note!)
As mentioned, the report has received a largely positive welcome. The report group was made up of a wide cross section of football interested parties including The FA, The Premier League, The Football League, The National League, Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters Federation (FSF.) Each body has welcomed the report’s recommendations.
Supporters Direct Chairman Brian Burgess said the report “has the potential to mark the start of a new era of structured meaningful dialogue between clubs and Trusts, supported by changes which will lead to more opportunities for supporter ownership. Implemented correctly it can be a welcome step forward in a long-term process of reform, helping to reconnect clubs with their communities.”
So why my scepticism? Beyond the fact that the report’s recommendations are just that - recommendations with no statutes or laws to immediately implement the proposals - the report does not go far enough to bring about the dramatic change that is so desperately needed to save the link between fans and their clubs.
Long gone are the days when club ownership was the preserve of local industrial eccentrics who threw all their cash into their childhood teams and who were held to account by supporters who lived in the same streets and went to the same churches. Those days are not coming back. But this report is far too lenient on owners who have little or no interest in the supporters. Until the FA strengthen their oversight of the professional leagues and implement a fit and proper person test that genuinely ensures owners are fit and proper, supporters being given structured communication will solve nothing. Talking to people who don’t care isn’t much of a dialogue.
The proposals to help supporters once the club is insolvent are offering too little too late- supporters should not have to wait for their club to be driven to the wall before they are offered support. Look at Luton; look at Portsmouth; look at every club who has faced financial and point penalties for poor management: supporters are there long before tin pot owners do their destructive bit, and are there long after they have left. Offering support in light of insolvency merely slams shut the barn door once the horse has bolted.
Who knows? Maybe I am being too cynical. This report may prove a positive first step in the long road to genuine reform... assuming the report will be implemented. In the mean-time, I cannot see how fan oversight and involvement can ever be achieved in the upper echelons of the game until unfit and improper owners are stopped from using OUR clubs as their play things. We should not be grateful merely for the opportunity to clean up messes not of our making.