Post by Macmoish on Mar 29, 2011 6:42:43 GMT
Also need transparency re loans - as with the ABC Loan. Should be no secrets re ownership of club; or debts...or who owns players, etc.
Guardian/The Digger - Matt Scott
Clubs face licensing system in wake of parliamentary inquiry
• Select committee seeks to increase transparency of ownership
• Parliamentary time set aside for act to enshrine new system
The Culture, Media and Sport select committee's investigation into football governance is set to lead to a formal club licensing system. Indeed, so advanced is the thinking of the committee that what the licensing system would contain is already taking shape.
Insiders have told Digger that there are four main strands. The committee has been particularly alarmed by the lack of transparency surrounding Leeds United's ownership. Shaun Harvey, the Championship club's chief executive, was left to answer the committee's questions about who are the beneficial owners of the web of offshore trusts that are Leeds's parents, but he said he did not know. This starkly illustrated to the committee the ease with which impenetrable structures can be set up.
The second licensing condition will be a strengthened fit-and-proper-persons' test. Third will be a restriction on the clubs' gearing ratios of debt to equity or assets, and fourth will be an element of supporter involvement in the decision-making structures of clubs.
This is set to be enshrined in a Football Governance and Major Events Act, for which parliamentary time has been set aside. The licensing system would be a big incentive for reform of the normally reactionary Football Association. Once the FA became fit for regulatory purpose, oversight of the system would give it proper teeth.
BOA draws battle lines
The latest battle of the Olympic heavyweights takes place today when the British Olympic Association chairman, Lord Moynihan, addresses the National Olympic Committees about funding. The BOA is almost penniless, having signed over its crown jewels – the rights to market the Olympic rings – to Locog for about £30m in cash and in-kind benefits seven years ago.
Moynihan is claiming his organisation deserves a bigger share of what he expects to be a £400m surplus for the Olympic element of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Moynihan alleged in a letter to the NOCs that at a meeting last July between Locog and the BOA, the Locog finance director, Neil Wood, stated the Olympics would make a profit of about £400m, with the Paralympics making a corresponding loss.
Wood told Digger yesterday: "I have never made such statements, which are in fact untrue. The Paralympic Games will essentially be a break-even operation." The BOA's claim is before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the NOCs are unlikely to order Moynihan today to back off. Then the gloves will really come off.
Anderson starts with an F
Myles Anderson has been written off before he has kicked a ball in the Premier League. This is apparently because his father, Jerome Anderson, is one of the game's highest-profile agents and was involved in Venky's takeover of Blackburn Rovers, whom Anderson junior will join in the summer.
Digger prefers to reserve judgment on the Aberdeen defender. But having made one substitute appearance for the Dons he is already making a better fist of playing the game than he did of his short-lived attempt to become an agent. Two years ago, as a post-A-Level school-leaver said to have had Oxbridge prospects, Anderson junior decided on a whim to sit his agents' exams. He failed. "It was the only exam he's ever taken without getting an A," Anderson senior says.
Coleman's home flavour
Digger suspects the 11 players in the home dressing room at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday were not the only Welshmen to get a talking-to at half-time of England's 2-0 win.
Chris Coleman's co-commentary in the first half was resolutely in the first person, giving a partisan flavour to Sky's coverage of a competitive match between two British teams. But first-half comments like "that's the worst possible start for us" after Wales went 1-0 down, became "Wales are doing better now" after the interval.
What gave a more objective tenor to his second-half commentary? Only Coleman, knows, since Sky insists no one gave him orders to tone it down.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/mar/29/clubs-licensing-select-committee
Guardian/The Digger - Matt Scott
Clubs face licensing system in wake of parliamentary inquiry
• Select committee seeks to increase transparency of ownership
• Parliamentary time set aside for act to enshrine new system
The Culture, Media and Sport select committee's investigation into football governance is set to lead to a formal club licensing system. Indeed, so advanced is the thinking of the committee that what the licensing system would contain is already taking shape.
Insiders have told Digger that there are four main strands. The committee has been particularly alarmed by the lack of transparency surrounding Leeds United's ownership. Shaun Harvey, the Championship club's chief executive, was left to answer the committee's questions about who are the beneficial owners of the web of offshore trusts that are Leeds's parents, but he said he did not know. This starkly illustrated to the committee the ease with which impenetrable structures can be set up.
The second licensing condition will be a strengthened fit-and-proper-persons' test. Third will be a restriction on the clubs' gearing ratios of debt to equity or assets, and fourth will be an element of supporter involvement in the decision-making structures of clubs.
This is set to be enshrined in a Football Governance and Major Events Act, for which parliamentary time has been set aside. The licensing system would be a big incentive for reform of the normally reactionary Football Association. Once the FA became fit for regulatory purpose, oversight of the system would give it proper teeth.
BOA draws battle lines
The latest battle of the Olympic heavyweights takes place today when the British Olympic Association chairman, Lord Moynihan, addresses the National Olympic Committees about funding. The BOA is almost penniless, having signed over its crown jewels – the rights to market the Olympic rings – to Locog for about £30m in cash and in-kind benefits seven years ago.
Moynihan is claiming his organisation deserves a bigger share of what he expects to be a £400m surplus for the Olympic element of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Moynihan alleged in a letter to the NOCs that at a meeting last July between Locog and the BOA, the Locog finance director, Neil Wood, stated the Olympics would make a profit of about £400m, with the Paralympics making a corresponding loss.
Wood told Digger yesterday: "I have never made such statements, which are in fact untrue. The Paralympic Games will essentially be a break-even operation." The BOA's claim is before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the NOCs are unlikely to order Moynihan today to back off. Then the gloves will really come off.
Anderson starts with an F
Myles Anderson has been written off before he has kicked a ball in the Premier League. This is apparently because his father, Jerome Anderson, is one of the game's highest-profile agents and was involved in Venky's takeover of Blackburn Rovers, whom Anderson junior will join in the summer.
Digger prefers to reserve judgment on the Aberdeen defender. But having made one substitute appearance for the Dons he is already making a better fist of playing the game than he did of his short-lived attempt to become an agent. Two years ago, as a post-A-Level school-leaver said to have had Oxbridge prospects, Anderson junior decided on a whim to sit his agents' exams. He failed. "It was the only exam he's ever taken without getting an A," Anderson senior says.
Coleman's home flavour
Digger suspects the 11 players in the home dressing room at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday were not the only Welshmen to get a talking-to at half-time of England's 2-0 win.
Chris Coleman's co-commentary in the first half was resolutely in the first person, giving a partisan flavour to Sky's coverage of a competitive match between two British teams. But first-half comments like "that's the worst possible start for us" after Wales went 1-0 down, became "Wales are doing better now" after the interval.
What gave a more objective tenor to his second-half commentary? Only Coleman, knows, since Sky insists no one gave him orders to tone it down.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/mar/29/clubs-licensing-select-committee