There is no greater damnation of the governance of Lewes FC than the Tracey Crouch Fan Led Review. Whether you are left wing or right wing this was a review that gained massive support from all political parties such was the thoroughness and the merits of it’s conclusions.
The fact it reads like a poor class report and ticking off for the way Lewes FC has been run for the last few years is a savage indictment of our board of directors.
It is galling how so many points of poor governance in the report are relevant to the actions of the Lewes FC Board of Directors’ mishandling of the affairs of Lewes FC, their negligence of proper governance and accountability.
People close to the club are all aware of the plethora of excuses and the occasional, well very rare, mea culpa- ‘we know we make mistakes.’ But the Crouch Review sums up the poor governance here far more than the odd ‘mistake.’ More a catalogue of failure. What the club cannot argue against is the absolute clarity and authority of the Crouch Review, the most in depth look at poor governance in British football ever. The conclusions and relevance to Lewes are not a menu of conjecture and discussion, it is black and white clear cut. What the Board have done amounts to irresponsibility and appalling mismanagement.
Approved by the Lewes FC Board of Directors has been a huge private investment in chasing glory for the Lewes FC Women. Our tiny club was bankrolled last season by £600,000. Nearly 50% of its turnover. The Board have now run out of funding and indicated a further step to ensure the finances continue to run out of control, such is the huge demand for money to run the Lewes FC Women to keep them competitive. The club has been ripped to pieces over the failed Mercury 13 takeover and the plan to invest £1,000,000 a season in the women’s squad and £700,000 elsewhere at the club to align with Championship regulations and strengthen the women’s set up. The plan failed through but the board agreed in principle to the ridiculous unsustainable and potentially catastrophic effects of the plan.
Crouch Review-
The Review concluded that English football’s fragility is the result of three main factor’s-
1) Misaligned incentives to ‘chase success’. Yes, that is investing vast sums of money you do not have chasing success.
We have done that textbook. Tick. In grossly overspending and then breaking up the club to allow Mercury 13 to fund the spending binge. Note to the uninitiated. This always ends in tears.
2) The report slated ‘Club corporate structures that lack governance’. Yes that is us, a Board sanctioning this unsustainable investment, approving private endowment fund contributions in contravention of the stated core aim of our constitution to become self-sustained. Then seeking further funding from outside investors in exchange for selling a majority stake in our women’s team. Once owned by us, now gone forever in everything but name. As a community club attempting to carry this out without consulting supporters and explaining costs is disgraceful.
3) Not taking ‘sufficient account of supporters failing to scrutinise decision making’ When did the supporters and 2500 owners say it was okay to put the club in financial peril? Why did the Board even procrastinate over a vote on the proposed investment? Members should always be a given a vote should on anything so fundamental to change of the club ownership structure. When Mercury13 were first announced it should have come with news that of course a vote would be held on the proposal. The Board dilly dallied before the Football Supporters Association and fan pressure forced one. The breathtaking arrogance to not seek prior consensus from the club OWNERS, by a group of 9 amateurs on the Board was a disgrace.
The Board plan of the Mercury 13 investment would have seen our 100% fan owned Lewes FC Women no longer solely owned by us, the members, but majority owned with Mercury 13. The Crouch report is urging clubs to become fan owned, we seem to be the only club in Britain determined to break our fan ownership model and become the sort of club we should all be moving away from.
The galling thing is all the current changes have occurred since the release of the Crouch Report. It represents a Board going rogue, totally out of synch with methods of recommended safe football club governance. Oh and the hypocrisy. A board ridiculously branding itself as liberal ‘disruptors’ chasing a socialist utopia, under the guidance of what is essentially a socialist constitution, instead jumping head first into a corporate investment to sell parts of the club off to bail out their financial mess. I mean you couldn’t write it.
When top level people write reports of such common sense, this is not an off the cuff report, it is a deeply researched report into how to improve the running of football clubs, embraced by the football family as brilliant, spat out by the board of Lewes FC who seemingly no better.
The Rights of Fans. Lewes FC Fanzine 