Supporters Summit 2014 report

Brakes Trust Vice Chairman Peter Davis, Secretary Nick Hallworth and board members Roy Sandison and Nick Rogers attended the Supporters Summit 2014 at Wembley Stadium yesterday, 26th July.

The Supporters Summit is an annual event organised jointly by Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters Federation.

The summit was hosted by the FA in association with BT Sport, and was held in the Club Wembley area with workshops held in a variety of locations within Wembley Arena.

We started with an informative tour of the stadium that took in the press conference room, home changing rooms, players tunnel and the arena itself.

Then it was down to business with the opening session and opening addresses from Kevin Miles (Chief Executive of the Football Supporters Federation) and Robin Osterley (Chief Executive of Supporters Direct) on the theme of “Fixing Football” – after some introductory discussion this “featured” a recorded video interview with FA Chairman Greg Dyke focusing on his May 2014 “England Commission” report.

Dyke’s main thrust was that although many might not agree with the conclusion of the report, the controversial insertion of “B teams” into the english pyramid at the Football League and Conference levels, something has to be done. He was insistent that even if that might not be everyone’s solution some kind of solution must be found – rather than staying put as we are. His insistence that he is in touch with real fans wasn’t helped by the video attempting to support this by showing his infamous meeting with England fans on a posh boat in Brazil!

The view from the floor varied but included assertions that the FA should be less concerned about the state of the England men’s team and be more assertive as the regulator of the game with the vested interests of the Premier League. The attendees were more concerned with the proper support of grassroots, fans and clubs at all levels of the game.

We then each attended different morning “workshop” sessions on topics including:  “Protecting Club Identity”, “What does a good club licensing system look like in the UK?”, “Away Fans Matter” and “SLO’s – what have they done for you?”.

I attended the session on club licensing chaired by James Mathie (SD Club Development Manager) with guest speaker Nick Igoe (Consultant, SD Club Development). Although a rather dry topic, this looked at the rules of the Football Conference as an example of good club licensing. The view was that, although the detailed rules regarding Payroll Reporting, Club Budget controls, Loans and Insolvency are not perfect and had some loopholes, they were seen to be a good basis on which to run all league football. There were several suggestions for improvement tabled and discussed – with the emphasis on pre-emptive financial monitoring rather than post disaster sanctions that punish clubs in recovery for the actions of previous owners. In other words prevention is better than the cure.

We broke for lunch, with not a single prawn sandwich in sight. Peter Davis and myself attended a BT Sport Supporters Club Q&A with England Women’s International  Alex Scott. This was preceded with a shortened viewing of the video “Gilbert Silva’s Road To Rio” which featured BT Sport’s Supporters Club sponsorship of the “Street Child World Cup”. The Supporters Club backed three charities that sent teams from different continents to the tournament. Alex Scott described her trip to the Brazilian Favelas to meet some of the players and charity workers involved. She then answered questions, including one from Pete about the possible effect on the men’s game about the recent coming out of England Women’s Captain, Casey Stoney.

The afternoon started with a session reviewing the already featured  FA Chairman’s England Commission Report. In the absence of FA Chairman Greg Dyke, the FA’s stance was put forward by Richard Tur (Council Member/Football Regulatory Commissioner) [I think I’ve identified him correctly but didn’t take note at the time].

Then we broke off for the afternoon workshop sessions, on topics including: “Financial Fair Play at Home & Abroad”, “Fans for Diversity”, “Who are ya? Safety Advisory groups”, and “Supporters Trusts”.

We attended the session on Supporters Trusts, chaired by Robin Osterley (Chief Executive of Supporters Direct). Peter Davis was one of the panelists as well as David Matthew-Jones (Chair, Cambridge Fans United), Katrina Law (Secretary, Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust) and Barnie Razzell (Chairman, Charlton Athletic Supporters Trust).

Each panelist gave an introduction to how their Trust came about and a summary of their activities, which were many and varied – although, as Pete pointed out we all probably had the Southern League Trophy in common!

Peter Davis – panelist Supporters Summit 2014 – “Supporters Trusts”.

The closing session was a football Question and Answer session, hosted by a quartet of young blood journalists from “The Blizzard”. As this started with a prolonged session of journalistic banter, jostling and back-slapping we headed for the exit and went on our separate ways …

(no journalists were harmed in this visit nor were any Trust funds spent).