10 Things I Know About Football

[gater2]

Fascinating article from the former head of Supporters Direct on modern football: http://daveboyle.net/opinion/10-things-i-know-about-football-from-a-decade-at-supporters-direct/

Article by Dave Boyle:

1. Football is addicted to secrecy

We don’t necessarily need to know about everything that’s going on in football but the game is addicted to keeping as much as possible secret. Part of this is because it’s fun and empowering to know something other people – namely us – would love to know. Part of it is a boy’s thing, like the secret gang you were in as a kid. But the main reason is that, as Lloyd George said about the First World War, if people knew the truth, it would stop tomorrow.

If we knew what agents and executives are paid, what players do in negotiations, how much money is creamed off by owners in offshore companies in secrecy havens, we’d be able to act. To know something is generally rotten and has been for a long time can instill apathy; knowing just how specifically rotten things are inspires action.

2. It’s not about having fans running clubs, but the people running them being accountable

When Supporters Direct was formed, the then-Ipswich owner and Chairman, David Sheepshanks, sent us a letter saying there was no need to have fans on boards, because club owners and Directors were overwhelmingly fans, and they were on boards, so what was the problem?

But the issue isn’t whether the people in the boardroom support the club as the fact that they need to be accountable for their actions. Or to put it another way, who gives a stuff which team your owner supports if they have a loose grasp of the concept of break-even and there’s nothing you can do about it?

3. Nobody understands the importance of ownership better than owners

I was once told a story about some Scottish fans who went to see their chairman. They talked around and about everything, from the tea bar’s range to the manager’s budget. At the end, they asked him what action points they could look forward to seeing. The Chairman sat up, and said matter of factly: “Look lads, it’s like this: I own the club. Now **** off”.

I’ve seen many a club imply that people in trusts are weirdos and sometimes go as far as to say so. They’ll say that issues of ownership and governance are only of concern to ‘politically motivated’ fans, who are an extreme minority. But then, of course, nobody gains more from the majority of fans thinking that ownership is an irrelevance than the existing owners.

4. People running football think we’re stupid

If you read parliamentary debates that took place during the 1832 Reform Act, you see that people were genuinely terrified that the masses might have a vote. Elites were necessary because we were too stupid, venal, or weak.

I lost count of the number of times fans were libeled by club owners and administrators as being too stupid, swayable, impulsive and the rest. I really lost count of the number of times a reasonably affable owner, executive or administrator would say that fans would bankrupt the club within days with excessive spending.

There is no evidence for this whatsoever, and plenty of evidence that the status quo bankrupts clubs with excessive spending. But we’re in the land of prejudice, not reasoned argument.

It’s a calumny that is perpetrated by the powerful on the powerless, that it’s our fault they have all the fun. If MPs announced that, henceforth, no-one would have a vote and they would just run the country because the electorate were idiots, there would be riots. In football though, that’s the default position, and its one far too many fans don’t get angry about.

5. Owners aren’t always saviours

Owners get lauded for pumping cash into their clubs and sometimes, that’s fair. But in a lot of cases, it’s a little bit cannier than that.

Let’s say your company made £100 million profit last year. You’re due to pay £20 million in corporation tax. That’s £80 million left to you. You’re a good citizen. Well done.

But let’s say the club you also own lost £40 million the same year. And you put £10 million into the club, your company’s tax bill will now be just £10 million.

You’re in the same position – you’ve still spent £20 million – but this time, you’re the king of [insert name of city] and people think you’re fantastic. They’ll ask your opinion on everything and you’ll be invited to all sorts of dos and people will sing your name at matches. Which one would you rather do?

6. The game is fundamentally riven by conflict

In the wake of the discovery that the PA of the FA’s number 2 was seeing the FA’s number 1 and the England manager, there was a review of governance. Terry Burns, former head of the Treasury and Chairman of Abbey Bank, was brought in. He was shocked at the conflict, and the fact that everyone bad-mouthed everyone else. He was fresh from a review of hunting and said that hunt advocates and hunt sabs were nicer about each other than people in football.

7. The biggest divide in the game is between those people who earn a living from it and those who pay for that living

Despite the enmities within the game, between clubs or individuals at clubs, no matter how much they hate each other or fight with each other, they unite against the common enemy. Sometimes that’s the government but mainly it’s fans. Everyone who makes a living from the game has a fundamentally different perspective to the people who pay to make that living possible. That includes those journalists who get a good view, free hot drinks and never pay for a ticket. It incudes agents, and it includes players, administrators, executives and owners.

People who work in football admin get paid a fortune, compared to the size of the companies they work for. They justify it because of the ‘pressure’ by which they mean pressure from fans. They’re actually getting the salary of their lives and using us as evidence of why they’re worth it.

8. You could keep warm through the winter by burning reports into football

Only the British press has been more reported on for less actual reform. Football makes granny-steps towards some reform, politicians with short time horizons think a job has been done, and everyone waits five years until the next crisis blows up. Repeat.

9. Things aren’t getting better

Big clubs are like an overdeveloped bully at school, who intimidates the teachers into giving them good marks. When I started at Supporters Direct, Adam Crozier had just taken over at the FA. He did a lot of good work, modernising an organisation desperately in need of overhaul. The moment he started to talk about money and power he was out of the door. David Triesman was the next to try, and after pointing out the appalling debt in English football, came up with some very, very good proposals to transform the game, including making fans much more influential. When a scandal blew up, his enemies in football wielded the knife with gleeful haste.

The new men have learnt the first rule of football longevity, which is don’t tread on any toes at the top, and gave the bullies the power to mark their own homework.

10. Fans have to unite

Only sustained and rigorous fan pressure can change this. Politicians don’t help themselves by being often woefully under-briefed and awfully susceptible to ego-driven cheap publicity. But part of the reason is that we don’t make it easier for them to carry the fight.

In 2001, German football signed a TV deal which would have led to the kind of influence over schedules that we long ago gave up the fight on. They protested in their stadia, and marched on the National FA headquarters in their thousands. German football is rightly seen as having got so many things so much more right than us. But that’s not to say there aren’t voices in Germany who would change this and who look to the Premiership for inspiration.

That those voices have no sway in Germany – thus far – isn’t because their argument is weak (though it is) but because fans don’t let them get away with it. They act. They act quickly. They act united. They know the time for taking the piss out of each other is when we’re in the pub celebrating a victory over the powers that be.

Anyone agree?

Supporters unite!

[Aizoon]

Right on the ball, so to speak - but maybe it's too late for the Satellite League