Enquiry into Football Finance (1 Viewer)

[oakey]

We need something like the Leveson enquiry to investigate the murky world of football finance.
A committee with the power to call any witnesses they see fit to get to the bottom of who the crooks are that have robbed the people of their game.
Then every club should be under a new regulatory framework which requires them to become fully owned by a body comprising fans shareholding trust, local council, local charities and businesses with public meetings and accounts.
Get the crooks out and the fans back.
If this led to the prima donna players going abroad and we have lower league players earning average wages, so much the better.

 

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[Jimmy Hill's Chin]

Agree with the first part of this post. An enquiry is overdue however I don't think there is anything wrong with private owners in principle however it is a few bad apples who have infected the sport. Unfortunately one of the most rotten of these apples are SISU. Also I don't believe fans' trusts or council ownership is the answer. The former does not have the resources to finance most clubs (perhaps unless they are Man Utd or Chelsea) and the latter has no business being involved running football clubs. Councils should be providing frontline services eg education, health, street cleaning, housing etc not dabbling in football club ownership.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

We need something like the Leveson enquiry to investigate the murky world of football finance.
A committee with the power to call any witnesses they see fit to get to the bottom of who the crooks are that have robbed the people of their game.
Then every club should be under a new regulatory framework which requires them to become fully owned by a body comprising fans shareholding trust, local council, local charities and businesses with public meetings and accounts.
Get the crooks out and the fans back.
If this led to the prima donna players going abroad and we have lower league players earning average wages, so much the better.

There was a government led enquiry into the state of football ownership last year, which was published a few months ago I think-CCFC were given as a prominent example in that. Football clubs run themselves as recklessly as they please because they (unfortunately rightly) believe that their community status will grant them a reprieve from the taxman and their creditors, and a white knight will come along to save the day.
Just yesterday a West Ham fan I work with took offence when I mentioned the huge, obscene gamble they've taken this season to try and go back up at the first attempt. 'It's worth the gamble, we need to go back up as soon as possible. There's no ethics in football, go and support a League 2 team if you want that' he said. That kind of thinking will destroy football very quickly if nobody acts.

 

[wingy]

The thinking behind Fans trust involvement was in the culture committees report in Feb to ensure football grounds were retained within the club ,so local authorities could assist fans taking back grounds tha twere lost/sold /mortgaged by unscrupulous owners ,so numbers are'nt entirely significant as easy terms could be available for an important community asset.This is the way forward with us ,however Highfield Rd is no longer available .The solution for us re; the RICOH is though a fans trust holding a lease or ownership of the Stadium on behalf of the cluB ,never to be sold or Mortgaged .ACL should retain all other aspects of the Complex but the stadium ,pitch and matchday income should come to the club .

 

[SkyBlueEG]

The problem is that the Football Governance Inquiry has received, at best a luke warm response from the Premier League, Football League and the FA regarding fan ownership and participation in the running of football clubs. Damian Collins is the MP who is really pushing the idea of transparency on who owns clubs. He has specifically given Coventry and Leeds United as examples of the fans not knowing enough. As I understand it, this pressure from Collins resulted in Leeds publishing more details of who the owners are but had no effect on Sisu.

Collins specifically recommended the introduction of a club licensing system (as in Germany) to "ensure that clubs and their assets are protected for future generations."

http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/Listen-up-Football-governance-matters-and-heres-why.php