Non-league Football

Debate between Ian Mearns and Lord Mann

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I am sure the FA is listening in and I have a few suggestions for it. The first point is that it cannot fill Wembley—it could not last night and Mr Roy Hodgson says it cannot be filled for all the England qualifiers—yet I have a load of kids in my constituency who have never been to a major sporting event of any kind. I am prepared to provide the buses and raise the money to enable them to do that, if the FA will give me the tickets, and I will fill Wembley on my own, every time, with kids from Bassetlaw, including kids who play for Worksop Town. I am prepared to do that for all the England qualifiers, and, indeed, any other major sporting event that needs some noise, passion and support.

We have 600 kids who play for Worksop Town alone, and those kids—boys and girls—say to me, “I’ll wear the shirt of my town.” Well, if we think the situation is bad in Hereford, I can say that the situation at Worksop Town is worse, because we cannot even go insolvent. At Worksop Town, the owner announced just before the start of the football season that he was putting no more money in. The directors—including the chairman, whom he appointed—immediately put the club into football abeyance; they said, “We’re not going to play any more, anywhere, ever.” There were some quick interventions, but they also wrote a letter withdrawing from the league. So without the fans or anyone else having a say, Worksop Town goes down a league, and when I go to the FA, it says, “Well, it’s too late; the letter’s gone in.” I say, “Well, what’s the fear?” and the FA says, “The owner won’t put any money in. The owner owns all the shares in the club.”

So I look at the club accounts. They show that Worksop Town’s assets are worth £669, because the previous owner somehow managed to get rid of the ground, so the club owns no ground; it owns nothing despite having been there since 1861. Yet with a turnover of £101,000, the new owner is apparently owed half a million pounds. He owns the club, however; he took it over. He decided, I think, that he was going to put some money in, and it is down in the accounts as administrative expenses. Last year, on a turnover of £101,000, there were admin expenses of £223,000, and the same the year before. That is down to an unnamed creditor, and I think that is Mr Jason Clark, the owner. I think he decided, “I’ll put money in, but I’ll put it in as a loan,” and then he said, “I’m not putting any more in, but I want someone to buy the club off me.” But the club has no assets—yet there are all these kids wanting to play, and go up and play for the full team.

Some are doing so, because we have managed to do a few little deals on the side, using the supporters trust. We have sorted a bit out. We have got support from the community. Mr Lee Westwood has put in some sponsorship, and Mr Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden has put his hand in his pocket as a Worksop lad, and Mr Graham Taylor, former England manager, and many supporters have put in, but they are having to put into the supporters trust because they cannot put into the club, because the club owes money, because the owner has decided to put in money that no one asked him to lend but he put it in as a loan.

What can the FA do about that? The answer is, at the moment, it can do nothing. It ought to be feasible in that situation for us to set up a new club, with the players and the managers and the supporters in support, and for the FA to recognise that club, and for that club to play in the same league. I am sure then, with helpful council support and support from private business and the rest—there is plenty of good will—we can build a new ground as we built the old one with the help of the fans. I am confident of that. Therefore, those 600 kids can aspire again, and we can have what we want in the town, which is everyone being proud of the name of the club and all those kids and people in the community being able to play. That is the kind of change that is needed in football.

If a party wants an idea for its manifesto, I suggest that in football the youth side and the stadium should be separated out from the semi-professional side. We should not be giving Government money or any other money if that can be siphoned off by an owner.

[Ian Mearns]

In future where clubs find themselves without a ground to play in, if the stadium still exists might we be able to find some mechanism for getting the supporters trust to be allowed to recognise and register the ground and stadium as an asset of community value?

[John Mann]

Absolutely, and we have got a community interest company and if we had a stadium, it would be in the CIC—and when we have a stadium, it will be in. I am sure I can get a stadium built; I am confident of that, but it will be owned by a CIC, and who will play at it? The owner will have a veto, because the FA will let the owner have a veto. We could set up an alternative club, but it has to start right down at the bottom. That is nonsense.

These rules will be simple to sort out, and we should use the leverage of any money that goes in—state money of whatever form, whether grant money or Football Foundation money via the Premier League and the rest of them, or whether section 106 agreements, which is one way in which we can develop a stadium with relative ease in Worksop over the next couple of years. Those guarantees need to be there, but the FA rules need to ensure that if we do this, we can ring fence it. That should be for all clubs, and, by the way, this is not just about the FA, because if we are dealing with the FA, I can get to the FA. But if we are dealing with the blazers running these leagues, with the power to decide who is in and who is out, we cannot even get to find out who they are, never mind get to meet them.

That is the problem with football. It is a great challenge, but I believe there are solutions there, and obvious ones if people are prepared to act. The whole country would be behind that kind of action.

Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Debate between Ian Mearns and Lord Mann

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information, and let me stress that I do not celebrate such cuts, but they are, perhaps, inevitable. I have only been to Strasbourg once—it was many years ago and it was not a trip to the Council of Europe—but it is certainly an opulent place. The following question should certainly be asked: do we need European parliamentary institutions in Strasbourg as well as Brussels?

[Sir Alan Meale]

I want to correct a possible misapprehension. As well as the 10% and 17% overall cuts already mentioned, for the last eight years the COE has had a nil increase in its budget, which is, in effect, a cut. The effects of these cuts are ongoing, and the COE is trying to work within the financial restrictions. In fact, one of the new secretary-general’s priorities is to deliver these cuts, and he has the support of all political parties in Strasbourg.

[John Mann]

Turning for a moment to what is happening in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend, I could mention the closure of fire stations. I hope the Government take a lead on seeing what more can be done, and I am certain the Minister is listening to this point.

On the Government’s priority to deal with the internet, the research from Norway, following the horrific murders there, on the propensity to violence of those surfing extremist websites needs further exploration. We need to analyse how the internet can have an impact on violence, including terrorist violence. This is a key area for us to do more work on.

We also need to address the question of corporate responsibility, not least with the internet providers. This chairmanship provides us with a great opportunity—with the internet as a priority—for the Government to get into that dialogue with the internet providers about precisely what their role is, how that can be improved and how best practice can be spread among them. I mentioned the overlap in the work of bodies such as the EU and the OSCE, and work on the internet causes a huge overlap. How are the Government going to use this opportunity to ensure that this work permeates those bodies and does not stand alone, because that would not be as effective as something that crosses over and permeates work ongoing in those two bodies?

How do the Government see the issue of education and the internet, including how young people are educated in schools on how they use and access the internet? We need to address the whole issue of grooming, child pornography and so on; important issues are involved. How are the Government going to use this opportunity to look at how best practice from other countries can be shared, how intelligence can be shared between law-enforcement agencies and what the law-enforcement regime should be, because it differs greatly between different member states of the Council of Europe?

All this provides a huge opportunity, albeit with a reduced budget, for the Government to make a mark, using their chairmanship of the Council of Europe and using the fact that they have prioritised the internet, starting in a few days’ time with the Foreign Secretary hosting this conference. I urge the Government to make sure that the balance is struck between freedom of speech, which is vital for democracies, and tackling the hate crimes that permeate the internet. If that balance is in their chairmanship, the Government will doubtless do a good job.