Football has never exactly been a shining example of good governance when it comes to the running of clubs (FA Governance is for another day!). The past is littered with examples of 'blatant crooks' or 'either robbing clubs blind or mismanaging them to the point of disintegration (administration and points deductions . For a good example just take a look at Darlington FC's folly of a football stadium opened in 2003 - a 25,000 seater stadium although capacity now reduced to 10,000 due planning regulations - average home gate less than 2,000. Then owner George Reynolds was arrested for money laundering and went bankrupt.
Although we will shortly arrive at 2012 these past few days I have been confronted with 2 staggering news stories on this same subject. Firstly poor old Portsmouth FC. If ever a club was caught on the ups and down of a rollercoaster its Pompey. And right now they are on the most vertical of downward descents. Their owner and chairman, Alexander Antonov, 'a russian banker' is the subject of a European arrest warrant amid allegations of fraud and multi million pound asset stripping. He would not be allowed to operate a bank here, but he can own and run a football club. Meanwhile Craig White, Chairman of Glasgow Rangers, admitted this week that he had previously been disqualified from acting as a company director for 7 years and that this ban only ended in 2007. One of the Scottish Football Association's criteria in assessing whether an individual passes their 'fit and proper person' test for owners and directors is whether they have been subject to such a disqualification during the past 5 years. How difficult would it have been to ascertain that White had been so disqualified and yet the SFA claim that they were unaware of this matter and had not been informed appropriately. It is evident that the authorities either lack the will or the means to conduct any true scrutiny of such individuals and that the FAPPT as it is sometimes known is little more than window dressing. What would the SFA's stance have been if they had been aware of White's past? It is hardly surprising that the Government has begun to involve itself in these matters and to call for fundamental changes in the way that football governs itself. The Department for Culture Media and Sport has responded to a Select Committee report into the governance of football by requiring proposals for reform from the football authorities by February 2012.
You might ask yourself how on earth some of these 'characters' were ever able to take control of football clubs in the first place??? Obviously there are rules and regulations which are designed to prevent this kind of fiasco. The FAPPT is described as a set of objective criteria, and yet it is interpreted and operated in a manner which seeks essentially to avoid costly legal disputes. The authorities fear that tough interpretation of the rules will lead to endless costly legal disputes with individuals who are refused permission to involve themselves in clubs and that consequently there will be an enormous drain on resources.
Football clubs are community assets cherished by their supporters. They are embedded in the fabric and history of their location. The fans of both Portsmouth and Rangers see their clubs teetering on the verge of administration and even, in Pompey's case, potential extinction. Will it take a few high profile casualties before football acts, or before the government forces them to do so? Of course the losers are, as always, the supporters.
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