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Easier said than done

Something else we're less than brilliant at according to this article in t'athletic.

Piss poorly run club

AFC Wimbledon are English football’s best-run outfit, according to a report by Fair Game — a group of academics, clubs and financial experts set up in 2021 to promote greater sustainability in the game.

The Fair Game Index measured all 92 clubs in the top four divisions last season on four criteria — financial sustainability, good governance, fan engagement and equality standards — with each club given a total score out of 100 points.

The fan-owned League Two side top the rankings with 73.58 points, with divisional rivals Carlisle United second on 71.92 and League One’s Cambridge United third with 69.83 points.

Fair Game’s members, who include new Premier League side Luton Town and 13 EFL teams, believe clubs that perform well in the index should receive a greater share of the money, as well-run clubs should be rewarded for their efforts.

“The Fair Game Index paints a realistic picture of what our game could look like, a future where football chooses to reward well-run clubs,” said Fair Game chief executive Niall Couper.

“Premier League clubs have rejected calls to increase the financial flow through the pyramid because of risky financial behaviour by some clubs in the EFL. Distributing more money through the Index to the better-run clubs in the pyramid resolves those concerns.”

The EFL has been calling for the Premier League to share 25 per cent of the two leagues’ combined media income with teams in the Championship, League One and League Two. It also wants the top flight to scrap the generous parachute payments it gives to teams recently relegated from the Premier League and, instead, put that money into the main solidarity pot in order to close the financial chasm between the first and second tiers of English football.

Both of those requests have been ignored so far, with the Premier League instead offering a total figure closer to 20 per cent and only limited concessions on the size and length of parachute payments.

Fair Game is also strongly opposed to parachute payments, which totalled more than £210million last season ($275m), almost double the £120million the Premier League allocates in solidarity payments to the rest of the EFL. In fact, the parachute payment that each team receives in its first year after relegation, £45million, is more than the 48 teams in Leagues One and Two, plus the 72 teams in the three National League divisions, get combined.

The Premier League believes parachute payments are essential because they give clubs coming up into the top flight the confidence they need to invest in better players, and that is good for the entire game as it makes the league more attractive to broadcasters and sponsors, which means more money for everyone.

The EFL and Fair Game, however, think parachute payments skew competition in the Championship and force the rest of the division to take unsustainable financial risks just to keep up.

“Football is unsustainable — since the start of the Premier League in 1992, there have been 64 incidents of clubs in the top four divisions going into administration,” said Fair Game’s director of financial policy Dr Mark Middling, a senior lecturer in accounting at Northumbria University.

“Companies House data reveals that 44 of the top 92 were technically insolvent in 2022, and 31 per cent of clubs were spending more than they earn on players’ wages. That figure rises to 68 per cent when you look at the Championship.”

Brentford, on 63.34 points, are the highest-placed Premier League side in 10th, with relegated Southampton second and West Ham third. The average score for clubs in the top flight is 50, the highest of the four divisions, but Nottingham Forest let the side down by earning just 17.20 points. Only Hartlepool, who were relegated to the National League last season, score worse than Forest.

Premier League sides have the highest average scores for financial sustainability, good governance and equality standards, but the lowest for fan engagement. League One champions Plymouth Argyle are the only side to score a perfect 40 out of 40 for financial sustainability, while Cambridge have the best governance score of 20.88 out of 30. Exeter City lead the way on fan engagement with a score of 17.35 out of 20 and Lincoln City, another League One outfit, are top of rankings for equality standards, scoring 6.54 points from a possible 10.

The index focuses on these four criteria as they were identified as the most important metrics in the government white paper on football governance that was published in February. The draft legislation’s main proposal is the creation of an independent football regulator that will impose stronger financial rules, oversee club takeovers and, potentially, force the Premier League to share more of its huge media income with the rest of the game.

Dunno. But it's easy if you try.

Yes, we have. I pointed out at the time that Fair Game have a massive agenda and can fuck off, and I see no reason to change that view now.

I think it's an interesting conversation. I mean the ownership model of a single point of power and decision making with no meaningful connection to the club and city is always going to struggle to score well on a governance and sustainability metric and maybe in the "good times" it doesn't matter, but whilst that's fine when you're happy with your own club's performance it isn't really a great model for the game as a whole, or when the shit hits the fan and you're not happy being put our of business or the league. Of course, it's not perfect (and as a single club in a non-regulated game you can see a disadvantage to being "well run") and the results are not definitive, but the conversation is worth having.

Was reading an article in the Athletic the other day about average historical attendances for all clubs that had ever been in the Premier League. Obviously there was a nadir in the 80s, with Forest averaging only around 16000 that year. That's interesting as we were a decent team in those days. I only went to a couple of matches in the mid-eighties and didn't enjoy the matchday experience with the atmosphere of violence, the decaying terraces etc.
Of course, in the comments section there was still someone moaning about how things are not like the old days and the atmosphere is dead. Personally, I'm quite glad that the mid-80s atmosphere is no more; the idea of running from groups of hooligans or being hit by flying objects does not appeal. My last eighties match involved opposition fans throwing beer bottles across a busy road at each other (about 1987 I think). I didn't attend another match until 1994.

Accounts seem to universally dispute that, with people who were there for the European glory days saying that even back then the atmosphere at the City Ground wasn't as good as it is today.

In terms of the whole ground, it's certainly currently way ahead of any other time since I started going regularly in the late 80s but I think the CG is an outlier (and probably a reflection of being largely a closed group that is currently enjoying a quarter century high point).

The difference between the support now and the support during any other period I've been through is that it's supportive.

I like it

To be honest, I assumed ahead of last season that losing more and being at the wrong end of the table would do that and it didn't. For time being, people seem ok with being the wrong end of the right table.

In other Forest news, Awoniyi isn't in Spain because of "passport issues", which you'd think would have been checked by the club ahead of time. Magic on and off the pitch.

Perhaps it's an elaborate plan to suggest we're terribly sorry but he can't go to AFCON.

We’d better rethink it before our champions league campaign next year then.

Apparently Dennis and Scarpa have the same issue, it's do with having the wrong kind of visa.