Just a suggestion.......Could this be a decent shout for an alternate petition?
If you run a pub in this country you need a licence. If you offer financial advice you need a licence.
If you manage a professional football team you are required to obtain several levels of licence to be allowed to manage a team.
Yet if you want to own and run a football club, you need no formal qualifications!
Football clubs are supposedly community based, yet at present anyone can own a club with very little in the way of proof of suitability or capability to do so. There are owners now with absolutely no link to the communities that the club they own serve. There are clubs owned by companies not just individuals. This is totally unacceptable as it in effect makes them unaccountable.
The current vetting by the FA & the Football League is clearly unfit for purpose, as the checks are superficial.
As such I propose that the government requires that an individual who runs a football club is licenced, in a similar manner to managers (i.e the higher the level, the higher the requirement of licencing).
This will mean that if an individual breaks any rules laid down by the FA or Football League (eg move a club out of its catchment area or piles on excessive debt), then they can lose their licence to run a club. This would ensure that clubs are run to a higher standard, as if they aren't then they can no longer run the club!
The way certain clubs in this country are run is a disgrace. Something MUST be done !
If you run a pub in this country you need a licence. If you offer financial advice you need a licence.
If you manage a professional football team you are required to obtain several levels of licence to be allowed to manage a team.
Yet if you want to own and run a football club, you need no formal qualifications!
Football clubs are supposedly community based, yet at present anyone can own a club with very little in the way of proof of suitability or capability to do so. There are owners now with absolutely no link to the communities that the club they own serve. There are clubs owned by companies not just individuals. This is totally unacceptable as it in effect makes them unaccountable.
The current vetting by the FA & the Football League is clearly unfit for purpose, as the checks are superficial.
As such I propose that the government requires that an individual who runs a football club is licenced, in a similar manner to managers (i.e the higher the level, the higher the requirement of licencing).
This will mean that if an individual breaks any rules laid down by the FA or Football League (eg move a club out of its catchment area or piles on excessive debt), then they can lose their licence to run a club. This would ensure that clubs are run to a higher standard, as if they aren't then they can no longer run the club!
The way certain clubs in this country are run is a disgrace. Something MUST be done !