Football Governance Bill (Second sitting)

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Stephanie Peacock]

Q I am aware of the time, because I know others want to come in, and I think that you have touched on what I am going to ask. Could you share with the Committee the sort of connection that your club has to the local community and fans and how important it is that your club listens to fans? Indeed, how does it carry out that listening?

Steve Thompson: We have a fan representative on our board; the season ticket members elect a representative on our board, so I hope that we try to be in tune. We have at least two fans’ forums, where anybody is invited along and they can ask questions of me and of the manager. But at a small club, you are walking around the ground and the bars before and after the game and talking to people, and if there is a problem, they soon come up and tell you.

Darryl Eales: Similarly at my end, we have a monthly meeting with the SMSA—Solihull Moors Supporters Association—and we work very closely with them. From a personal perspective—this is just me—I go for a beer before every game, both home and away, with the fans in the bar, exactly as Steve says, because people will pick up on their concerns. From a community perspective, we run about 65 youth and junior teams; every weekend, they are running around in Solihull Moors shirts.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Q I want to touch more on the point about the proportionality of the Bill. I am looking at the part 5 duties. Do you think that this strikes a balance between regulating clubs like yours and making sure there is a framework, and allowing you to run your clubs in the way you need to? Darryl, if we take Solihull Moors as an example, you are a club that has come out of a merger, effectively, with other clubs and you have had to be agile in how you have done that. If you look at the journey you guys have been on, how do you think that you would have been impacted if this framework had been in place at the time?

Darryl Eales: The interesting thing for me is that the Bill does nail a few points that are very, very important from my perspective. The stadium and the club should be umbilically linked. There should be, for every club, something that prevents owners from separating out the ownership. In our division this year, Gateshead did not make the play-offs, because they did not have tenure of their ground. To me, that seems to be fundamental. Where I echo Steve is that I think there are an awful lot of information requirements in the Bill. When I talk about proportionality, the reality of life at our level is that it will be us doing those things, and without being too rude, I have better things to do with my life than fill in forms.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Q I was interested in what you said about artificial pitches, Mr Thompson, because in my constituency I have Folkestone Invicta, in the Isthmian League. From what I can see, the Bromley FC model is the sort of model, from a financial sustainability point of view, that a lot of clubs in tiers five, six and seven should be following, because you have not only community use, but paid use of the site every day of the week, rather than a match every fortnight. Do you think that this should be looked at as part of a sustainability issue rather than a football competition issue? Actually, the sustainability of clubs going up into the Football League might necessitate that they have those sorts of facilities, which they monetise throughout the year, and their removal is not just a flat cost but something that compromises their commercial performance across the board.

Steve Thompson: Sutton United are a prime example from a couple of years ago. They went up and had to dig up their pitch. It was very much part of their community and their academy structure. Bromley are in the slightly fortunate position in that they have some land behind the stadium, where they are going to transfer the artificial pitch to, but it will still cost them several hundred thousand pounds. The annoying thing is that Sutton played Arsenal in the FA cup a couple of years back, and Arsenal, who are in the Premier League, happily and readily played on Sutton’s artificial pitch when they were at the National League side—no complaints. Every year, EFL clubs in the FA cup will play on artificial pitches, so that does not seem logical.

There are some arguments about how good the football is on such pitches and things like that, but the majority of young players at the top level now are coming through the EPPP—elite player performance plan—academies, and they all play on artificial pitches. It does not make sense. We have had this happen to four clubs in the past few years, and it is stopping other clubs that have the ambition to be promoted considering putting down an artificial pitch. That might help their community and their academies, but they think, “We can’t do that, because we can’t afford to put it in and then dig it up again.” Supporters are almost turning around and asking, “What’s your ambition?” The ambition of most clubs is to win their league, whatever league they are in, and to go forward.

That brings up another thing about academies at our level, and making certain that clubs at our level get the proper compensation for players that they have developed. At the moment, there is not that—National League clubs are not allowed to register a 16-year-old. Such things are not addressed in the Bill. Whether they should be, I do not know.