bazillerobbie has been helpful and generous to us in sharing information about the fight to save Blackpool during which he has been central, and has also been keeping us right up to date with the Independent Review in to the future Governance of football
With his permission I would like to share his recent letter to the Blackpool Gazette which he wrote on behalf of his Trust. I feel this is an excellent summary of the issues encountered in our unbalanced football world of today and hope you feel the same
ARTICLE FOR THE BLACKPOOL GAZETTE : FEBRUARY 2023
This article is written as the Government finally publishes its long-awaited White Paper on the future of English football. It is a sign of how much popular opinion around the game has hardened in the last five years that it is being received with very widespread approval. When BST first petitioned Parliament for an independent regulator back in 2018, we may have been genuine visionaries, but 15,000 or so signatures seemed a poor reward for our efforts.
In recent times we have had disasters at Macclesfield and Bury, bizarre governance failures at Wigan and Derby (to name but two) and even today Chelsea, Manchester City, Everton, Birmingham, West Brom, Rochdale and Morecambe are operating under a cloud of one kind or another. Unless they pay HMRC what they owe,
Southend United may have been wound up by this time next week - after a proud 116 year history. The names change, but the tune remains the same.
This is in part a situation driven by
money - and who in the English game has it. A couple of weeks ago journalist Oliver Holt wrote a coruscating piece about the state of the game, when he pointed out - again - that the current distribution of revenue is grossly distorted. The twenty EPL clubs and the five who get parachute payments will this season share 92% of the TV money, while the other 67 clubs in the EFL are left to share the other 8%. Even at the lower end, a Championship club gets ten times as much money as one in League 2. It is a largely self-selecting elite, created almost by stealth.
Money is not the only issue, important though it is. There are some good owners in the English pyramid, who pour amazing levels of time, money and energy into making their clubs a sustainable part of the local community. But there are others - particularly in the Championship - who are prepared to bet the house on the dream of making it into the EPL. Derby County are probably the most notorious example of this, but the Division has numerous clubs within it who spend getting on for two pounds for every pound that they take in. It is madness on an epic scale, and built upon a false premise - namely, that being in the EPL is a license to print money. But taking Brighton and Aston Villa as examples, these are clubs who have between them LOST nearly a billion pounds in the last decade or so. They rely solely on the generosity of a rich benefactor - who will not be around for ever.
The interests of
fans get completely lost in all this. We rarely know very much about the way in which our clubs budget, and are very lucky indeed if they involve us in long term business planning. Recent history shows lots of examples of clubs who are willing to take sponsorship money from an array of dubious partners - unless they are shamed out of it by fan activism and a small number of heroic journalists who shine a light on these practices. It should not be like this.
For a club like Blackpool, and an owner like Mr. Sadler, there is currently a very finite limit to how much we can achieve. Being a small club in our Division, we are squeezed by the way the TV money is split AND by the fact that some clubs can get crowds that are over twice the size of our own. However well we are run, and however well our team is coached - the playing field is stacked against us. Until change comes, we have as fans to manage our expectations - something that we all find very difficult to do. It is another reason why reform is needed, because clubs like ours are just as entitled to compete fairly - and dream - as anyone else.
The current proposals are therefore very welcome. We are not being offered everything that BST asked for when we responded to the Tracey Crouch review. but we are being promised most of the important things : independent regulation, protected rights for supporters, new and tougher tests for Owners and Directors and a licensing system which will hopefully cut out some of the worst business practices that we currently see.
The big uncertainty remains how the
TV Money cake gets sliced up, and the EFL and the EPL continue to drag their heels on a new and fairer approach. One of the things we feel MUST happen is that the independent regulator will have the power to impose a settlement, if the two big leagues can't or won't agree one. It wouldn't solve all the game's troubles - but it would be a huge step in the right direction.
What is being proposed in the White Paper is the biggest shake-up the game has experienced in over a century. It has come about partly because of failures at clubs like
Bury, and certainly in part due to the fiasco of the
European Super League, which exposed the unprincipled greed of some club owners for all to see.
But it is also in large part due to the power of
fan activism. We are very lucky in England that so many sets of club supporters up and down the country are prepared to get organised to fight for themselves and for the institutions they believe in. So these reforms are a victory for the fans of clubs like Coventry, Blackpool, Leyton Orient, Charlton and Oldham who went to the edge of the abyss and fought to give their clubs a future.
It's also a victory for the fans of clubs like Rochdale, Hereford and Dulwich Hamlet, because even clubs of their size sometimes face real problems and they also fought to save their clubs from them, with nothing in the way of resources apart from their own talent and a lot of hard work.
Finally, it is a victory for fans
nationally. The White Paper shows that the Football Supporters Association (FSA), acting on behalf of us all, has comprehensively won the battle of ideas about how the game should look in years to come. The test now will be to turn those ideas from Government policy into law that delivers what is intended.
The ability of fans to achieve this rests in part on our ability to organise ourselves; and the mandate that we draw from having people signed up as members of the FSA and the supporter groups that go to make it up.
If you want to be part of this revolution, and especially if you think you have specialist skills to offer, there has never been a better time to stand up and be counted. Joining your club's Supporters Trust gives you a democratic stake in your club's future
and that of the competitions that it plays in.
If that sound appealing, contact us at :
memberships@blackpoolsupporterstrust.com
We would be delighted to hear from you.
Why does BST attach such importance to all of this?
There are three central pillars supporting all that we do :
- we want what is best for our fans
- we want what is best for our football club….
- …. and we want what is best for our local community
The White Paper is a once in a generation opportunity to bring in change that brings benefits in all three of these vital areas :
for
fans, it is a chance to create new rights and protections for us, and put us at the heart of the way in which our club is run.
for
clubs, a chance to achieve far greater equity in the way that money moves sound the game, put them on a sounder financial footing and make them better able to compete
last, but not least, football clubs are a part of the fabric of local
communities. Prosperous and competitive clubs that are financially sound brings great social and economic benefits to the areas they represent, as well as being a source of civil pride that is perhaps unique in our society. They are ALL worth fighting for.
This is just a beginning, and there is much yet to do. But if you care about football’s future, this is an important moment.
BST Committee
February 2023
