Much better news from the Football League. It now means that the proven incompetent and the still criminally challenged won’t be able to take over clubs in the Football League (look mom, no coke!). One might say it’s a good policy to finally have after 116 years of existence, but for once, I’d say that would be churlish.
I remember having a discussion with an football administrator 3 years ago. He said that a fit-and-proper test was impractical and unworkable in law, but more than that, it was undesirable because it might stop the likes of a certain former Darlington Chairman becoming involved in football. Maybe the penny finally dropped that that wouldn’t be a bad outcome for the game.
It’s also worth placing on record the thanks that should go to Sir John Smith, who recommended such a test in the his report on the George Graham bung scandal for the FA in 1996, and the Football Task-Force who did similar in 1999. Also, Dave Conn from the Independent, who by consistently lifting the lid on the murky, tawdry and (how shall we say given many cases haven’t yet come to court?) potentially illegal dealings that go on at clubs, especially in the lower reaches, made the case for the need to police the ability of such people to become owners or Directors.
Also, congratulations to the League officials for doing this and taking a stand, and I daresay a risk too. Congratulations too, to the clubs who voted it through – the phrase ‘turkeys voting for Christmas has often been used’ to cover the reason why this would be unlikely to happen, but it has. Does this mean that the test isn’t in fact Christmas? Time will tell. And there’s still a few Turkeys amongst club chairmen, but thanks to the work we do at Supporters Direct, there’s a some fantastic people getting into of positions influence too.
Maybe it’s Euro 2004 being just around the corner, or the fact that as I type this, I can see a lovely sunny day out of the window, but I’m optimistic about football. We’re not going to hell in a handcart after all!
(Update: see what I mean?)