Cardiff City Supporters Trust has submitted evidence to the influential House of Commons’ Culture, Media & Sport inquiry into football governance.
Chairman Tim Hartley said: “Football is not like any other business. Clubs like Cardiff City belong to the local community and to the men and women who support them.
“While chairman, managers and players come and go we, the supporters, are here for the long haul. Football is rooted in local communities and must respect and respond to the needs of fans.
“That’s why we need a new football law which recognises the role of supporters, which ensures that clubs are properly constituted and run so that they cannot be traded like any old company, whatever the consequences.
“We want a UK Football Commission established to oversee the financial and corporate governance of professional football clubs. Fans should have a representative on the board of every football club in Britain and supporters’ groups encouraged to buy a significant shareholding in clubs.
“These are just some of the steps which could ensure that clubs become true community enterprises in which we can all take pride,” added Tim Hartley.
The key recommendations suggested by the 900-strong Trust to the Commons’ committee are:
- The government should establish a UK Football Commission (the Commission) which would oversee the financial and corporate governance arrangements of professional football clubs. The Commission would include representatives from the FA, football trust or Supporters’ Direct and a players’ representative.
- The Commission would conduct the ‘fit and proper person’ test for chairmen of football clubs over and above all other aspects of due diligence undertaken when a club changes ownership. This test would become a statutory obligation and be conducted in conjunction with the Football League and the Football Association, with the Commission having the final say on the suitability of all such persons to run a football club.
- The existing fit and proper person test would be strengthened. New measures could include the person’s previous record not simply in business but also in football, their personal history and past and their present financial standing.
- A club’s players wage bills should be capped as a percentage of the total turnover of the club and monitored by quarterly returns to the Commission. This would ensure there is no breach of the cap and that the figures could not be somehow masked over longer accounting periods.
- Supporters’ trust should have formal representation on the boards of professional football clubs, even if this is simply in an ‘observer’ capacity. Fans issues should become a permanent agenda item at all clubs’ board meetings.
- New share offers in football clubs should ensure preferential status for properly constituted supporters trusts so that they have the first right to buy any new share issue. This would continue until the supporters trust has achieved a %age of the total shareholding of the club. (We suggest this should be set at 25% of the overall shareholding.)
- As happens in France and the NFL, football clubs should be liable to independent audits every year so that the Commission is aware of the financial state of professional football clubs.
- In order to encourage supporter participation and ownership, tax relief should be offered on investments by supporters’ trusts in their clubs.
- Before there is a takeover of a professional football club, an ‘intentions test’ should be required by the Commission which lists and assesses potential investors’ plans to develop the club as a community enterprise as well as what role they intend fans to play in the governance of the club. This should then be made a condition of agreeing any take over.
