Fans form resistance movement to protect the game

Threats to the competitive integrity of English football come in many forms. Three of the very obvious include the growing likelihood of league games being played overseas, the current financial imbalance between clubs and rising ticket prices affecting atmospheres.

US pushing for competitive games as well as friendlies. Arsenal-United friendly last year at MetLife Stadium. Photo: Matthew Ashton -AMA/Getty

Supporters of the 92 professional clubs, and certainly amongst the Premier League 20, rarely combine collectively on issues as fans in, say, Germany do. Game’s too tribal. Whataboutery rules. Uplifting examples of an unprecedented unified resistance came in the swift, emphatic response to European Super League plans. Fans persuaded their clubs to see sense.

As dangers to their clubs increase, fans become more assertive and combine more, especially when provided the platform by the Football Supporters Association. At its AGM at Wembley over the weekend, a motion “opposing domestic football matches being played overseas” was proposed by Arsenal Supporters Trust and seconded by Cherries Trust, Manchester United Supporters Trust, Pompey Trust, Spirit of Shankly, Wrexham Supporters Trust.

All have American owners or co-owners, not all of whom are pushing for games in their homeland but everyone can see the direction of travel. Go west. The huge numbers being crunched Stateside will inevitably appeal to some of the 92 clubs, especially those struggling to comply with Profit & Sustainability Rules, seeking more power in the transfer market and facing ever rising player salaries. Arsenal play United in a friendly at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, a fixture that some influential people want played in its competitive form.

Clubs can also expand their global fanbase and enhance marketing and merchandising operations. The attraction is obvious and it would be a major surprise if a Premier League game was not played in Boston, New York, Miami or LA within the next five years. Enough people are already working on it.

Such an event, however inevitable, must be resisted at all costs for all manner of reasons. It is an insult to season-ticket holders, many of whom pride themselves on never missing a game. It is a challenge in time and money to travel to a match overseas. It harms the sporting integrity of the EPL or EFL by removing one club’s home game, and all the advantages that can bring. Owners pushing for games aboard undermine one of the strengths of the EPL that make it so popular: its competitive nature. It won’t be a middle-of-the-table game either. Those paying the big bucks will demand big names, big stakes.

Right-minded executives in the EPL can see the damage and try to slow the inevitable. Fans can see the menace and, as their motion highlighted, seek to “make representations to the Fifa working group against allowing competition organisers and clubs to move their domestic matches to international jurisdictions”. Fifa already

Fans want to ensure the FA, EPL and EFL also “oppose” these proposals. Fans also want the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to arrive as quickly as possible with “robust measures for fans to have a meaningful say to block proposals to relocate domestic games overseas”. 

Another motion focused on the dysfunctional EPL family becoming even more splintered and damaging the competition. Fans called for “continued action to address the increasing risk of challenges to the sporting integrity and competitive balance of our game”, especially following Manchester City’s legal action against the Premier League “arguing that the league’s Associated Party Transactions rules were unlawful and anti-competitive”.

APT rules are designed, as the fans say, “to ensure that club owners cannot use their vast wealth to inflate sponsorship deals and manipulate transfer dealings, leading to higher revenue with a consequent increase in spending power and an ability to get round Financial Fair Play restrictions”. This “will also further increase the gap between clubs that seek to be self-sustaining and those that can rely on unlimited investment from their ownership models”.

All the speculation about transfers and managerial appointments pale into insignificance compared to the issues raised by fans at Wembley, issues that menace the game. The motion highlighted why this attack on competitive balance should “be of concern to all fans”. Fans demand more of a concerted challenge to clubs, urge the incoming IFR to take a stance and also for all fans to work with football authorities.

Fans note that “as clubs scramble to remain competitive they are forever looking to increase ticket prices as they cite a need to ‘keep up’.” So much revolves around ticket prices, and whether fans feel properly valued.

Some clubs do appreciate and respect fans, communicate properly with them and are fair with any ticket price increases. Others just view fans as cash cows, especially when it comes to tickets. The final motion at the FSA AGM called for “co-ordinated action on the cost of football tickets”.

Proposed by Spirit of Shankly it was seconded by supporters of Arsenal, Manchester United, West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Wolves, Manchester City and Bournemouth. Groups like the Nottingham Forest Supporters Trust, Wolves 1877 Supporters Trust and City 1894 have earned plenty of praise for their robust response to ticket price hikes.

Ticket prices form a fraction of a club’s income compared to broadcast revenue. And why does English football so appeal to TV audiences? Star players and managers and international cast undeniably, and also the atmosphere whipped up by fans. Supporters should really invoice clubs for their role as essential “extras” in the show.

As the motion said, “despite the cost of living crisis and football clubs earning ever more income from broadcast and commercial income the cost of tickets increased at most clubs this year”. Fans also note that “many clubs are abolishing or reducing concessionary tickets penalising loyal senior fans and pricing out young fans who are the future of the game”.

The 18-24 age-group also needs protecting as those fans generate much of the atmosphere at a time when costs are particularly hard to bear as they seek employment, head into the workforce or college, amidst all the assorted expenses of the rental or property market.

Fans call for the IFR “to have involvement in ticketing pricing” and want the regulator to ensure fans to “have genuine input in their club’s ticketing policy”. Let’s hope the clubs are listening – and some are. English fans are rarely militant but there is a new mood in the stands and they have a forceful ally arriving in the IFR.