stevegrant

Moved 6 miles in the wrong direction, tbf

Needs some Avram Grant, Daniel Azougy, Steve Cotterill and Tony Adams additions, I reckon

Wanted Bradford away

While we're on the subject of the FSF, perhaps one of their biggest successes in recent years was their campaign on behalf of 80 Stoke City fans who were issued with a Section 27 notice by Greater Manchester Police while they were peacefully drinking in a pub in Irlam, which basically forced the Stoke fans - despite no evidence to suggest they were a risk - back onto their coaches and back to Stoke without being allowed to attend the game. In total, £184,850 was subsequently paid out by GMP in compensation.

I believe it's a PL/FL thing, and it's one of their "please do this just so we're seen to be doing something, even though we actually don't give a flying one" ventures, so as far as I'm aware there's no punishment for not having one. Similarly, the Independent Football Ombudsman was set up by the two leagues to mediate when clubs and supporters are in dispute (it actually seems to be surprisingly rare that the ombudsman is asked to get involved), but while they will publish their findings for everyone to see and the clubs all agreed to set up the ombudsman in the first place, there is no obligation on clubs to comply with any of their findings. Most clubs do generally comply on the rare occasion they're shown to have behaved particularly improperly, though.

I'll add that the whole point of these "Club Charter" league tables is that every club is - supposedly - obliged to publish a Customer/Fans Charter which states what fans can expect in terms of the service they receive from people at the club, whether that's from stewards, ticket office staff, megastore staff, etc. The FSF, as an independent body unattached to any specific club, has chosen to review these charters based on a number of criteria and ranked each of them as such. It gives a decent barometer of those clubs who (at least claim to) do more to have strong relations with their fans and those who fairly openly don't give a toss.

They provide a service to football fans, their members. They lead campaigns on key issues (safe standing being a primary and relevant example), and also offer legal advice where required. Still, I'm sure when you or someone you know gets inadvertently caught up in some bother at a game - and it does happen, more regularly than you may think - you won't be interested in knowing your rights or getting free access to advice and support from solicitors who specialise in football banning orders and other public order issues.

I'm struggling to see anywhere where they claim any sort of "authority", to be honest. It never ceases to amuse me how organisations that attempt to help their fellow football fans - whether they support the same club or not - get labelled with this "self-appointed" or "they've got no authority" nonsense.

Have the details of the new trust bid been published or, in the interest of transparency, have they kept them quiet in the hope nobody asks any questions like the one related to where the **** they've found an extra £6m to cover the compromise agreements?

Yes. For all that you claim to be knowledgeable about football, you seem to actually know very little. Brazilian football has had a ridiculous amount of money thrown at it in recent years, hence why players like Neymar are happy to stay and play in their domestic league rather than take the first available offer from Europe. It's also why the likes of Clarence Seedorf have chosen to join the Brazilian league rather than go to the middle east for a last big payday.

Surely €2m net per year means €2m per year AFTER tax?

Very unlikely to ever get individual player details like that, I'd have thought. That said, it should be possible to make educated guesses. We more or less know as a fact that Lee Barnard is on £13k a week, as Bournemouth are paying 100% of them while he's on loan down there We know that Lambert doubled his money when he moved here from Bristol Rovers in 2009 (source: Bristol Rovers chairman on their OS when he left), which local sources at the time claimed would see him on around £9k a week. Add in two promotion pay rises (presumably agreed as a percentage as part of his contract), and I think he's already had one new contract as well, I'd be surprised if he's on less than £20-25k a week now. Ramirez will be on huge money - you don't move for a £12m transfer fee without getting a big salary along with it. Press reports were £45k after tax, which would suggest around £85-90k a week

"Official Line" as in "what's written on the OS" is that it's 20 loyalty points, but "official line" as in "what whoever is responding to emails into the ticket office has told a friend of mine" is that it's priority for round 4

There's certainly infighting among the fanbase at large, which I assume is what he actually means, which suggests that he basically thinks he's up against the entire fanbase with the PST bid

They're definitely making it up as they go along. Still no way of anyone (whether it's us as customers or the ticket office staff themselves) to see the total "loyalty points" earned by an individual without looking at the purchase history and working it out from that, and apparently the official line from the ticket office is that if you buy for tonight's game, it'll give you priority for the next round if we get through, but nothing more than that

I agree, but if people are that desperate to go to a particular game, they'll find a way. They always do. While it's completely untrustworthy, the online system was available for Arsenal sales if anyone couldn't get to SMS that morning, or perhaps ask friends who are local and available to queue on their behalf. Someone I know queued on behalf of about a dozen people, they each gave him a few quid on top of the ticket price by way of a thankyou.

As I clarified afterwards, if you really wanted an Arsenal ticket that badly, you'd have put in the effort to do so by queueing up at stupid o'clock like many others in the same situation did.

To be fair to them, the FL rules about what constitutes somebody who is required to take the Owners and Directors Test also includes "a person who exercises or is able, legally or beneficially, to exercise Control over the affairs of the Club". Depending on your interpretation of how Chainrai/Portpin came to be back in control of Pompey when CSI went into administration, that could potentially rule Chainrai out. However, as we know from experience, the FL do tend to ignore the letter of their own rules when it suits them...

It's an absolute abomination of an idea, but it's one that will more than likely get enough support from the nations who perhaps have one or two large stadia but nowhere near enough to host a full tournament themselves, because this will enable them to be involved. There are only a few European nations who would be able to host the tournament in its new ridiculous 24-team format anyway, as you'd need at least 12 stadia with a capacity of 35k or more. England, France, Portugal, Germany and Italy are probably the only realistic individual hosts - co-hosting obviously allows more in, but that introduces more logistical problems. Platini has done an incredible job of completely ruining a brilliant tournament. 16 teams is the perfect size considering the number of nations in Europe and the relative level of the best teams. There are very few really weak teams who qualify (Ireland this year are probably the one exception, but they were expected to at least put up a fight) in that format, but with 24 teams they're basically allowing half of UEFA to qualify, and with seeding ensuring the best teams more or less avoid each other in the group stages, there will be more one-sided games in the tournament. Based on the current FIFA rankings, the likes of Slovenia, Norway, Hungary and Slovakia would qualify, while the two highest-ranked nations to just miss out are Wales and Scotland, both of whom are terrible teams these days.

To be fair, that £167,000 would be plenty to kick things off for a phoenix club...

It's been there for ages, but it's not intuitive at all.

Making it up as you go along

Might have been worth them making that clear on the OS article, but that would bring an element of thinking into the process, which is clearly beyond their capability.

McGoldrick missed the first one. How the keeper never got sent off for conceding it, I'll never know

Oops.