Shame among the prawn sandwiches

A corporate sponsor speaks...

So the FA Cup Final second half has begun, and nearly two-thirds of the executive and corporate hospitality seats are empty. Total respect to ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley for having a real dig at them, and pointing out that while they are disrespectfully ignoring the purpose of the event in order to do another business deal, stuff another prawn sandwich, or neck another drink... thousands of true football fans would have given their right arms to have their tickets.

In many respects, this kind of unedifying spectacle epitomises the problem of football in the top flight(s). It is run and funded for the benefit of those who aren't that bothered (except by status and money), while real supporters often have to make do with crumbs from the table, and people like the EPL's exceptionally well-paid  Richard Scudamore look on smugly at their "brand".

Mind you, prawn sandwiches aren't much of a temptation for me, I have to confess. I'm veggie. Not that I'd miss a second of any game for even the tastiest morsel. 'Aye, sad-sack. (Ooh, Mario Balotelli's throwing a hissy-fit for Manchester City, Stoke's free kick has been scrambled away, Carlos Tevez has missed, and it's end-to-end stuff. That's more like it. 'Mon Stoke!
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Fitba goes to the ballot box

First published in Sons View, 23 April 2011, Dumbarton -v- Ayr United

A few weeks ago, Dumbarton fans were given the opportunity to vote on issues being mooted as part of a radical restructuring of the game in Scotland. The results were overwhelming – for a national (rather than regional) set-up for the second and third divisions, for fan representation on the governing bodies of Scottish football, and against the idea of SPL ‘colt’ teams in the lower leagues.

Now the SPL have decided, at their meeting on 18 April, that a vote on restructuring proposals will probably take place later in May. Supporters Direct, among others, will be urging SFL clubs to make their own preferences clear on issue such as those Sons fans voted on – in order as not to be left on the sidelines when the big boys vote.

Meanwhile, the politicians hawking around for votes of a different kind in the Scottish Parliamentary elections on 5 May have also been giving the beautiful game some consideration. All told, they have produced some interesting ideas and commitments. But will these still be on the table after our votes have been cast? Again, it will partly depend on grassroots pressure.

So, for the record, the Labour Party have backed greater community involvement in football and are considering a specific Sports Bill. The Scottish National Party, in their manifesto, have pledged their support for an enhanced role for Supporters’ Trusts. The Liberal Democrats say they want “involvement of democratic community organisations and co-operatives in the governance of football and other sports". The Conservatives have not pledged anything particular, though several of their candidates mention football connections in their biographies.

But the most specific idea has come from the Scottish Green Party. They have proposed a £1 million ‘leverage’ fund to help communities purchase their football clubs – “giving supporters first refusal if their club comes up for sale, and providing grants and loans to support buy-outs,” says co-leader, and Son of the Rock, Patrick Harvie.
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Fans with a real stake in Scottish football

First published in Sons View, 09 April 2011, Dumbarton -v- Peterhead

While the Sonstrust took a pioneering lead in establishing supporters’ trusts as an established and growing feature of Scottish football, others have continued the movement forward – not least Stirling Albion and Clyde, who have become Trust-owned and Community Interest companies respectively.

Both, of course, face massive challenges on and off the pitch. But they have also made significant strides forward in the face of huge financial obstacles. The current economic climate, and the structure of the game, makes it increasingly difficult for small teams.

That’s why it was so encouraging to hear that a SPL club, St Mirren, are embarking on “something very special”, according to businessman Richard Atkinson – who is seeing through a radical community-backed takeover of Saints.

Atkinson has set up a Community Interest Company called ‘10,000 Hours’ to buy a controlling 52% stake in the club, which was recently put up for sale by five of the current directors.

The total £2 million deal is going to be financed by local people, charities, community groups and businesses buying shares. That will include around 300 fans contributing £10 a month, which will get them a say in how the club is run. There will even be a chance to earn a seat on the St Mirren board.

Overall, the Saints will then become a partnership of individuals and organisations, ensuring that a wide range of people have genuine stake in the future of the club. Community links, expertise, further funds, and networks to others are also created.

Richard Atkinson told the Paisley Daily Express: “We’ve launched a website –10000hours.org – that will [everyone] to register their details if they wish to join the CIC. The reason for the name of the company is that 10,000 hours of professional training or education in any complex task is generally seen as what is required to bring you to a world-class level.”

He adds: “At the heart of this, it’s not just talking about being naturally talented, it’s that if you put the hard work into any task, you can be world class. Hopefully we are now going to see the benefits of that kind of mentality coming through at St Mirren.”
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Where all the money goes

For a number of years David Hills has been putting together the excellent 'Said & Done' column in the Observer newspaper each Sunday. It's a "must read", combining useful research and a tongue-in-cheek approach to highlight the growing gap between rhetoric and reality among those who run, play, manage - and profit from - the global game.

Sepp orders a Latte...

This week, we learn, inter alia, that  ever-charming Sepp Blatter's report for FIFA on the World Cup ("I am the happiest man. It's a huge, huge financial success") reveals: • $4.19 billion income from the four-year World Cup cycle, tax-free via FIFA's status as a "non-profit body existing to invest in football development". • A rather smaller $794 million amount invested in football development, including FIFA's 'Win in Africa' social project. • $631 million added to FIFA's reserves (now standing at a record $1.2 billion, up from just $76 million in 2003). • $707 million on "expenses". Naturally. • FIFA's wage bill: $65.3 million paid to 387 employees – averaging $168,700 each.

And the rest?  Watch Hills' space.
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Don't fall for the SPL spin

If you listened only to Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster, you'd think that the SPL elite had their future pretty much sewn up after today's meeting at Hampden - which, we are told, "agreed" a plan for a ten-team top division, a twelve-team second tier... and to hell with the rest. Well, they didn't announce that last stanza, but that's clearly the idea. The 'diddy' teams just don't matter to the money men.

In practice, however, the situation remains rather more complicated ("chaotic" even, according to one paper), and there are still more public and private dissenters than will fit into the 10-2 voting requirement. Oh, and the Doncasterites don't actually have a worked-out or testable plan yet, either. (Oddly, this was the reason they gave for alternatives being "non-starters". The logic is a little hard to discern.)

But whatever the eventual plan they concoct (in around two months time) says, Mr Docaster has beneficently announced that SPL clubs "can give [it] their ringing endorsement", in a show of North Korean-style solidarity. This is because money and arm-twisting counts for more than principle or common sense in the kind of world he inhabits and fashions, it seems.

Meanwhile, of the SPL dissenters, Dundee United appear to have rolled over, but Kilmarnock and Inverness Caledonian Thistle look like they will push for structural revisions, and Hearts managing director David Southern says that although there is insufficient support to pursue a larger top league, "We believe that serious consideration is now being given to a revised income distribution model which will allow for a more equitable distribution of monies in the game."

All very noble. But, of course, such redistribution will be among the top two divisions, not for the likes of Dumbarton or those below us. That's clear. The SPL elite and those they favour (in their own interests, not those of the larger Scottish game) are not going to deliver for the "minnows". Which is why it is up to the Scottish Football League clubs, who are currently faced with being frozen out altogether, to take their future into their own hands.

Among other things, that means coming up with some fresh ideas, and rejecting regional leagues run for the benefit of SPL reserve or 'B' teams - which is a recipe for losing a credible, professional game below the top 20 or 22 clubs.
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Get yer tips out for the lads!

Yeah, I know, a dead dodgy allusion -- but it got your attention, and it's offered in a definitely anti-sexist spirit, dripping with seasonal irony!  Anyway, the truth is, too many of the people who run Scottish football are (old) lads... and they definitely need your tips, whatever your genes or gender. To be specific, the Sonstrust (Dumbarton's democratic provident society, part of the fine Supporters' Direct, which has a stake in running the club) is wanting to canvass as wide a range of supporter opinion as possible about the 'reconstruction' plans. Then the idea is to get people involved in calling those involved in influencing outcomes in response to the McLeish Report (specifically DFC, the SFA and the SFL) to account and to dialogue. There’s never been a more important time for fans to stand together, to make a thoughtful and passionate response, and to ensure that changes to the future of our game benefit the many and not just the few. Click the 'comment button' at the end of this short article. If you're not a Dumbarton fan (astonishingly, there are such odd creatures out there, I realise...) then the SD questionnaire could be just the place for you to contribute. Indeed, it's already starting to be noticed.
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Forget England: it's reform of FIFA that matters

Who's really celebrating?

There is an unpleasant smell of opportunism and sour grapes (some would say rank hypocrisy) about 'Team England' suddenly getting the FIFA reform bug after their humiliation - not mere defeat - in the process to secure the venues for the World Cup in 2018 (plausibly, Russia) and 2022 (wholly implausibly, Qatar).  England 2018 boss Andy Anson calls for Fifa reform, declared the Beeb boldly. FA chief executive Alex Horne wants Fifa reform, announced the Guardian (with a bit of modesty and perspective, unlike the trumpeting tabloids).

Hang on, though. Aren't these the very same people who, with their political and business friends in tow, were - until the announcement of their undoing by a clearly delighted Sepp Blatter - busily attacking BBC 'Panorama' and the Sunday Times for exposing FIFA's (how shall we put this gently?) "alleged lack of probity"? The same people sucking up shamelessly and fruitlessly to the likes of Jack Warner? Yes, indeed. One minute anti-corruption reporting was 'unpatriotic', the next we're all on the side of the angels. Well, when it comes to voting reform to enable 'us' to have a chance of winning, anyway. As usual, David Conn is dead right. Ethical blindness has been the problem for some time.

The shambles of the FA and the dangerously dire state of international body, not to mention the money-grabbing values of Premier League, form a sad indictment of those who have come to run the modern game of football from the very top. Root and branch change is needed. In the case of FIFA the issue is not corruption allegations against individuals alone (important though those are), but the whole rotten, unaccountable edifice - including its capacity to bully recipients of its Big Prize into re-writing national laws, abrogating human rights and creating mini tax havens for the duration of a World Cup. This kind of thing is beyond reprehensible. The problem is that, with the exception of some very determined journalists, there is no natural or organisable grassroots constituency for change, of the kind that challenged the oligarchs at Liverpool, for instance.

But investigation and then radical restructuring of FIFA still matters. That big issue should not be allowed to go away, or to become the self-justificatory tool of a failed bid.
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Sheffield's worrying Wednesday

Football's "clubs in crisis" situation continues unabated, with the sad news that Sheffield Wednesday, one of the legendary sides in the game (now languishing in League One - or the Third Division, as we more accurately used to know it) face a winding up petition. On Wednesday, ironically. Once again, it's an unpaid PAYE tax bill of £600,000 that's doing the damage. In September 2010, the 143-year-old club was spared administration through an agreement with the Co-operative Bank over what was then a £1.1 million debt. But it is understood that the Bank is not satisfied with progress and the measures taken in the intervening eight weeks, which could spell another serious body-blow for the club relegated from the Championship (or Second Division) last season. Apparently, local Lib Dem MP Nick Clegg is getting involved. Fingers crossed for the Owls. But who'd want to be reliant on the Deputy PM's promises, given all the others he and his party have broken without batting an eyelid?
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Time for the Rooney tax

I've been a keen public supporter of the so-called Robin Hood Tax (a micro-levy on global financial transactions to invest in development and poverty reduction), but Aditya Chakrabortty, the economics leader writer for the Guardian, has come up with another good idea. The Wayne Rooney tax on over-valued, uneconomic footballing assets.

Ol' Money Bags

Writes Aditya: "Pug-faced footballers interest me about as much as conveyancing solicitors, who have had far more impact on my life. There was even a brief period at school when I thought this Man U everyone else was talking about was actually a Burmese military dictator....

"What interests me is how a striker who has only scored one goal this season, who had a terrible World Cup, who is in what's widely described as the worst form of his career, can command a weekly wage reportedly between £200,000 and £250,000. And for that, economists have some answers. Even better, whether left or right, Chicago or Cornell, their arguments yield some common suggestions for what can be done about it. Best of all, in these austere times, those suggestions involve imposing higher taxes on the people who earn such huge amounts. We can even call it a Rooney tax, and demand that George Osborne introduces one in his next Budget." Read the rest here.
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Nothing Roo under the sun

Wayne shares his thoughts...

For a fleeting moment I thought that there might be something more interesting than manipulation and greed behind Wayne Rooney's media ploy to wheedle something between £150-250 thousand-a-week out of debt-ridden megaliths Manchester United. As an embodiment of the triumph of realpolitik over any semblance of decency and dignity at the top of the game, that gurning image of Alex Ferguson and El Wayne, following Roo's "shock decision" to line his pockets after all, will take some beating. It was right out of the North Korean school of spin-doctoring.

But back to the nugget of interest. The original claim from Rooney's ex-vacuum cleaner salesman agent, Paul Stretford, was that "the boy" wanted to move on because he had not received assurances that the club could secure enough big signings to keep silverware dropping into their hands. The press pack immediately interpreted that as a "lack of ambition" accusation, which is obviously ridiculous. More serious is the thought that MUFC's debt servicing burden, leveraged in courtesy of the Glazers' overall £769 million millstone, will continue to constrain the purse strings and threaten the financial stability of even such a giant club as this.

One journalist and diligent student of football's ins and outs who continues to tell the underlying story of United's glistening goldmine is the estimable David Conn. Always worth reading. Earlier this month he lanced MUFC chair David Gill's feeble attempt to bypass debt-pile facts, by pointing to the club's operating profit, thusly: "With the interest payments, plus interest at 14.25% on the £202m 'payment in kind' hedge fund debt, and the £13m paid to banks for United to issue that bond, the cost of the Glazers' financial chicanery last year alone was £123m. The total cost of the Florida-based family's takeover of United, done with mostly borrowed money in 2005, which was then loaded on to the club to repay, has since been £583m, in interest, bank fees and other charges."

This story still has a lot of mileage in it. As for the dismal Rooney, Ferguson should have thanked him for his "change of heart"... and told him to take a hike. If only life was like that.
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Reality check

PM on the penalty spot

The Prime Minister was given the opportunity to back a supporters’ bid for a football club facing liquidation today. He ducked it, except in the most generalised terms.

The issue concerns Ilkeston Town FC, which is in liquidation, but could be brought back from the brink by a fan initiative with small business backing. The time of judgement comes later this month. I've written about the Ilkeston challenge, and some wider issues of football governance and finance, over at the Sonstrust  site in a piece entitled Reforming Football Ownership and Funding. 

You can sign the petition to back the fan buyout here.
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Pounds of flesh

 First published on the Sonstrust site as On the money again.

When it comes to football, it seems that money is rarely out of the news. The media focus right now is on the crisis at Dundee. But the SFL is also searching for new League Cup backers after Co-operative Insurance called time on their 12-year involvement with the competition, there are rumblings at Partick Thistle… one could go on. Over at Dens Park, manager Gordon Chisolm (who Sons fans will remember from his involvements at Clydebank and this weekend’s opponents Airdrie United) reckons an expanded SPL is the answer. But BBC journalist Jim Spence, who has been following the situation for many years, points the finger at another multi-millionaire investor and says Dee fans, who are being asked to fork out yet again, deserve better. The Club’s Trust, Dee4Life, are naturally putting out appeals to the faithful.

Here in Scotland we could really do with an equivalent to the redoubtable Dr John Beech, unpicking the threads and putting sense back into management and finance. While we wait for his next instalment, which concentrates on English clubs but has valuable lessons for lower league supporters here too, can I also recommend Wyn Grant‘s Football Economy blog. There’s plenty of useful news and info there – including basic financial data on a number of Scottish clubs.
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Football's crazy political economy

Seven years ago Dundee went into administration. It might happen again, sadly, as the Club's offer to pay £100,000 on account for the immediate £250,000 of a total £365,000 owed to the Inland Revenue has been rejected. Yet again the finance and governance of football clubs is in the spotlight for negative reasons. Meanwhile, south of the border, Liverpool fans have been protesting about the mess their debt-shifting owners have left them in, and as the Financial Times reports, "Clubs are [still] disappearing or getting into extreme financial troubles at an alarmingly rapid rate."

In early September 2010, non-league club Ilkeston Town went to the wall after HMRC demanded a tax bill of £47,000. Before the season began, Stockport also faced a Revenue winding-up order, while League One Bournemouth continue with a transfer embargo placed on them. English League One side Sheffield Wednesday have twice been to the High Court to battle against tax debts – their most recent stay of execution was a few weeks ago. And so it rumbles, on and on.

Two of the best sites for up-to-date information and independent commentary on all this are John Beech's Football Management (he heads up Sport and Tourism at Coventry University’s Applied Research Centre in Sustainable Regeneration) and Wyn Grant's Football Economy.
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Football's finance secrecy league

A leading global development agency (one I've had a long association with in various ways) has just published a fascinating report on financial secrecy, tax havens and offshore ownership in football - as part of an initiative to expose the way tax avoidance is keeping millions in poverty, as well as imperiling community-based football clubs. Blowing the Whistle: Time’s Up for Financial Secrecy (*.PDF Adobe Acrobat file) has been produced by Christian Aid in association with the Football Supporters’ Federation and Supporters Direct, to highlight the damage that financial secrecy can cause, and to demand urgent reform. To arrive at the Football Secrecy League, Christian Aid endeavoured to find the true owners of every club in the English, Scottish and Welsh leagues, as well as the Irish League in Northern Ireland and the League of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.
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Just about managing

Wondering what's involved in the latest takeover at Portsmouth and all the other finance-related fantasy football moves rattling around the media - or not, when frankly they should be? As far as the English game is concerned (with one or two additional forays into other nations), the Football Management site maintained by John Beech from Coventry University is unrivalled. Hat-tip to the Sonstrust and Campbell Yule on this one.

Beech is a co-director of the Centre for the International Business of Sport and a widely published author on various aspects of sports management and English football management in particular. It's worth keeping an eye on the Supporters' Direct blog too. How we need an equivalent website for Scottish football. The future of the Scottish game was subject to an interesting debate at Stirling University on 2 October 2009. More on that anon.

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