Today there were major moves in England towards genuine football governance reform, with the government’s Fan Led Review publishing its recommendations.
There are over 40 of them, and if this is passed it will radically change the nature of things down there, in a way which gives the fans more power than they have ever had before.
According to The Guardian, this would include having “shadow boards” on which fans serve so that they can be consulted on key decision as well as supporter vetoes on clubs taking certain actions such as renaming or selling the stadium.
Good, sensible measures, real power handed to the fans to prevent unscrupulous developers coming in just for the land grab.
Fan protections are interesting enough, but the reforms go further than that.
There are new financial fair play proposals; club directors are limited in the amount of money they can put into the team, “to prevent unsustainable practices and stop the distortion of competition.”
There are fan organisations in Scotland, but they struggle to get the attention of the politicians in the way the English fans do, and part of the reasons for that is that the EPL is a vast entity which has skewed the game there more than it has here, and part of it is that the political class down there does not entirely disdain the national sport.
The politicians down there have also had to step in several times as local clubs came to the brink of closure and then again because the Super League proposal, in which four of their clubs were involved, threatened to bring the whole house down.
The FA down there is also answerable to the politicians, and that’s something we should consider up here because at the end of the day the SFA depends on a lot of public money.
It is about time they answered to the public to some extent.
The Super League proposal is one of the reasons this is all happening, but the number of sides down there which have almost gone to the wall is even higher than it is up here, and this is even accounting for financial fair play which, in a perverse way, might actually have made things worse because it has actively prevented owners from throwing money at clubs … but not apparently induced the sanity of making clubs spend only what they earn in the first place.
Still English football is finally moving forward with these reforms, and if they pass the spotlight will shine on the SFA like never before. It is high time fans got some of these protections up here, as well as specific ones to stop clubs from ripping off some supporters and not others; yes, I’m looking at every SPFL team which overcharges our fans.
These things are long overdue. Reform has to come.
Celtic should be leading it, but in the absence of that our fans ought to be.
The Celtic board could alleviate the damage to their reputation by taking such matters up openly on behalf of their customers. Fair Play…not Fare Pay.