Support John Cryer's EDM on the Fit & Proper Person Test

castrust

John Cryer MP has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for a stricter "Fit & Proper Person" test to protect clubs against owners who treat their clubs as playthings.

You can support this initiative by writing to your MP to urge him / her to sign the EDM.

More details:

castrust.org/

Covered End

Can't he start a petition ? It's far simpler than asking everyone to write to their MP.

Covered End

"Ensuring that any prospective or current club owner's ability and willingness to pay creditors is robustly checked on a regular basis.”

Unfortunately, that wouldn't effect RD/Charlton. It needs to be more comprehensive than that.

Many clubs could still end up as player farms or destroyed for property development etc.

A good start though.

cabbles

I was thinking about this the other day. Not so much stringer controls, but more so punitive measures to be enforced on the club owners should they prove to be unfit. Take Orient, they've had 5 managers this season. I would say that anymore than 2 in one season would incur a massive fine, not payable by the club, but by the owner.

Might be complete fantasy by me and not even legal, but things like this could be a good way to stop cavalier behaviour once in charge

Badger

I was wondering if the Trust could maybe explore this matter a bit further, i think it could work better if other Trust groups came together and added someone like John Cryer to act with influence to make it more acceptable for trust groups at clubs to have a say in the regards to what is Fit and proper.

The F.A. are clearly not doing anything other than sit back and say oh well the owmer passed our stringent fit and proper test. An EDM helps get the problem noticed but why should it be allowed to continue.

C_A_F_C

Didn't Katrien try EDM in Crossbars?

cafcfan

Badger said:

I was wondering if the Trust could maybe explore this matter a bit further, i think it could work better if other Trust groups came together and added someone like John Cryer to act with influence to make it more acceptable for trust groups at clubs to have a say in the regards to what is Fit and proper.

The F.A. are clearly not doing anything other than sit back and say oh well the owmer passed our stringent fit and proper test. An EDM helps get the problem noticed but why should it be allowed to continue.

While it is true to say the "Owners' and Directors' test" is the FA's baby, it is administered by The Premier League or EFL as appropriate. It is worth noting that being either "fit" or "proper" is neither here nor there, in the way that it is for the FCA's test for approved persons working in financial services. In that industry an appropriate qualification and relevant experience provides a good measure of whether an individual is up to the job. Football doesn't have this sort of regime.

All the "disqualifying conditions" are objective tests. For example, being a bankrupt, having a criminal conviction for a dishonest act, etc, etc.

Introducing a subjective test, for example, an owner being a useless twat, would make the whole process unwieldy, almost impossible to manage and leave the system stuck in a quagmire of expensive, never-ending legal challenges.

At the end of every season, 12 clubs out of 92, some 11% of the total, get relegated. I'm betting a large percentage of the supporters of those clubs would blame their useless board of directors: and they may well be right.

But I just don't know whether it is at all possible to set up measures that would be able to test, on the balance of probabilities, that it was reasonable that an individual should be disqualified from holding a board-level position at a club. And I bet John Cryer doesn't either. As an industry, football is set up to ensure that a hefty number of its businesses fail every year. It is true to say that it would not be so exquisitely painful if they did not.

Covered End

cafcfan said:

Badger said:

I was wondering if the Trust could maybe explore this matter a bit further, i think it could work better if other Trust groups came together and added someone like John Cryer to act with influence to make it more acceptable for trust groups at clubs to have a say in the regards to what is Fit and proper.

The F.A. are clearly not doing anything other than sit back and say oh well the owmer passed our stringent fit and proper test. An EDM helps get the problem noticed but why should it be allowed to continue.

While it is true to say the "Owners' and Directors' test" is the FA's baby, it is administered by The Premier League or EFL as appropriate. It is worth noting that being either "fit" or "proper" is neither here nor there, in the way that it is for the FCA's test for approved persons working in financial services. In that industry an appropriate qualification and relevant experience provides a good measure of whether an individual is up to the job. Football doesn't have this sort of regime.

All the "disqualifying conditions" are objective tests. For example, being a bankrupt, having a criminal conviction for a dishonest act, etc, etc.

Introducing a subjective test, for example, an owner being a useless twat, would make the whole process unwieldy, almost impossible to manage and leave the system stuck in a quagmire of expensive, never-ending legal challenges.

At the end of every season, 12 clubs out of 92, some 11% of the total, get relegated. I'm betting a large percentage of the supporters of those clubs would blame their useless board of directors: and they may well be right.

But I just don't know whether it is at all possible to set up measures that would be able to test, on the balance of probabilities, that it was reasonable that an individual should be disqualified from holding a board-level position at a club. And I bet John Cryer doesn't either. As an industry, football is set up to ensure that a hefty number of its businesses fail every year. It is true to say that it would not be so exquisitely painful if they did not.

I agree, but I still believe more appropriate criteria should be added.

It's not beyond the wit of man to come up with something better.

castrust

The Football Supporters Federation have been invited by the EFL to come up with some appropriate wording and have set up a working group to explore it.

But, as cafcfan says, finding a form of words which can have any legal force is going to be very difficult which is why the EDM focusses on financial impropriety, I think

man_at_milletts

There should be a few on here in Efford's constituency. That'll be interesting.

cafcfan

castrust said:

The Football Supporters Federation have been invited by the EFL to come up with some appropriate wording and have set up a working group to explore it.

But, as cafcfan says, finding a form of words which can have any legal force is going to be very difficult which is why the EDM focusses on financial impropriety, I think

But even that demonstrates the problems: have QPR paid their FFP fine yet? No, of course not. All quiet for nearly a year on that one!