Having just slaughtered the Board of Project Lewes FC, I am now going to heap praise on them and myself too. So kind I will be I think I’ll be able to add the @’s on my twitter feed without being told off. Let us face it if the Board sanctioned turning the pitch into a car park some Project Lewes FC sycophants, there are lot of them, would merely sigh and exclaim, ‘well I guess it’s for the best.’ I digress.
In February 2019 I wrote the following blog-
It was in response to a Project Lewes FC’s initiative requesting from the FA a fairer pay out between the genders in FA Cup prize money. Totally the right thing to do, the disparity was and still is a national disgrace between men and women.
But I argued equally disgraceful is the prize fund between the early and late rounds in men’s football. First-round qualifying winners (121 teams) winners get £2,250, a pittance. The winner gets £1.8 million. This is pocket money to top clubs who already receive £200 million simply for TV rights.
It is ridiculous for the prize fund for the winners of first-round qualifying is £250,000 to be spread around 121 desperately hard-up clubs non-league clubs and £1.8 million for the final round. The FA is of course committed to supporting ‘grass roots’ football. Bollocks is it.
In the blog I ask-
‘Are Lewes FC forgetting they have a men’s team?’
So anxious for another publicity grab Project Lewes FC, on the back of the interest in Project Lewes FC’s budget parity initiative, had lost sight of the fact that the prize money in the men’s FA Cup was also unfair and heavily one-sided in favour of large clubs that did not need the money at the expense of lower league and non-league clubs who desperately did. It verged on weird that Project Lewes FC had scored this own goal.
Now I am no game-changer or particular deep thinker in football, and I only wrote the blog because Project Lewes FC raised the matter.
Project Lewes FC can be incredibly proud that although they completely failed in their aim of gender parity in FA Cup prize money, their highlighting it has seen, I believe, a 10% increase in favour of the women’s FA prize fund. Not vast sums but an incredibly critical point and principle made.
So I am delighted Project Lewes FC have heeded my advice and recently announced a new initiative taking into account that yes, they do also have a men’s non-league team, and written a document calling for a fairer funding not just for women but levelling the prize money in favour of non-league teams.
Time to reboot the FA Cup – Lewes Community Football Club (lewesfc.com)
This is a superb document that unlike the call for gender parity which many people would not agree with (I totally do) but something it is difficult for anybody to argue against. It is thorough and offers alternative solutions.
Project Lewes FC have got so much wrong, but I am immensely proud that my football club are fighting the fight against idiots who run the FA and are justly calling for change. As ever if you read my blog from yesterday Project Lewes FC giveth and project Lewes FC taketh!
The Rights of Fans. 