Gate Money: Inside Non-League Football's Funding Fiasco (Full Documentary)

foreign [Music] and that's it I mean that's um well we're journalists and journalists know there's usually more than one side to a story we just met with a wall of Silence there we are that's all there is non-league football is a multi-million pound industry its clubs have been owned by Hollywood stars like Ryan Reynolds galacticos like David Beckham and local millionaire businessmen it's attended by more people than county cricket Opera and ballet [Music] foreign like everything else it was stopped in its tracks by the pandemic [Music] this should have been a feel-good story of a football league that hit the jackpot instead it dissolved into a tale of abuse bitterness and recrimination for the first time since World War II a league at this level was declared null and void [Music] [Applause] the current coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of our lives and sport is no different most events are canceled and the football season is suspended foreign [Music] it's the most remarkable story I've I think ever covered when it comes to sport you know I found it astonishing the way it all unraveled clubs like ours that are dependent on matched income were in a lot of trouble this is 10 million pounds that was going to have to be distributed and I'm not naive enough to think that football is a big happy family but clearly there was a huge amount of self-interest it was a drop off a cliff like we'd never seen I mean anger's not even a strong enough word I thought it was scandalous there seem to be no minutes of meetings probably the last thing that happened like that was The Great Train Robbery but they ended up that sort of money without paperwork it seemed to me that there was a lack of governance here there was conflicts of interest there was a proposal that there should be a vote of no confidence in the board yes National debord yes National League board and look they're all in green according to this they were net beneficiaries by 527 354 pounds you just felt as though you'd gone into a parallel universe these little old Pals acts maybe when there wasn't social media and stuff like that they you could get away with them a bit more it was horrific [Music] just makes it feel like there is something odd and not quite right if the report isn't published I asked the minister to confirm that the distribution formula was it will be based on those most in need it will absolutely be focused on gate receipts [Music] my name is Fred Atkins and I'm a sports journalist and lifelong Maidstone United supporter I'm setting out on a journey to find out what happened to National League clubs during the covid-19 crisis [Music] the money that was supposed to keep clubs afloat left some clubs feeling like they'd won the lottery While others were pushed to the brink of collapse I want to find out what happened to the gate money was proper football it's it's it's raw it's a lot closer I think to that football experience of the maybe the 70s 80s and 90s A lot of people grew up watching football where you can you can have a drink with the players at full time you can you can speak to the chairman you know in the stands and get and get an answer to what's going on at your football club it's the level of football that's maybe a bit muddier maybe you know not as sanitized it's raw and it's it's a little bit more real foreign football is something that it means so much more to people it's your Chelsea Man City supporter you expect you expect down here you hope there are 92 clubs in the English football league spread across four divisions there are hundreds of semi-professional clubs playing in Regional leagues but in between the football league and these Regional leagues lies the national league which is comprised of 66 clubs and organized into three divisions is it you know it's it's a cliche but Chester's a proper family I guess in many ways the the results and what happens on the pitch is secondary to that it's that sense of belonging and that you know we're a club that takes its takes its place in the community really seriously [Music] since automatic promotion was introduced in 1987 only three clubs have actually folded while playing in the football league well these are the floodlights from the back of the stand it does look a bit different in the same period however dozens of clubs have gone bankrupt trying to either attain or regain Football League status to learn more about how finances work at non-league level I'm meeting football Finance expert Kieran McGuire doing how difficult is it to run a national league side even in normal circumstances but let alone during a pandemic how hard is it to balance the books when you are running a club like that pre-covered nearly all of the clubs in the National League itself were loss making we take a look at the figures from 2019 which is pre-covered the national league clubs between them lost over 16 million pounds so that's on average 300 000 pounds per Club that's pretty precarious and the reason for this was was twofold first of all that there were clubs who were coming down from the efl who had players on fixed term contracts you throw in some clubs who have owners who are incredibly ambitious and who want to reach the efl and that's that's a license to lose money as far as lower league football I think we've got two types of of ownership structure we've got those clubs who are being funded as trophy assets by their their owners who who want to see progress on the pitch and are prepared to underwrite that and then we've got those clubs who they're either fan owned or they're they're owned by individuals who don't have the resources to to provide significant funding and they're run on a break-even basis and I think that that second tier of clubs they were the ones who were at the greatest risk of going out of business when Maidstone United went bust in 1992 I witnessed it firsthand the damage that it did to this community it's a human social and emotional cost that can best be described as a kind of collective bereavement this was the kind of existential threat that some clubs were facing during covid we've got a lot of older supporters and this was very often their Lifeline because it's a vibrant club like a lot of non-league clubs they're Community clubs we would get 2 000 people coming here and and we lost that and on the other side Vehicles the financial side was was a terrible worry for everybody is how how on Earth are we going to survive it got to a point where the football became secondary to people we were hearing were unwell and then we all lost people in in the early days and um they were just dark dark times right on the border of Wales and England Chester City FC were relegated from the football league in the year 2000. after a decade of turbulence they were liquidated but they reformed as Chester FC in 2010 and by 2020 they were a stable community club financially we were we were as robust as probably we have been when the when the pandemic began football is you know as a support-owned club our biggest source of income is Match Day revenue and from fans attending game the concerns are how are we going to pay player wages it was a worrying time um because our our biggest source of income had been cut off [Music] foreign in South London dulwich Hamlet had become one of the non-league's best supported sides in the space of 10 years the average gate increased from around 200 to around 2 000. I mean you've got a sort of self-sustaining Club here how difficult was that first of all when when Kobe did kick in it was obviously put immediately putting the club at risk but strangely a difficult is not a word used for it it was remarkably simple because it all just stopped foreign there was no decisions to take there was no options there was no what do we do it was it's over obviously for this club because all of our income comes from match days it was a drop of a cliff like we'd never seen to go from open to close overnight was just shocking in September clubs below the national leagues were allowed to admit fans again meanwhile all 92 Football League teams had existing TV deals boosted by a new streaming service fans of national league sites weren't permitted to attend games clubs had only a fraction of the TV money with the season about to kick off they were stuck in no man's land [Music] there is a perception within this country that football is very rich and that it doesn't need handouts from government to support it and in the case of Premier League clubs that that might be true but actually at National League level that's not the case this government believes that sports clubs are the beating hearts of their communities will be to lose them we would lose so much more than sport that's why to help Community clubs through this crisis dcms funding body sport England announced a 210 million pounds emergency fund question from Tracy groucher is participant in virtually so I will call Minister Nigel Huddleston to answer the question but the urgency of the question related to the National League starting on Saturday and therefore the reassurances are welcome but it is disappointing that there is no specific announcement as of yet as to what and when the leak will receive but because it does appear to be coming can I ask the minister to confirm that the distribution formula will be based on Lost gate receipts and not simply by step I I Thank The Honorable lady for that she's absolutely right that the government support needs to go to those in most need and therefore the criteria which is as she recognized and accepted is being developed by a fantastic team at dcms literally as we speak it will be based on those most in need it will absolutely be focused on gate receipts sports clubs have proven themselves bedrocks of their communities during this pandemic sports clubs have had our backs we will have theirs in return [Music] on October 17th the news finally broke that the national league would receive a 10 million pound Grant from the national lottery the State Franchise Lottery system I mean first of all Tracy um do you know who it was that made that app and how that actually came about well I think government was very instrumental in that it was scrambling around for some time to find out exactly what the source of that funding would be and they had some very deep conversations with the national lottery who were ultimately the the people that coughed up the cash with the lottery funding I I think there was there was a sense of relief that there was some money being produced at one point I think it was hinted at it was going to be 20 million pounds over over six months um and then when it materialized it it came from the lottery which I think was a surprise to a fewer after receiving the funding the national league was made responsible for Distributing the money to clubs like many organizations it is run by a board of directors that have voted for by clubs some of these members have been the board for many years I think one of the challenges in the way that the nationally board was set up is that a lot of people that are on that board are are working at a club or our owners of those clubs seven days after the board was tasked with splitting the 10 million pounds between 66 clubs the national league announced its plans for Distributing the money despite the initial promises made by Nigel Huddleston in Parliament it wasn't based on gate receipts how did you at Chester feel when the distribution model was Unreal very disappointed very frustrated that this this grant which for which we are you know incredibly grateful for us it would always been clear that that Grant was was to replace the essential revenue from fans not being able to attend games so yeah there was that initial relief that yes we can play on and we're gonna have this financial support and very quickly turn to frustration and anger I mean anger's not even a strong enough word then you get into panic you know the distribution was Stark to cover a three-month period we were going to get less than two months because whatever way you cut it you're now going backwards financially and what you thought was a manageable debt starts to become an unmanageable one the board decided to split the money 60 20 20 between the three divisions the 23 top tier clubs would get six million pounds while the other 43 would receive 4 million whoever secured their funding did a great job that's my biggest frustration is that pop was enough and should have protected all clubs as I tried to make sense of the funding model I wanted to find out why the money was split this way and why the funding seemed to favor clubs in the top division the only people who could answer that question were the national league themselves [Music] yeah it's all very generic um there's very little information there's no idea you know there's not a bit of press officer is um there's nothing to suggest you know where you might go if you do have a press inquiry there is no phone number other than a generic office phone number that you can call [Music] Mommy I was um appropriate contacts that has been supplied to your third secretary by email automated thought the national League Dorking Wanderers are a very different kind of Club to dulwich and Chester funded largely by directors and sponsors rather than gate money docking all of the clubs that actually benefited from the League's distribution model but their owner and manager Mark White could see the problems that lay ahead foreign happening during that pandemic was what I'd deem unprofessional multitude of different versions of opinions and clubs and people would happily vote for or agree with things that simply you know benefited them and you know my attitude is as it should be in life the governance has got to be done properly it might not affect you today but it could tomorrow so when it got carved up in the way it did it was bizarre if the team at the bottom or second bottom had double the income they normally would then forget the rest you had to be wrong I mean there was some non-lee boffins out there so to speak that they're actually producing really good ways of putting the funding out there um in a way that was representative of the losses clubs had and I was looking at these models thinking well that makes complete sense and we wouldn't argue with that one of those non-league buffins Mark White was referring to is Duncan Hart a dullage fan who is one of the first to come up with an alternative funding model MCU came up with a distribution model can you just tell us a bit about what you did well yeah I seem to remember seeing my news on BBC and maybe just before lunchtime I I then wait for my lunch break about half 12 opened up my laptop did an Excel spreadsheet Okay so it looks like a complicated spreadsheet but it's not really it is merely um pasting in the averages attendances for each of the clubs 1920 and then allocating working out what the total number of attendances was and then dividing the 10 million pound by each person so then you've got a pound per person basically if you're going to put on attendances and then you allocate that against the average attendances for each Club so total corrected subsidies there and and then then work out the difference between what was actually provided and what should have been provided based on attendances and this took you about half an hour yeah I think so yeah um because I I the news came out that morning I did it at the beginning of my lunch break maybe I'll start my lunch break a little bit early 45 minutes let's be generous okay there has to be some form of equity between all of the the clubs the purpose of the the national league Grant was to ensure that clubs survive now that should not have therefore meant that some clubs would have been better off financially had the pandemic not taken place and some clubs were substantially worse off so I mean you look at like substitute per fan using this existence model Bull and wood for each fan through the gate they got a subsidy of 116 pounds compared to York 13 pounds the biggest winners were boreham wood aurum wood are in the constituency of Oliver Dowden who at the time was Secretary of State for digital culture media and Sport although there's no suggestion he played any part in the distribution eight clubs lost out by over a hundred thousand pounds in the top division Knotts County Chesterfield Stockport and wrexham in the North York Hereford and Chester and in the south dulwich meanwhile it didn't take long for some clubs to notice they were now at a disadvantage on the pitch [Music] we were playing the game on the Saturday just the week after the distribution we were playing against the team and we were aware that they had two players there one name I recognized one I didn't recognize but they'd just gone out and bought put a couple of players on loan from Lake norion and and we thought we can't afford to do that but of course they could because they they'd hit the absolute jackpot that week they thought we were just after more money and that wasn't the debate at all that wasn't the issue the issue was they placed this football club at risk Club signed players to contracts on the basis of the assurances they've been given it was these contracts that were now threatening to drag them under had the national league by the way when awarding that getting that funding turned around to all clubs and said we are not going to be using this had they told us before we all made the decision to kick a ball we'd be having a different conversation there's just a really unfortunate anomaly that I mean we did a nice graphic that put all of the clubs ranked by attendance and drew a line through the middle and astonishingly every board member represents a club below that line when I found out a bit later who's on the national league board so always all these numbers here in green are the clubs which uh benefited from the system that was used I.E they were granted more subsidy than you would have perhaps got what you would have got if it was based on gate receipts so you've got these clubs here yes National League board yes National League board yes National League board yes National League board yes National League board and look they're all in green by now the Fallout was attracting negative headlines including a story in the non-league paper that Drew a furious response from Seven members of the National League board they blasted the one-sided coverage of an issue raised by a small minority of Clubs it concludes with a paragraph to say that they have resisted the temptation to take legal action and says we will not be swayed from our efforts by a noisy minority nor by bullying public statements from the league were shambolic I mean they could still have come out and said look we sat down we had meetings we went through this we think it's unfair to start attacking clubs is the worst sort of victim blaming between 2028 783. seven directors signed a letter of protest to the non-league paper about the coverage that the issue was given and if we look at the clubs in question and according to this very rudimentary maths they were net beneficiaries by 527 354 pounds double check that on the calculator well I'm out by two quid you've also take into account Yeovil chairman Scott Priestley didn't sign the letter 488 341 pounds in total under the new formula board members clubs had benefited by nearly half a million pounds well that is interesting so you immediately leave yourself open I think to to upset into conflict and to calls of of vested interests and it's very hard I suppose not to have a vested interest if you're sitting in a boardroom as the owner of a football club and that nationally bordering is making decisions you're obviously going to be looking out for for your own club as much as the league and it's quite clear that when you've got a board with seven you know clubs involved that are making a decision um yeah actually there is a vested interest uh there that should have perhaps been removed I also believe that there should be transparency in those decision making it's just good governance um it's not rocket science as far as I see it in a statement the national league says the funding model was approved by the board but why was the board even involved in this process particularly when their own rulebook specifically prohibits it I would have been far more confident in the chief executive and the finance officer of the National League between them deciding what to do their finance office is very strong he had all of the knowledge information and skill to make a far better call than was made you shouldn't be going to the board to decide when a pot of money comes in and we know that the only thing Up For Debate is how much each member Club gets how can seven people take an objective view of that long before the distribution issue started Steve Brookfield the national League's financial officer wrote to Simon Daniel who is Maidstone United's general manager the email that we've seen reads as follows we are going to try and keep it simple and Link it to average crowds it's the seven days between when the grant was announced and when the details of the distribution model emerged that are the key to understanding this mystery what happened to brookfield's initial ideas [Music] [Music] this is the Vodafone voicemail service for please leave a message after the pain hey hi Steve my name is Fred Atkins I'm a freelance journalist making a film about the national league during the lockdown I'd very much like to talk to you if you get the chance to give us a call back cheers bye to loads and loads of football clubs were saying well this can't be right you must have made a mistake can you just give us a bit of a backdrop and a bit of a background to how you arrived at this this figure this this this figure which made no sense to anybody and after the shock then just ex I don't know you just felt as they'd gone into a parallel universe you're you're Alice in Wonderland and the more you've fished into the whole the whole distribution the more you dug into it the more you realize that um it was just crazy there seemed to be no minutes of meetings probably the last thing that happened like that was The Great Train Robbery but they ended up that sort of money without paperwork but it was no I mean nothing like that um it's absolute rubbish we've not seen the paperwork to be fair to the national league and I suspect that they were under pressure from board members to have a distribution model that was sorted out quickly because clearly clubs were losing money and there was a genuine fear that some would have gone out of business the national league will claim that because no clubs have gone out of business and therefore what their decision was made with the best intentions of all and and has proven to be successful but in terms of any form of equitable distribution I think it's uh is difficult to justify at this point presumably you were trying to get in touch with people at the league to ask them what had happened yeah um who did you manage to talk to well I mean the the longest conversation I had and loudest according to my kids was with uh Jack Pierce who's Vice chair uh Jack's you know approachable he's open he's transparent uh so there was no attempt to to hide what had happened he was very clear that the the board and you know I'm not uh doing anything other than telling you exactly what was spoken to me um the board had told him that they wouldn't accept a distribution method based on great receipts um and told them to come up with another one welcome to the ee voicemail I'm sorry but the person you call is not available [Music] [Music] Jack Pierce hi Jack well yeah I mean we are making a documentary about the national league during a lockdown and um we would really like to do an interview with you ideally on camera he came back he said I'd have to run it by the league he was actually very friendly he asked what the documentary was about and gave a bit of a laugh simply help if I sent over some questions so he said yes put them in an email so put them in an email [Music] we approached a dozen officials and executives the chairman at the time Brian Barwick called us back but politely declined to participate suggesting that we should talk to Jack Pierce instead but after asking us to put the questions to him in an email which we did we never heard back from him we sent emails to everybody else listed and they all either ignores this or refused the request for an interview with the exception of Jim Parmenter of Dover who after initially agreeing to meet us then contacted us saying that he understood I was a Maidstone United fan and that as a result of the abuse he'd received from Maidstone fans over this matter he could no longer take part [Music] one board director did eventually comment publicly Scott priestnil of Yeovil gave an interview to his club's website saying a documentary has been produced to investigate the distribution of payments to National League clubs as board minutes will show I was one director who voted against and regularly opposed the formula and the way the process was dealt with but the board minutes he refers to have never been made public and when we contacted Yeovil to ask if priesthood would say this on camera he once again ignored us [Music] our last realistic hope of reply was from Mark Ives the current chief executive of the National League oh is that Mark yeah die yeah no thanks for calling us back I do appreciate that um it's basically as we said in the message uh we are doing a documentary on the national league during the lockdown and we've obviously spoken to a number of Clubs we've spoken to a number of people about you know what happened with the funding situation and we were really looking to get in touch with somebody at the league to put their point of view across but he said he would you know get back to us if we could send him an email it would help and yeah hopefully he'll get back to us and we'll you know see what he says well that answers the question of um whether or not we're going to get any participation from the league unfortunately the league and its directors are unable to take part in this proposed documentary many thanks Mark and that's it I mean that's um well we're journalists and journalists know there's usually more than one side to a story does that mean that they're they can't be bothered to put their side of the story or does it mean they just can't put their side of the story that they just can't defend themselves um that's a question we would like to have asked them but now we can't foreign so what actually happened during that handful of days in October here's what we know for sure in a letter to clubs Michael tattersall said the allocation of funds between clubs has been approved by the national league board yet two days later one of the board's members dover's Jim Parmenter told BBC Radio Kent the allocation amounts were not decided by national league board members associated with clubs because we would have been conflicted foreign on November 12th tattersall wrote to the protesting clubs when there are wider issues at stake the question of conflict simply does not arise [Music] after complaints by several clubs the national league announced it would hold an independent review into funding distribution the review was to be led by David Bernstein the former chairman of Manchester City and a former head of the Football Association and he was more than happy to talk [Music] and I'm looking I'm looking at you I'm obviously look at you you're doing the interview so look it up I'm looking at that remember how and why you first heard about this National League funding situation and how the grant was was going to be distributed I was asked to chair an independent panel to adjudicate the situation and try and come up with possible with a fairer apportionment well I looked at the I looked at all the papers and I looked at the way this um it was 10 million pounds of money involved and it was being distributed over a period of October to December it's a three-month distribution in in equal tranches and they had already distributed the first one and when I started work there was the possibility of rejigging the payments for the second the troj and certainly for the third because I sat down and actually did my own um stab because this is not a perfect science my own stab a reputable split and then I spoke to the financial controller at the National League and he had done his own split and amazingly what he had come up with when I came up was all was almost identical completely independent but almost there which gave me a great deal of confidence that what I'd done was actually quite sensible now what I'd done was based upon a memorandum of understanding between Camelot and the national league the memorandum of understanding is a more formal alternative to a gentleman's agreement in the version We obtained the mou is dated to November 2020 which would be after the first structure funding had been distributed to clubs the copy we managed to get hold of is also unsigned and it had four component parts the first was to maintain the integrity of the National League competition the second was to take account of the steps the levels which the clubs played the third was based upon attendances between different clubs which very greatly and the fourth with anywhere level factors to make sure that thing was workable and would lead to the survival of the clubs now the difference between the method adopted by the league and what I was trying to do well the lead took no no account of attendances they based it upon the basically upon the division in which the clubs were operating and the effect of that was that some of the bigger clubs with big attendances seem to be receiving quite a bit less than they should have been and some of the smaller clubs particularly small clubs in the top division getting somewhat more and the more I looked at it and worked on it and the more actually taught to the financial controller at the league himself um the more the stronger that view became particularly credit they've done really well to get the money in the first place so we get get into getting the 10 million pounds and it had been a considerable achievement it was substantially defeat from the jewels of the victory by Distributing the the way the way that they did do you think anyone would have complained if they had followed the model suggested by the the boffins as you put it I could have done I mean it was I mean there's some great people out there who who work all this stuff out that just love football and there's some there were some things out there that just you know that told them exactly what to do and not one person could have complained really interestingly I've experienced you know every level of referee every level of governance you'd imagine the higher up you get the better it gets the governance in the lower leagues is way stronger it seemed to me that there was a lack of governance here there was conflicts of interest have a vested interests and that as a result of all those things they had taken the position which they would not prepare to change how did they try and justify the formula they they struck up well they did they did try well frankly it didn't it didn't amount to very much and we were totally unconvinced by the arguments very independent and this is where dependence is so important Eddie independent view would have supported um the type of it had to be something like the formula that we came up with foreign was quite good however as as it became sort of clear the line we were taking the the Lee became much less cooperative and the degree of hostility built up in the end because uh I could see they were not going to publish this report they weren't going to give it to the clubs I decided to write an open letter to a number of parties including the fa members of parliament and of course to the league but this set out in a way our disappointment at the way the league had reacted the national league responded to Bernstein's open letter by saying that the report went outside its remit by touching upon governance and conflict of interest it went on to say that the national league in its many years of existence had never before had its own governance criticized by its own governing body the fa or indeed any other relevant body it manifested itself in the league trying to position themselves that if there was an imbalance in these numbers if there was it shouldn't be adjusted during the three-month period October to December but possibly in the next years people who are expecting another paper to come through I said to them well I can't accept that because it sounds to me like this next payment or subsidy will be a loan not a grant it turned out that Bernstein was right in mid-February it was confirmed that clubs would no longer be able to receive grants and instead loans were on offer [Music] had the money been divided according to gate receipts as the League's Financial Officer once suggested it would be would it have attracted anything like this level of criticism [Music] I think that you know the national lottery and it bored you know the Camelot board could and perhaps still should look at the distribution of its money this could have been a feel-good story search wouldn't Camelot have been happy to Grant another 10 million pounds to see clubs through to the end of the season I mean do you think that's fair well I mean those are questions for Camelot I don't know [Music] okay so we obviously wanted to know what Camelot thought about all of this uh I've got an email here from Camelot he says we've had a chat at this end and wouldn't put someone up for interview as you say the national league was responsible for defining how the money was distributed to clubs in England Camelot was not involved in the process well it's a reply I suppose yeah [Music] I just think it's very bad planning because they knew they would need another 10 million pounds but just having it suddenly cut off and you'd already played January [Music] clubs like us were looking around thinking well what are we going to do we can't afford to carry on them we had a countdown we had a prediction date uh mid Feb that we would run out of cash that for us was I suppose almost time to hit the panic button because we would be playing around in carrying costs without any significant source of Revenue and that you know that's a disaster waiting to happen the national league I believe felt that they'd been given assurances that the grant funding would would continue whilst games were being played behind closed doors the the government feel that they they didn't promise that [Music] and I think people would like to see that report and it's something just makes it feel like there is something odd and not quite right if the report isn't published so somebody like David Bernstein to be told that he didn't understand the remit I would have thought would be very insulting it just confirmed all our worst fears that um there was a massive cover-up going on one of the big things that we wanted was that report to be published in full the fact that that hasn't happened is just incredibly frustrating and it makes you question why why it hasn't happened um yes it's it's it doesn't look good I got the feeling that they were looking for inspector cluso and they got Sherlock Holmes well I know what you're saying and yes if if they don't then what they know now they possibly wouldn't have asked me Bernstein's report was never made public and when Ollie Bayless tried to find out what had happened in the relevant meetings his freedom of information request was rejected so we understand that there was there was various meetings that went on in in the late Autumn of of 2020 between the between the government and between the national league and the fa to talk about the funding was going to be given to the league I've submitted several Freedom of Information requests to access that they've always been dismissed by the dcms who have said it's not in the public interest to disclose that information I think the public have a right to know this was a discussion between organization that's representing 60 odd local football clubs and the government some minute should have been taken and if they were I it doesn't seem that unreasonable to to find out what was agreed and what was discussed either the national league were misled and told one thing that didn't materialize or on the flip side of that the national league assured clubs that they were promised something that they never were ultimately one side or the other is not being totally honest here we are well over a year on and that process is still ongoing and I've appealed it several times but we now know who was at a meeting in November but we we still don't know what was agreed and what was militant the national league itself has voted to carry on the season the national League's North and South both voted to have the season declared null and void [Music] thank you by February the grant money had gone but clubs were still expected to fulfill their fixtures with no money to pay wages some clubs furloughed their players and prepared to field amethyst sides to avoid getting fined the league were insisting that we completed our fixtures without any grants it just made it impossible people phoning up going are you putting your team out if we put this team I'm a teammate will you put an amateur team out we couldn't afford to carry on play the only option we had was to get a squad together who would play for nothing I mean I can't see Man City turning around and saying oh we need 11 people off the street to come and play football for us we're going to play in a European Cup game it makes a mockery of elite football well we had to furlough everybody yeah I mean it wasn't um because they weren't on full money and footballers don't earn a lot and when you take 20 of their money off they're they're struggling I think it's more difficult standing in front of the South stand full of our players who were wrong who were playing for us to tell them we couldn't afford to keep them on at the start of the Season public money was being used to pay around a thousand semi-professional footballers to play football now public money was being used to play these same footballers not to play football and then the sort of the uh who's going to call it off started so we were honest we just told the league we can't we're not and then we were playing clubs that we knew weren't going to play either but we were the ones that were getting punished one month later 17 clubs were found guilty of breaching rule 8.39 for failing to meet fixture obligations you don't kick a man when he's down and these clubs have already suffered financially I can see no benefit whatsoever you know a lot of these fires relate to a time where clubs were voting to end the league and it looked like those leagues were going to end in a week or two anyway they did I I think it's frustrating when there's little money knocking around a lot of non-league football but over a hundred thousand pounds was taken from clubs at a point when there was very little income they weren't playing games there was no Revenue it must have made life even harder for them and it showed a complete lack of understanding I think of what the where the clubs were and it absolutely unprecedented circumstances happy to be corrected on this by someone I can't think of another organization that find companies for not being able to trade during the pandemic that's what it boils down to for me every company in this country was on its knees to a certain extent or had to adapt dramatically having a mindset that says I'm going to find you because of that is there's something wrong there [Music] for the first time since World War II a season was abandoned players were furloughed the grounds were locked again the live streams were Switched Off by this stage of the pandemic although thousands of people had died Britain was retaining its stiff upper lip but it seemed that if you really wanted to rile an Englishman you went after his football team there was a proposal from Maidstone United and Dorking Wanderers that there should be a vote of no confidence in both the board and Brian Barwick who's the chair as you would expect in an organization such as the national league we now have to go through the small print National League North and National League South have four votes each they need 75 percent to pass the motion I.E they need 24 votes out of 31. now another way to think of it you need seven clubs to say well actually we're quite happy with the board and remember we've got people from Individual clubs in the National League who are on the board producer guy has emailed the national league we wanted to give them a right of reply we have tried to cover this story as equitably as we can but we end up running one side of the story because they don't want to talk [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] we wanted to do along with eight or nine other clubs was actually take take the national league to court that was our that was our plan on our own but the fact is that the costs of taking them to court was so astronomical that we simply couldn't afford to do it what the national league might have learned and football was that these little but not cover-ups but these little um Shenanigans or old Pals ax maybe when there wasn't social media and stuff like that like you could get away with them a bit more it was horrific for everybody concerned and not really there wasn't really an apology in sight or any kind of anything like that at all no sympathy openness Independence and these are these are issues and principles that uh you know go go away through all organizations and certainly all sporting organizations lack of Independence is always going to produce problems of disorder I strongly believe in the need for an independent regulator part of the reason why we need an independent regulator is remove some of the vested interests in decision making which is why I was asked to chair the fan head review into football governance and that extends down to you know national league and Grassroots as much as it does involve the Premier League [Music] [Music] foreign disappointing that that level of incompetence is rewarded with promotion and and that can't be right I was a bit surprised but then you you look back at the history of everything in his fa we do what we're told most of the time making sure we survive um if you start rocking the boat fine I have written I've written to Mark Ives emails um about various things and we don't really get responses they're not really interesting the question from Tunbridge I mean I literally don't know what the board is now I I wanted to find out for this interview yeah how it's changed who's on it now who I know you know I know like Jack Pierce is now he's the German right yeah he is I've read that I can't I can't I literally can't find out without why can't I just go on their website and go who's representing the league that the club I support is a member of foreign it really seems to me like it's the decision-making process is based on something that was probably for the purpose of the 1970s it doesn't represent modern governance there is a there's a group of our fans that go to the away games the money which has become a new game and seeing their new changing rooms scoreboards stands Club shops bars how they found the capital to build that during a pandemic is amazing article 23-1 [Music] saves otherwise provided by these articles a Broadband which are not vote at a meeting of the board of directors on any resolution concerning a master which he or any club which is involved has directly or directly of Interest really well I mean the world is absolutely proper and clear-cut [Music] the happy outcome comes from us taking the stance that we did yeah because we protected the club and it will allow us to rebuild uh we're here you know in spite of the National League rather than because of good put it right to them today and ask my money back foreign [Music]

Channel: Gate Money - Documentary Channel

Views: 113,397

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Id: lhs6B8FyDKc

Length: 57min 43sec (3463 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022