Supporters Direct in Trouble

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Macmoish
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Supporters Direct in Trouble Jun 9, 2011 22:54:57 GMT

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Post by Macmoish on Jun 9, 2011 22:54:57 GMT

Guardian

Supporters Direct faces cash cut after chief executive's tweets

• Stadia improvement body cuts aid over 'abusive' Twitter posts
• Fans' trust umbrella organisation set to lose support
* Owen Gibson

Supporters Direct, the organisation set up more than a decade ago to further the case for greater fan representation in football, faces a funding crisis following a furious row over Twitter messages sent by its chief executive.

It is understood that the Football Stadia Improvement Fund (FSIF), funded to the tune of £6m a year by the Premier League, including £750,000 ringfenced for a new Fans' Fund, has rescinded the money it pledged to Supporters Direct over the next three years. Instead, it will invite individual fans' groups to apply for the funding directly. Under the last three-year funding formula, the FSIF channeled £1.8m over three years through Supporters Direct.

The FSIF board was believed to be dissatisfied with the reply provided by the Supporters Direct chair Dame Pauline Green in response to concern over tweets from the chief executive Dave Boyle celebrating the promotion of AFC Wimbledon.

Following an exchange of letters, it wrote to the organisation on Wednesday to say the grant was being rescinded. Boyle has apologised for the "crude and offensive" tweets, which he subsequently deleted. One said: "The Bible can F*** off. This is the greatest story ever told."

The issue of fan ownership became a political football in the run-up to the general election, with all three parties promising to come up with new proposals at the height of fan anger over the balance sheets at Portsmouth, Liverpool and Manchester United. The ongoing parliamentary select committee inquiry into football governance, expected to report at the beginning of July, is expected to contain proposals on fan ownership.

The question mark over the future funding of Supporters Direct, an umbrella organisation envisaged as an administrative, legal and financial resource for fans looking to take a stake in their clubs, will lead to fresh debate about its future funding and role.

According to its mission statement, the organisation's goal is "to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement and community ownership". It has helped establish more than 100 supporters' trusts across England, Wales and Scotland and now also extends help to rugby league fans hoping to increase supporter involvement.

Last year, the FSIF – which was originally set up to fund improvements to facilities at all levels of football – was jointly funded by the FA and the Premier League, providing £2.8m each. Under a new funding formula, the Premier League now funds it directly through the £12m it provides to the Football Foundation.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/09/supporters-direct-cash-cut-tweets

Last Edit: Jun 12, 2011 6:29:26 GMT by Macmoish

"These are the times that try men's souls"

Macmoish
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Supporters Direct in Trouble Jun 10, 2011 6:58:59 GMT

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Post by Macmoish on Jun 10, 2011 6:58:59 GMT

From When Saturday Comes (WSC) Steve Menary

Right-wing attacks on the supporters' trust movement

9 June ~ The Daily Mail has targeted Supporters Direct (SD) chief executive Dave Boyle after some ill-judged Twitter remarks. But is there something more sinister beneath their typically self-righteous outrage? An ecstatic Boyle was celebrating the success of AFC Wimbledon – the vanguard of the fan-ownership movement – finally winning promotion to the Football League when he made the postings. "The Bible can **** off. This is the greatest story ever told," he tweeted, according to the paper, while also aiming remarks at MK Dons chairman Peter Winkleman and Raj Parker, the lawyer who sat on the commission that approved relocating the original Dons to Milton Keynes.

For many, that "relocation" is the English game's nadir and Boyle, like many fans, refuses to forgive and forget. In a June 7 column headlined Football chief's an offensive tweeter, the scandalised Mail insisted Boyle's remarks were "not fit for a family newspaper". Boyle wrote a letter of apology after his Twitter outburst, so why – in the era of instant electronic communication – did it take the Mail 16 days to pick up the story?

It might look like silencing an active critic before a report by a select committee of cross-party MPs into the governance of football comes out, one that could pose some difficult questions for the Premier League. Boyle gave evidence at the enquiry, part of whose remit is to answer the question: "What are the pros and cons of the supporter trust share-holding model?" There are few pros as far as the Premier League is concerned while just five per cent of the enquiry's time was given to fan's representatives.

Boyle's remarks offered up a chance for SD's right-wing opponents to deliver a blow to the whole movement. The bulk of SD's funding comes from the Premier League via the Football Stadium Improvement Fund (FSIF) levy, and Richard Scudamore's cohorts are reportedly "mightily unimpressed" with Boyle according to another Mail rant on June 8. The timing of those twin blasts – more than fortnight after the offence – is interesting. Not just because the MPs' report is due out soon, but also because SD is in talks with the FSIF over funding for the next three years.

The Mail's latest vituperative attack on Boyle was headlined Fans' group at risk after boss blunder and the campaign looks suspiciously like an attempt by a right-wing newspaper to get someone they describe as a "left-wing radical" sacked simply for advocating fan ownership. SD's chairman Pauline Green has accepted Boyle's apology so why not let it lie? Only the Mail knows the answer. Steve Menary

www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/7311/38/

"These are the times that try men's souls"

Macmoish
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Supporters Direct in Trouble Jun 12, 2011 6:29:10 GMT

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Post by Macmoish on Jun 12, 2011 6:29:10 GMT

Guardian/David Conn

Supporters Direct's Premier League funding ends over Twitter taunts

• Football Stadia Improvement Fund rescinds £1.2m funding

• Board reacts to insults and swearing on Twitter

Supporters Direct, which has promoted democratic fan involvement in football clubs for 11 years, is facing a terminal threat to its existence after Premier League funding of £1.2m was withdrawn on the point of it being granted. The organisation, which has helped form 180 supporters' trusts – with 270,000 members – since it was established in 2000, and helped save up to 50 football and rugby league clubs, faces being imminently wound up and its 10 staff members losing their jobs.

The £1.2m, aimed at enabling SD's work to continue for three more years, was rescinded week by the Football Stadia Improvement Fund, a grant-giving body the Premier League wholly finances. The FSIF board stated the withdrawal of funds was a reaction to insulting comments, including swearing, made by SD's chief executive, Dave Boyle, on Twitter, after AFC Wimbledon won promotion to the Football League on 21 May. The FSIF said the response to Boyle's tweets by SD's board, which did not suspend or discipline him, was: "Not acceptable to the FSIF and the standards it would expect from any organisation in receipt of FSIF funding."

Boyle, who worked for SD since it started, resigned on Friday. Following a five-hour emergency board meeting on Saturday Brian Burgess, a long-serving supporter-elected director at Brentford FC, was appointed SD's acting chief executive. He will make urgent contact with the Premier League and FSIF to establish what steps SD can take to reassure both bodies as to its governance, and salvage its funding.

In his tweets Boyle made disparaging remarks about Peter Winkelman, MK Dons chairman and the chief proponent of Wimbledon FC's move to Milton Keynes in 2002, and Raj Parker, a lawyer who sat on the FA panel that sanctioned it. The vast majority of Wimbledon fans rejected Milton Keynes and formed their own club, beginning in the Combined Counties League. Their promotion to the Football League represents a landmark achievement for SD and Boyle, who worked intensively to assist AFC Wimbledon.

Nobody at the Premier League saw Boyle's tweets on the day, but they were subsequently brought to the attention of Bill Bush, the Premier League's director of communications and public policy. Bush chairs the three-man panel that considers funding applications from supporters groups to the FSIF, which in turn has a three-man board on which the Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, sits. The panel had approved funding for three of the six projects for which SD had applied, and were about to sign off the other three.

Bush wrote to Dame Pauline Green, SD's chair, asking for her comments about Boyle's tweets. She is understood to have replied that Boyle had apologised and would not behave in a similar way again. That was deemed very far short of the serious response required and, without further communication, the FSIF panel and board decided to pull its funding.

"The FSIF ... no longer has confidence in Supporters Direct's leadership and judgment and therefore the decision to offer the organisation a grant has been rescinded," the FSIF said in a statement.

Among supporters trusts, there is dismay that just as SD's future was about to be secured, the issue of Boyle's tweeting has led to its threatened obliteration. The Premier League denied on Saturday it was taking the opportunity to withdraw funding because SD's mission, supporter ownership of clubs, and its campaigning edge, are at odds with the Premier League's more commercial view. Sources said Boyle's tweets were considered so unacceptable and Green's reaction so weak that it called SD itself into question.

The pain for SD is deepened by the timing, as its philosophy is gaining support and awareness, including with the coalition government. Swansea City, freshly promoted to the Premier League, are 20% owned by their supporters trust, which has an elected representative, Huw Cooze, on the club's board. The formation of the Swansea trust, and advice on managing the club's then financial crisis, was Boyle's first case at SD.

SD was established with the support of the Labour government in 2000, but core public money was not made available to it, and Scudamore made a commitment last year to fund SD. The former Labour sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe, to whom that commitment was made, said yesterday the funding must continue. "The behaviour of an individual is for the organisation to deal with. But Supporters Direct has proved over time it is well governed and professional. It would be very wrong if the funding is withdrawn."

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/12/supporters-direct-funding-withdrawn-twitter

"These are the times that try men's souls"

Macmoish
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Supporters Direct in Trouble Jun 13, 2011 22:30:54 GMT

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Post by Macmoish on Jun 13, 2011 22:30:54 GMT

David Conn/The Guardian

Premier League response to ill-advised tweets is way over the top

Withdrawal of £1.2m funding to Supporters Direct over a mistake made in a heady moment is heavy-handed and unreasonable

Among supporters trusts nationwide there is shock and incredulity that Supporters Direct, which has helped save around 50 clubs since it was established in 2000, faces being wiped out by the withdrawal of £1.2m funding from the Premier League.

Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive, gave a commitment in March 2010 to the Labour sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, to fund Supporters Direct and the Premier League was due to sign off a package last week to keep the organisation going for three more years. The money was to come from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund, which is wholly financed by the Premier League.

Then last week the FSIF completely rescinded the funding, saying it was in response to tweets posted by Supporters Direct's chief executive, Dave Boyle, and the organisation's failure to deal with them seriously enough.

Boyle posted his tweets, which contained swearing, while celebrating AFC Wimbledon's promotion to the Football League on 21 May, one of his and Supporters Direct's greatest achievements. He apologised, withdrew them and has resigned – bringing to a sad end a major contribution to football.

On a shoestring, often short-term, insecure budget, Boyle and his staff of only nine developed a democratic model for mutual fan involvement, via supporters trusts which have been formed at 180 clubs in football and rugby league. Supporters Direct advised fans how to grapple with legal and financial horrors, often in existence-threatening crises, to work with other stakeholders and, crucially, how to raise money – as well as campaigning more widely for supporter involvement.

Supporters Direct has received £4m in funding since it was established 11 years ago and calculates its associated trusts have raised £26m, mostly directly for clubs, from share issues, fundraising and membership.

In 2002 the organisation was deluged by cries for help from fans of clubs where years of mismanagement tumbled into death knells with the collapse of ITV Digital and its Football League television deal. Among the clubs where volunteers formed trusts, then played significant roles in the clubs' survival were Lincoln City – an early pioneer – Chesterfield, York City, Bury and Notts County. Exeter City, taken over by their trust after two former directors had run the club insolvently, are still wholly owned democratically by their fans and now in League One.

The rejuvenation of Swansea City, dying at the Vetch Field in 2001, followed unstinting work by the supporters trust, and the local council built the new Liberty Stadium once, with the trust, stability had been restored. Newly promoted to the Premier League, Swansea are still 20% owned by the supporters trust, which has an elected representative, Huw Cooze, on the club's board. Supporters Direct has also worked with supporters of the biggest clubs, most notably Manchester United, Liverpool, Newcastle United and Arsenal, to form trusts either campaigning against damaging ownership or seeking a more active role.

The prospect of all that work being obliterated due to some tweets by the chief executive after 11 years' committed service defies balance and a reasoned approach. It was always an odd fit for the Premier League to be asked to fund an organisation whose philosophy – supporter ownership – looks at odds with elite clubs owned by oligarchs, leveraged buyouts, an Indian chicken company and other plutocrats. The Premier League denies it has seized on this as an excuse not to fund Supporters Direct, claiming it has terminal concerns about the organisation's governance. However, the decision, following 15 months of drawn-out discussions and a track record of excellent work, was made summarily, without prior warning.

The FSIF said in a statement: "The funding will still be available to the broader supporters' trust movement." However, this only increases the impression of a decision made too hastily, by a three-man FSIF panel chaired by the Premier League's director of policy Bill Bush, and the three-man board, on which Scudamore sits.

Trusts mostly require intensive help and advice, often in a fast-moving crisis, and Supporters Direct has developed structures, practices and procedures which all trusts can follow. It looks highly inefficient and unworkable to fragment that expertise into 180 solitary trusts filling in funding applications, with no central body giving advice. Just two weeks ago, the FSIF was convinced of Supporters Direct's value and preparing to fund it. Now it appears to be saying some ill-advised tweets have abolished the need for any organisation to fulfil this role.

That does not speak of considered, independent thinking at the FSIF or Premier League, which is, after all, still a competition for only 20 clubs, yet which appears incrementally to be controlling all of football, including the existence of its supporter groups.

www.guardian.co.uk/global/blog/2011/jun/13/premier-league-tweets-supporters-direct

"These are the times that try men's souls"

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