FA reform to be debated in Parliament – how you can help show the importance of football to communities

Earlier this week the Club were contacted by Supporters Direct to highlight that there will be a debate about the future of the Football Association in Parliament on Thursday 9 February.

The FA is under increasing pressure to reform its governance structure. Sports Minister Tracey Crouch MP has set a deadline of April this year for the FA to comply with the new code of standards for sports governing bodies or run the risk of losing £30 million a year of public money and the support of the Government for future tournament bids.

The Chair of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, Damian Collins MP, has started plans to take that one step further with legislation which would lead to the reform of the FA.

Huge numbers of people within football strongly believe that many of the problems we are encountering across the game today such as club ownership could be addressed with the FA re-establishing itself as the governing body and regulator of English football. We need to refresh the structure so that it is more representative and there is a framework to enable better strategic decisions for the long term future of the game to be made.

The motion to be discussed in the Commons will be:

“That this House has no confidence in the ability of the Football Association (FA) to comply fully with its duties as a governing body, as the current governance structures of the FA make it impossible for the organisation to reform itself; and calls on the Government to bring forward legislative proposals to reform the governance of the FA.”

For that reason we are calling on Fisher supporters to contact your local MP (s) to make them aware of the debate and to show their support by attending. Our own local MP Neil Coyle should be well aware of the importance that a football club can play to a community, and indeed the damage that can be done to their communities where clubs have been mismanaged. This debate provides an opportunity for our MPs to speak on yours, and the Club’s, behalf to make your own feelings known.

Supporters Direct have prepared a template letter which you can use to write to your MP to express the importance of them attending and standing up for the future of grassroots football for communities at a time when the focus and governance appears to have be far more focused on commercial gain than better the lives of local people. You can find the letter by clicking here, then email or post it on to your local MP. The Club have already written to Neil Coyle, but we do appeal to supporters to do them same (and indeed any fans who live in other constituencies to contact their MP) to ensure that our elected officials understand the importance of football to communities.