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Post by glosblue on Oct 22, 2020 10:26:56 GMT
email sent to enquiries@vanarama.co.uk (National League sponsors): You should be aware of the damage being done to your brand by the absurd (at best) decision taken by the National League regarding the split of the government funding to football clubs within the 3 leagues sponsored by yourselves. Instead of distributing the funds based on lost revenue from gate receipts (surely the only relevant mechanism), they have applied a simple figure based on league status. For example, Chester FC (average documented home attendance 2,019) get a cheque for £36,000 pcm. Boreham Wood FC (average documented home attendance 724) receive £84,000 pcm. The chairman of Boreham Wood met with the Secretary of State for DCMS recently to discuss how the money should be distributed: www.borehamwoodfootballclub.co.uk/uncategorized/wood-chairman-and-secretary-of-state-for-dcms-discuss-a-non-league-future/In this article, the chairman states he is a personal friend of the SofS, and says he is ‘delighted’ with the outcome. I might respectfully suggest you look into this, with a view to encouraging the National League to come to a more balanced approach that is patently fairer in terms of distribution of funds to directly replace lost revenue, and less open to question. I have copied Chris Matheson, the Chester MP, for his information.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 11:00:16 GMT
Can’t see the Telegraph investigating one of their own to be honest. They might surprise me. Fingers crossed.
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Post by glosblue on Oct 22, 2020 11:04:55 GMT
Response (within minutes) from Sam Wallace:
Thanks for your email, and for being a subscriber to the Telegraph. We appreciate your support very much. You raise some important points that we should follow up on. I am on a period of leave from tomorrow but I will pass on to one of my colleagues, Tom Morgan, to take a look.
Regards
Sam
If we grumble about this to ourselves, definitely nothing will happen. If we make a noise about it, maybe it will.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 11:14:13 GMT
Good work.
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Post by mcseal on Oct 22, 2020 11:20:28 GMT
email sent today to 'sam.wallace@telegraph.co.uk' (senior football reporter): You have reported extensively and critically recently about the approaches proposed to funding and management of the national game by clubs at the top of the pyramid. Here’s something for your interest about a similar situation further down the pyramid, at the Conference, Conference North and South level. The government recently awarded a grant of £10m to replace the revenue lost due to lost gate receipts for clubs in these 3 divisions for a 3 month period. Clubs accordingly provided details of their losses to the National League. However, instead of distributing funding based on those figures, the National League has instead simply applied a figure based on which league a club is in. There is a caveat to this, in that the better supported clubs in a particular league get a little more, but the differential between payments based on league status alone remains very considerable, thus for example: Chester FC (average documented home attendance 2,019) get a cheque for £36,000 pcm, as do York City (even higher attendances), because they are in the Conference North. Boreham Wood FC (average documented home attendance 724) receive £84,000 pcm, because they are in the Conference. On this basis, a club like Boreham Wood will actually profit from the payout, because it will be greater than the revenue lost: 700 x £15 (say) x 2 home games a month = c. £21,000 lost gate receipts cf £84,000 income. Clubs like York or Chester will substantially lose – the payout will not cover actual losses eg: 2,000 x £15 x 2 = £60,000 lost cf £36,000 income. Over the 3 month period in question, therefore, a club like York City will lose out on c.£70,000 of actual income lost; precisely the outcome the government funding was intended to prevent, and likely to lead to redundancies at such clubs that should be avoided. This might be considered as mere incompetence or laziness on the part of the National League. Obviously entirely coincidentally, the chairman of Boreham Wood, Mr Danny Hunter, met with Mr Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for DCMS recently to discuss how the money should be distributed: www.borehamwoodfootballclub.co.uk/uncategorized/wood-chairman-and-secretary-of-state-for-dcms-discuss-a-non-league-future/As the website article indicates, Mr Hunter states he is personally acquainted with the SofS, and was ‘delighted’ with the outcome of their discussions. As a mere Telegraph subscriber, far be it from me to suggest an angle for a story to an award-winning journalist such as yourself. It should maybe be suggested he looks at the make up of the National League Board and which teams are represented on it. Per this statement from Maidstone herethey seem to suggest that two of the biggest gainers of the bail out are Dagenham and Barnet who are both represented on the National League board. the whole thing stinks to high heaven.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 11:21:47 GMT
I have sent a similarly-worded email to the Morning Star this lunchtime.
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Post by devadevil on Oct 22, 2020 11:22:10 GMT
letter sent to Alison McGovern MP, using many of the arguments and statistics on this thread, I await her response.
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Post by superman on Oct 22, 2020 11:45:03 GMT
Well done to all who have taken the time to do some lobbying. The one danger perhaps in all this is that come January when the support runs out, and the remainder of the season is to be continued behind closed doors, the S of S for DCMS may be reluctant to provided further support, which will really muck things up for some clubs.
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Post by Churton Blue on Oct 22, 2020 11:59:41 GMT
The full text of the Blog from the joint owner of Maidstone FC Terry Casey. Worth a copy and paste for those sending emails. Hard hitting but says it exactly how it is.
The distribution of the £10million grant from the National Lottery to the Vanarama National League has left me utterly confused and bitterly disappointed.
Maidstone United Football Club have many things to be proud of: one being the way that we run the business in a sustainable way, reinvesting the profits from our activities back into the club, and two the sheer volume of deeply committed supporters who come and support the Stones and pay their entrance fees.
The Government was specific in that the money they brokered for our football clubs, via the National Lottery, was designed to ’replace lost gate revenue.’ Clubs agreed to start the season, taking on trust the promise to cover these lost revenues. This has not happened.
Our average gate over the last two seasons has been 2,000 per match and our club will receive 36k per month from the National League. This is some 50% below our estimated monthly shortfall! It is also nearly £50k per month less than Dover who attract just over 1,000 per match.
On the face of this it looks stupid but when it becomes clear that those sitting on the Board making the decisions are heavily biased towards their own financial wellbeing, then it’s not just a stupid decision but possibly corrupt.
For the Board of the National League to arbitrarily decide the first thing that they will do is take 60% for their own clubs and give the South and North just 20% each looks stupid, especially as they have no mandate to keep the money for themselves as they should be representing the interests of all of their member clubs.
We are sure that the league sponsors such as Vanarama, BT Sport and the National Lottery will be carefully reconsidering their sponsorships on the back of this scandalous decision!
This is a clear case of the Board not serving the membership and a clear misuse of the way that the money was supposed to be spent.
For Tonbridge Angels to get 30k per month on their crowds of 600 must have felt like Christmas to them but for Hungerford Town to get 30k per month on their crowds of just over 300 it must feel like Christmas, New Year and Easter all at once.
This is utterly crass, short-sighted and stupid, with the Government’s words ringing in our ears that the money is: ‘to be spent on lost gate revenue.’
Hungerford and Tonbridge never ever had this amount of gate revenue so they are now in a massively better position as they will have spare money to sign players that they would never have been able to afford to attract.
This can also be seen with Oxford City and their 350 supporters getting the same 30k as Havant and Waterlooville with their 1,400 supporters.
The corruption and conspiracy theories abound when Boreham Wood, who have already made public their association with Sports Minister Oliver Dowden, and who have 730 supporters get just 10k per month less than Notts County with their 5,000 supporters.
Dagenham and Barnet, with their crowds of 1,200, also do well from the distribution – again just 10k per month less than Wrexham with their crowds of 4,000.
Please bear in mind that both these two clubs have members on the Board before you decide whether this constitutes abuse of power, conflict of interest or stupidity.
This is one of the most extraordinary cases of the misuse of grant funding that I have ever witnessed.
The FA and National League had a clear mandate to spend the money on lost gate revenue. What they have done is ignore this and instead allowed National League Board Members to favour some clubs with outrageous amounts of money that far exceed their gate receipts.
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Post by mcseal on Oct 22, 2020 12:35:50 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ?
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Post by chesterken on Oct 22, 2020 13:04:09 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? Judging by the very strong words by the Maidenhead Chairman against the National League board I would guess it’s them that has come out with this and finally all the clubs who have members on the board have come out of this very well🤔
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Post by Lobster on Oct 22, 2020 13:10:55 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? Judging by the very strong words by the Maidenhead Chairman against the National League board I would guess it’s them that has come out with this and finally all the clubs who have members on the board have come out of this very well🤔 It's Maidstone, not Maidenhead, just to be pedantic.
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Post by Churton Blue on Oct 22, 2020 13:26:34 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? That is an excellent question and at the moment nobody is owning up to it. Very hard to believe that the National League Board were not involved in a significant way though. Barnet, Dagenham & Redbridge, Aldershot and Dover all have people on the Board and have done well out of it. The process should have been overseen by the DCMS which given that the club in the constituency of the Minister came off best of all should raise issues for journalists at a national level to scrutinise. For me the whole things stems from the fact that the National League is not a democratic organisation and in the main simply looks after vested interests and the Sugar Daddy clubs. One club one vote and a decent CEO would go a long way to addressing this. Mike Tattersall needs to go and take Brian Barwick with him !
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Post by Harry Lime on Oct 22, 2020 13:35:13 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? My money is on the National League Board. It's got their fingerprints all over it.
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Post by chesterken on Oct 22, 2020 13:42:39 GMT
Judging by the very strong words by the Maidenhead Chairman against the National League board I would guess it’s them that has come out with this and finally all the clubs who have members on the board have come out of this very well🤔 It's Maidstone, not Maidenhead, just to be pedantic. 👍🏻
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Post by Harry Lime on Oct 22, 2020 13:54:08 GMT
Chris Matheson has advised that he is working with Ali McGovern and will be writing to both Oliver Dowden and the National League today.
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Post by mcseal on Oct 22, 2020 13:57:33 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? That is an excellent question and at the moment nobody is owning up to it. Very hard to believe that the National League Board were not involved in a significant way though. Barnet, Dagenham & Redbridge, Aldershot and Dover all have people on the Board and have done well out of it. The process should have been overseen by the DCMS which given that the club in the constituency of the Minister came off best of all should raise issues for journalists at a national level to scrutinise. For me the whole things stems from the fact that the National League is not a democratic organisation and in the main simply looks after vested interests and the Sugar Daddy clubs. One club one vote and a decent CEO would go a long way to addressing this. Mike Tattersall needs to go and take Brian Barwick with him ! I'd like to know the process. i.e if the National League did decide, was this sent to DCMS and or the Lottery for approval. If not, what do they think of the way their money has been distributed ?
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Post by avfo on Oct 22, 2020 14:03:26 GMT
Do we actually know who has decided on how this money is divided up? National League board, Dept of Sport and Culture, National Lottery ? I think in truth that only the NL board would probably be capable of such a monumental balls up (with FA and possibly also government approval). Whoever is responsible should explain how they reached their decision and asked why they have seemingly ignored the governments own criteria for awarding the grant. Extract from a list of questions submitted by Tracy Crouch to Nigel Huddleston, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sport, Heritage and Tourism at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. - Professional and Amateur Sport: Government Support 30 September 2020 Volume 681 Tracey Crouch Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend for his response. I know that his officials are working their socks off behind the scenes, so I thank them for what they are doing, too. The question relates to all professional sport, because there are fires raging around the whole sector and, to be honest, it has been difficult to see precisely where the support is coming from, but its urgency relates to the national league starting on Saturday. Therefore, the reassurances are welcome, but it is disappointing that there is no specific announcement as yet about what the league will receive or when. However, because it does appear to be coming, will the Minister confirm that the distribution formula will be based on lost gate receipts, and not simply on step?
Nigel Huddleston I thank my hon. Friend for that comprehensive list of questions; I shall try to address as many as I can. She is absolutely right that the Government support needs to go to those in most need. Therefore, the criteria—which, as she recognised and accepted, are being developed by a fantastic team at DCMS literally as we speak —will be based on those most in need and will absolutely be focused on gate receipts. The purpose of the financial support is to help those who are most impacted by the 1 October decision. Therefore, that will obviously drive the criteria.For anyone wishing to contact Mr Huddleston - Email address - nigel.huddleston.mp@parliament.uk Or twitter - twitter.com/huddlestonnigel
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Post by scotty on Oct 22, 2020 15:23:26 GMT
Either Tracey Crouch misled Parliament (a very serious accusation and I think unlikely) or she has acted in good faith and been screwed over by the National League. She needs to intervene to protect not just the integrity of the funding but also her own reputation. I think that the NL have overstepped the mark and will suffer for this.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 15:25:55 GMT
Either Tracey Crouch misled Parliament (a very serious accusation and I think unlikely) or she has acted in good faith and been screwed over by the National League. She needs to intervene to protect not just the integrity of the funding but also her own reputation. I think that the NL have overstepped the mark and will suffer for this. Tracey Crouch is opposition - she was asking the questions.
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Post by Churton Blue on Oct 22, 2020 15:39:50 GMT
Either Tracey Crouch misled Parliament (a very serious accusation and I think unlikely) or she has acted in good faith and been screwed over by the National League. She needs to intervene to protect not just the integrity of the funding but also her own reputation. I think that the NL have overstepped the mark and will suffer for this. Tracey Crouch is opposition - she was asking the questions. Tracey Crouch is a Conservative MP who was the former Minister. She gave up her career as a Minister on a matter of priciple and as such has my utmost respect. Nigel Huddleston and has a lot of explaining to do.
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Post by scotty on Oct 22, 2020 16:04:36 GMT
Thanks for the clarification.
The point holds though - the Minister has to either slap the NL down, or go crawling back to Parliament to apologise.
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Post by devadevil on Oct 22, 2020 16:16:08 GMT
Statement from York City
The board is concerned that the funding allocated to York City FC does not meet the intended objective, to compensate for loss of income from match day ticket sales, and is not commensurable with funding received by other clubs.
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Post by nlb17 on Oct 22, 2020 16:55:57 GMT
Here is mine, sent to Mr Huddleston and Chris Matheson copied in! No need to read it, just used the info that everyone else has provided thank you, but put it on here just in case anyone else wants to copy and paste any of it to the relevant individuals.
Keep up the pressure everyone!
Dear Mr Huddleston,
I am writing to you following the National League’s announcement of the distribution of funding to clubs in the National League, and National League North and South.
I wish to know if there is to be an investigation into how this funding has been apportioned?
On the 30th September you made clear in Parliament that the funding for the National League clubs would be distributed ‘based on those most in need and will absolutely be focussed on gate receipts.’
As you will be aware following yesterdays announcement, this is clearly not the case. For whatever reason the National League executive have chosen to distribute the monies via some as yet unexplained formula, a formula that severely undermines the very existence of some clubs, particularly those clubs that rely on supporter involvement.
I am a lifelong supporter of Chester FC, a club that even in the National League North attracts an average of just over 2000 supporters to each home game. Chester will receive £36,000 per month, from the scheme, an average of £17 per supporter per month. Boreham Wood will be receiving £84,000 a month with average crowds of 724, an average of £116 per supporter per month.
How is this fair? How is this fulfilling the remit of the scheme and what you yourself said in Parliament?
The current distribution does not fulfil the promise that was made to clubs that they could confidently start the season on the 1st October, because the government would support them. Many teams, particularly those that are supporter owned and run, such as Chester FC, will be severely disadvantaged by this current arrangement and what seems on the face of it a misuse of a government grant.
I look forward to hearing from you as to how this situation is being investigated by the government.
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Post by agl on Oct 22, 2020 17:19:49 GMT
Oliver Dowden's close links with Borehamwood are plastered all over social media...there is even a picture posing with a Borehamwood shirt, bearing his name on the back. It's scandalous that Borehamwood is the team to have benefited most from this funding allocation. He really does need to be held to account.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 17:30:53 GMT
Hopefully Solomon Hughes investigates these scoundrels and is published next Friday 🤞
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Post by avfo on Oct 22, 2020 17:32:13 GMT
Oliver Dowden's close links with Borehamwood are plastered all over social media...there is even a picture posing with a Borehamwood shirt, bearing his name on the back. It's scandalous that Borehamwood is the team to have benefited most from this funding allocation. He really does need to be held to account. Not a good look on a couple of levels, the two masked men (image courtesy of BWFC OWS)-
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Post by onetrevorstorton on Oct 22, 2020 17:38:33 GMT
Tracey Crouch is opposition - she was asking the questions. Tracey Crouch is a Conservative MP who was the former Minister. She gave up her career as a Minister on a matter of priciple and as such has my utmost respect. Nigel Huddleston and has a lot of explaining to do. Principles Indeed . Tracey Crouch Member of Parliament for Chatham and Aylesford Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch is a British Conservative Party politician. She is Member of Parliament for Chatham and Aylesford, having gained the seat from Labour at the 2010 general election. She was appointed as Minister for Sport, Civil Society and Loneliness in 2017, but resigned in 2018 due to a delay over the introduction of reduced limits on the stakes of fixed odds betting terminals.
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Post by Frank Owen’s Paintbrush on Oct 22, 2020 17:41:29 GMT
Tracey Crouch is opposition - she was asking the questions. Tracey Crouch is a Conservative MP who was the former Minister. She gave up her career as a Minister on a matter of priciple and as such has my utmost respect. Nigel Huddleston and has a lot of explaining to do. Thanks for the correction.
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Post by avfo on Oct 22, 2020 17:53:13 GMT
From twitter -
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