The games are now coming thick and fast as our campaign in both the Premier League and The FA Cup continues, with tonight’s fixture being the first of two important matches here this week.
Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Leeds United at Elland Road left everyone feeling a little frustrated as once again, over the 90 minutes, we felt we had done enough to take all three points from the game.
Credit is, however, due to Leeds for their resilience and determination to take something from the game. In the event,
spurred on by their fans, they secured a much-needed point in their battle against relegation.
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Credit is also very much due to the 2,700 travelling Albion fans (the most we have taken to Elland Road in the Amex era) for their fantastic vocal support for the team, from start to finish – thank you.
The support of all Albion fans will, of course, be critical again tonight too. Derby matches are usually tight affairs, and the advantage of a home crowd can therefore be vitally important. Thanks again in advance!
It’s only a month or so since an error by a VAR technician at Stockley Park denied us an important goal at Selhurst Park – another match we dominated from the first to last whistle, but in which we were held to a draw.
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Looking slightly ahead to the weekend and Sunday afternoon, we have an FA Cup quarter-final to look forward to when EFL League Two club Grimsby Town visit the Amex for the first time, having overcome Southampton in round five.
First things first though. We all know how important tonight’s game is, and in front of another Amex sell-out crowd we are all very keen to maintain our good form and our push to secure our best-ever Premier League finish.
Off the pitch, and with the Government’s White Paper now out for brief consultation ahead of an independent regulator for football being established, we have been busy with fans’ forums. Regardless of the imposition of an independent regulator, as a club we have long made it our priority to keep our lines of communication open with fans – and that includes participating in regular face-to-face events.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have attended three such events – with Seagulls Over Burwash, Seagulls Over London and the Supporters’ Club and Heritage Society – all were thoroughly enjoyable and well-attended evenings.
The key topics at each of the events were broadly similar so, on the basis they are likely to be issues that most fans are interested in, I thought it might be useful to share a summary of the questions and answers.
Fixture changes and times. This year has been more difficult than most because of the World Cup, while you also pay a price for being successful on the pitch. We also have to balance the needs of the club, fans and broadcasters. We are also mindful that travel issues, such as rail strikes, can affect kick-off times too, and we strive to help our fans as best we can in these situations.
| Pos | Team | Pld | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
5
|
LIV
|
38 | +28 | 67 |
|
6
|
Albion
|
38 | +19 | 62 |
|
7
|
AVL
|
38 | +5 | 61 |
State ownership. Neither the chairman nor I are keen on state ownership of clubs as it can create an unfair advantage, certainly in terms of financial power and squad depth, but FFP is designed to provide some level of protection. As a club, we want a competitive league for everyone’s sake, not least fans.
Our squad. We are in a good place, we have a good balance of experience, talent and youth – and we have no qualms about pitching 18-,19- or 20-year-olds into our side. We are also fortunate to have such young talents pushing through our academy, and credit is due to our academy staff for their skill and hard work.
Becoming a destination club. Players, coaches and staff will always want to operate at the highest possible level. So, in line with our vision, we must strive to finish higher in the league. We must also aim to compete for trophies, and to qualify for Europe. Of course, it’s hard, but we must aim high. In the meantime, we have to continue to get our recruitment right, so we are replacing those who do move on. That succession planning also extends to many of
the key positions within the club, whether it’s a football position or an executive one.
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Women’s football. The club has invested significantly and will continue to do so as many women and girls want to watch, play and work in football. We are on a journey and our longer-term aim is for our women’s and girls’ programme to be more financially sustainable. We are also working hard to bring the team back to play in the city, however the Amex Stadium is not a viable venue for us to play all of our women’s fixtures at this time.
Increasing the size of the Amex. We want to get as many of our fans as possible into the stadium, but given its design, we can maybe add a few hundred more seats over time but not thousands.
Football regulator. Our club is not in favour of a regulator. For a long time, FIFA’s rules have maintained there should be no government interference in our sport. This now looks set to change in our country. Whilst we must accept there will be a reform of football governance, it’s disappointing to think our Government doesn’t believe there is enough high quality people within The FA, Premier League, EFL and 92 fully professional clubs for us to regulate ourselves. We’ve done so for 160 years and although there have been some very tough periods and, like in any complex, diverse and competitive industry, mistakes have been made along the way, the football industry has largely grown and flourished throughout this time to the point where the Premier League is one of our country’s most popular and famous exports.
Sadly, some clubs have, however, also gone out of business over this time, and of course, ideally, this should never happen. Clubs play huge, important roles in their communities and mean so much to their fans, but more often than not, the failures have been down to bad ownership, not systemic malfunction. The English football pyramid and the
meritocracy that underpins it is precious to us all and we accept that looking at an improvement to financial distributions may help those smaller clubs with much lower incomes, but not without some clear guardrails on how this money is used.
It’s very important an independent regulator does not hamstring what is, overall, a very good industry, or damage our ability to compete with European counterparts, or discourage those people like Tony Bloom who are willing to invest in our national sport, supporting thousands of local jobs in the process; plus, let’s not forget English football (and ultimately fans) will end up paying for independent regulation, so the process itself needs careful scrutiny too.
It seems particularly harsh that a transparent well-run club like ours, and many other clubs like us, must now pay for regulation of the much smaller number of clubs that are less well run. We are, however, also very mindful that we weren’t always well-run, and that we haven’t always benefited from Premier League revenues. In this regard, we have certainly experienced the lows and highs of football in the past 25 years, so we were very surprised that Tracey Crouch and her team didn’t talk to us at any point. You would have thought our experience of how our fans and our wider community fought to save the club when it was close to extinction, and how it has subsequently been rebuilt on solid financial principles and high standards of integrity, might have been valuable input on such an important topic as the future of our sport.
We’re equally concerned at the limited amount of time that has now been set aside for consultation on the White Paper, not least as it contains a number of ambiguities and associated risks for our sport.
Having said all of this, we must also acknowledge that the ill-conceived nonsense of things like the European Super League and Project Big Picture haven’t helped football’s case, and maybe we should have been stronger and sought tougher action against those behind such schemes.
Ultimately, however, our club will work with the regulator positively and constructively whenever it is finally
established.
English football is loved by tens of millions of people. All of us, our club included, have a responsibility to ensure its continued success.
Loyalty points. The scheme has been tightened, which in the minds of the vast majority of fans has been good news, but we’re also often asked, ‘Is there a way to exchange tickets when genuine reasons mean fans can’t travel to away games?’ When we get to a digital ticketing system for all away fans, which we are pushing for with the Premier League, we hope there will be a positive answer here. We still don’t want tickets being moved on to people we don’t know, or for people to buy tickets when they have no intention of going to games and just want their loyalty points, but we don’t want people to lose hard-earned money either. Some 90 per cent of unsociable incidents, ejections and arrests earlier this season involved those in possession of a ticket they didn’t have the right to buy. Since introducing the scheme, antisocial behaviour has dropped significantly to almost zero. We don’t want those elements at our games and neither do 99 per cent of our fans. We have a duty to protect all fans as well as the club’s reputation, but we would like to provide better flexibility too. We will keep looking at this.
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Season ticket renewals. As we head into the final two months of the current season, we are thrilled by the response to our season ticket renewal campaign with record numbers of fans renewing. A 95 per cent renewal rate would be a fantastic show of support at any time but, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, it is truly exceptional. Thank you to everyone for your magnificent support.
And thank you to everyone who attended the forums – there will be more to come throughout 2023, including, of course, our Amex Stadium forum on the eve of the new season, which is one I know our fans, and all of us on the panel, always look forward to.
Finally, a personal word of thanks to the many fans who took the time and trouble to write to congratulate me on
receiving my OBE from Prince William at Windsor Castle last week. It was a special and hugely enjoyable day for me and my family.
Enjoy tonight’s game!