Freebie Friday: Why are we waiting for another club to go bust?

Football ownership under the spotlight once again

Welcome to the Friday Freebie, for those of you who are new to the site this is complete access post for everyone coming out every week and this one is the final blog to write for a whirlwind 2022.

I was going to do a little bit of a sum up with plans and progress given what an amazing journey my writing has undertaken in just the last twelve months, but in true non-league football style a topic appears and you think ‘this is it; this is the one to reach the people and let them decide and debate for themselves.’

Sometimes as well ideas fall into your head via other people especially on Twitter and that’s really how this post came about to be put down on paper. Early on Thursday morning I was tagged in a post by @UTM_Mariners, a South Shields fan who had become aware of a thread surrounding Scunthorpe Utd started by Steven Hammond (@AskernIron), a long time fan of the club.

For those who are unaware, Scunthorpe are one of a number of clubs currently battling against shall we say owners who don’t have the best interests of the club at heart and have dropped all the way down the professional game into non-league and currently prop up the top division of the National League.

As a football fan reading through the thread is horrific reading, I myself watched the demise of Maidstone Utd in the early 1990’s, not quite on the scale of what we see happening in clubs today but a then owner who basically mortgaged the family gold and couldn’t afford the repayments, the club ultimately went bust and disappeared for a full season.

Within this thread on Steven’s page are a whole heap of statements and other screenshots of articles that have happened inside the club seemingly built on lies and false promises and now is a club in ruin leaving fans to worry about whether they will complete this season and have a club left to support in whichever National League division they find themselves for 2023-24.

As well they are not the only club to have been run into the ground, in the same division Southend Utd fans are fearing the worst as well. Another club who are constantly one payment away from the taxman shutting the Roots Hall outfit down for good.

These failures haven’t just happened overnight for these two clubs at least, it’s been seasons of mis-management and at some point a halt could well be called. It happened to Bury, it happened to Macclesfield but football never seems to learn.

An article out on Thursday revealed that the Shrimpers players and management staff have been paid but other backroom staff are still waiting for November’s pay, no money for Christmas is really just unthinkable, what would you do if put in that position by your employer? If I correctly remember payments before October were delayed, the club itself remains in a transfer embargo.

Fans are believing that a court date coming up early in 2023 will finally see the end of the club, there is no money to fulfil what is being promised, how long is too long before others decide enough is enough?

Just outside the non-league game, stories broke at Crawley Town once of this level. Again, owners seemingly out of their depth and a club suffering once again. In short, the Sussex outfit were bought by crypto currency owners stating that conventional ownership hasn’t worked and they will bring something new to the table.

So far it hasn’t brought anything good, going cheap for inexperienced managers including Matthew Etherington who was sacked after less than 40 days charge, selling a striker to a relegation rival and rumours the owners were picking the team, once again people in charge who don’t seem to have a clue when running a football club.

But the question is, or two really, firstly how are these people getting past the FA’s Fit and Proper Persons Test and secondly when they have and it all goes wrong, why is there no interest in helping out these clubs?

Well firstly I think that test isn’t fit for purpose or robust enough to weed out the dud owners, either that or it’s very easy to say what they want to hear and doctor any paperwork and figures to prove they’re in the black.

Secondly, it just goes to show that the authorities supposedly in charge of running the game couldn’t care less and that includes the leagues they operate in. That would be the FA admitting failure in their processes, admitting they would actually need to do something to help, all you see is a wall of silence.

The leagues themselves are no better, not one ounce of help is ever placed in the hands of these clubs and I’m not talking financial help but advice or a plan put in place to get them out of the messes created although greater intervention should mean they never get this far.

The money at the top end of the game has created a large chunk of this in my opinion. The rich and bigger names have gotten richer, the rest spending outside their means in a huge amount of cases just trying to keep with the rest, that in turn has filtered all the way down and those who have mis-managed are paying the price now.

When a smaller club suffers in this way it’s not just the supporters who lose out, it’s the suppliers of stock, of food and drink, it’s the printers, it’s the community, it’s the young players in the closed down academy, it affects more people than you possibly think it would do.

For me, the fan led review by Tracey Crouch on behalf of the government which has proposed an independent regulator to control the game is long overdue. Too many people on committee’s and boards have a vested interest in clubs and that doesn’t deliver impartial decisions for the good of everyone.

The game isn’t just about 20 Premier League clubs and their wealth, it’s about a footballing pyramid that has existed for years and didn’t die in 1992, just ask Oldham Athletic, a founder member of that 20 and now only Scunthorpe Utd are between them and bottom place of the National League.

That power is needed by the regulator for the good of the game and for everyone to thrive, if the FA can’t control it anymore it’s not the job of one league to do so, the power gets taken away and used properly.

As mentioned above, having seen clubs disappear over the years and having to restart at the very bottom it has to change and with it so does the ownership of clubs, we can’t keep going on lurching from one crisis to another, tomorrow it could be your club, no one deserves that to happen based on the actions of one or two individuals.

As always would love to hear your views and comments, please check out the threads above on Twitter, these clubs mean a lot to their communities and local area, very few clubs were lost when football ceased we don’t need to be starting an awful trend now.

A Happy New Year to everyone who reads www.footballwriting.co.uk, 2022 has been another breakout year and 2023 promises to be even better, thank you for being a part of the journey and remember the Xmas and New Year offer of 20% off for 12 months is available until 1st January 2023.