Football fans message to the FA

Reason for a petition at this time.
We as supporters are by our very nature tribal-but I ask you for the good of the game to put this to one side so that we can at last make our voices heard.

Of course we have the Football Supporters federation, Supporters Trust and other organisations doing excellent work on our behalf.

My petition is not in any way intended to undermine them, but to support them, to add extra power to their voice. But it is YOU that can turn this dream into a reality-so sign if you agree and send the petition to as many unofficial forums as possible, ask your board moderators to make it a sticky until the 31st July. Together we CAN and we MUST make the FA sit up and PUT US THE FANS FIRST.

Most sports and businesses operate under the harsh but realistic Darwinism of survival of the fittest. So why should football be any different, let’s just leave it to the markets as it were, well surely the last few months must of taught us something about “the market”.

There is something unique about local sporting institutions that the red braces of the City finds impossible to quantify, they are a vital part of our collective national psychological make up. They still help people to get up in the morning and carry out the normal functions of society. But if many supporters feel that there is no longer a local team that they feel a part of then we as a society have lost an important institution, the consequences of which are not good.

The governing body in England, the FA seem to be constantly reacting to events in a totally dogmatic fashion, every time a league club finds it’s finances no longer hold up they simply slap on a ten point deduction. If individuals who run these clubs act like Arthur Daly and get caught, then rather than punishing the individual, the club is docked a further 10 or 20 points. We all realise that crimes need to be punished, but does it not make more sense to ensure that all owners and directors are properly scrutinised prior to their gaining a dominant position within a club.

Once an owner and his director’s are in place the governing body should operate a transparent policy of monitoring the day to day activities of the club, and where needed investigating any allegations of malpractice on an ongoing basis. In other words the FA should properly fulfil its remit of actively governing the sport from top to bottom.

A charter of corporate football governance needs to either be established or significantly strengthened if one already exists. Or else the long suffering fans will continue to feel alienated and cynical towards the power brokers of the game. If that link of trust is broken then it may never be repaired!

I’m sure the FA will argue that this is what takes place now, but most fans feel that the only criteria required seizing control and then operating a football club in England-is cash, either the new owners own, or far more likely –borrowed.

Of course the favourite trick of the new breed of owners is to flip the debt from buying a club, back from the company that looked to buy it onto the club itself. This should be made illegal and shell parent companies must be liable to the same scrutiny as the football club itself.

There is a sickness within the game that must be confronted, and soon, if whole swathes of the population are not to be lost to the game due to cynicism or finance.

Politico
Affordable Football Alliance
May 2009