Gate Money: Inside Non-League Football's Funding Fiasco (Full Documentary)

foreign

[Music]

and that's it I mean that's um

well we're journalists and journalists

know there's usually more than one side

to a story

we just met with a wall of Silence

there we are that's all there is

non-league football is a multi-million

pound industry

its clubs have been owned by Hollywood

stars like Ryan Reynolds galacticos like

David Beckham and local millionaire

businessmen

it's attended by more people than county

cricket Opera and ballet

[Music]

foreign

like everything else it was stopped in

its tracks by the pandemic

[Music]

this should have been a feel-good story

of a football league that hit the

jackpot

instead it dissolved into a tale of

abuse bitterness and recrimination

for the first time since World War II a

league at this level was declared null

and void

[Music]

[Applause]

the current coronavirus pandemic is

affecting all of our lives and sport is

no different most events are canceled

and the football season is suspended

foreign

[Music]

it's the most remarkable story I've I

think ever covered when it comes to

sport you know I found it astonishing

the way it all unraveled

clubs like ours that are dependent on

matched income were in a lot of trouble

this is 10 million pounds that was going

to have to be distributed and I'm not

naive enough to think that football is a

big happy family but clearly there was a

huge amount of self-interest it was a

drop off a cliff like we'd never seen I

mean anger's not even a strong enough

word I thought it was scandalous

there seem to be no minutes of meetings

probably the last thing that happened

like that was The Great Train Robbery

but they ended up that sort of money

without paperwork

it seemed to me that there was a lack of

governance here there was conflicts of

interest

there was a proposal that there should

be a vote of no confidence in the board

yes National debord yes National League

board and look they're all in green

according to this they were net

beneficiaries by 527

354 pounds you just felt as though you'd

gone into a parallel universe

these little old Pals acts maybe when

there wasn't social media and stuff like

that they you could get away with them a

bit more it was horrific

[Music]

just makes it feel like there is

something odd and not quite right if the

report isn't published

I asked the minister to confirm that the

distribution formula was

it will be based on those most in need

it will absolutely be focused on gate

receipts

[Music]

my name is Fred Atkins and I'm a sports

journalist and lifelong Maidstone United

supporter

I'm setting out on a journey to find out

what happened to National League clubs

during the covid-19 crisis

[Music]

the money that was supposed to keep

clubs afloat left some clubs feeling

like they'd won the lottery While others

were pushed to the brink of collapse

I want to find out what happened

to the gate money

was proper football it's it's it's raw

it's a lot closer I think to that

football experience of the maybe the 70s

80s and 90s A lot of people grew up

watching football where you can you can

have a drink with the players at full

time you can you can speak to the

chairman you know in the stands and get

and get an answer to what's going on at

your football club it's the level of

football that's

maybe a bit muddier maybe you know not

as sanitized it's raw and it's it's a

little bit more real

foreign

football is something that it means so

much more

to people it's your Chelsea Man City

supporter you expect you expect down

here you hope

there are 92 clubs in the English

football league spread across four

divisions

there are hundreds of semi-professional

clubs playing in Regional leagues but in

between the football league and these

Regional leagues lies the national

league which is comprised of 66 clubs

and organized into three divisions

is it you know it's it's a cliche but

Chester's a proper family I guess in

many ways the the results and what

happens on the pitch is secondary to

that it's that sense of belonging and

that you know we're a club that takes

its takes its place in the community

really seriously

[Music]

since automatic promotion was introduced

in 1987 only three clubs have actually

folded while playing in the football

league

well these are the floodlights from the

back of the stand

it does look a bit different in the same

period however dozens of clubs have gone

bankrupt trying to either attain or

regain Football League status

to learn more about how finances work at

non-league level I'm meeting football

Finance expert Kieran McGuire

doing how difficult is it to run a

national league side even in normal

circumstances but let alone during a

pandemic how hard is it to balance the

books when you are running a club like

that

pre-covered nearly all of the clubs in

the National League itself were loss

making we take a look at the figures

from 2019 which is pre-covered the

national league clubs between them lost

over 16 million pounds so that's on

average 300 000 pounds per Club that's

pretty precarious and the reason for

this was was twofold first of all that

there were clubs who were coming down

from the efl who had players on fixed

term contracts you throw in some clubs

who have owners who are incredibly

ambitious and who want to reach the efl

and that's that's a license to lose

money as far as lower league football I

think we've got two types of of

ownership structure we've got those

clubs who are being funded as trophy

assets by their their owners who who

want to see progress on the pitch and

are prepared to underwrite that and then

we've got those clubs who they're either

fan owned or they're they're owned by

individuals who don't have the resources

to to provide significant funding and

they're run on a break-even basis and I

think that that second tier of clubs

they were the ones who were at the

greatest risk of going out of business

when Maidstone United went bust in 1992

I witnessed it firsthand the damage that

it did to this community

it's a human social and emotional cost

that can best be described as a kind of

collective bereavement

this was the kind of existential threat

that some clubs were facing during covid

we've got a lot of older supporters and

this was very often their Lifeline

because it's a vibrant club like a lot

of non-league clubs they're Community

clubs we would get 2 000 people coming

here and and we lost that and on the

other side Vehicles the financial side

was was a terrible worry for everybody

is how how on Earth are we going to

survive it got to a point where the

football became secondary to people we

were hearing were unwell and then we all

lost people in in the early days and um

they were just dark dark times

right on the border of Wales and England

Chester City FC were relegated from the

football league in the year 2000. after

a decade of turbulence they were

liquidated but they reformed as Chester

FC in 2010 and by 2020 they were a

stable community club

financially we were we were as robust as

probably we have been when the when the

pandemic began football is you know as a

support-owned club our biggest source of

income is Match Day revenue and from

fans attending game the concerns are how

are we going to pay player wages it was

a worrying time

um because our our biggest source of

income had been cut off

[Music]

foreign

in South London dulwich Hamlet had

become one of the non-league's best

supported sides

in the space of 10 years the average

gate increased from around 200 to around

2 000. I mean you've got a sort of

self-sustaining Club here how difficult

was that first of all when when Kobe did

kick in

it was obviously put immediately putting

the club at risk

but strangely a difficult is not a word

used for it it was remarkably simple

because it all just stopped

foreign

there was no decisions to take there was

no options there was no what do we do it

was it's over obviously for this club

because all of our income comes from

match days

it was a drop of a cliff like we'd never

seen to go from open to close overnight

was just

shocking

in September clubs below the national

leagues were allowed to admit fans again

meanwhile all 92 Football League teams

had existing TV deals boosted by a new

streaming service

fans of national league sites weren't

permitted to attend games clubs had only

a fraction of the TV money with the

season about to kick off they were stuck

in no man's land

[Music]

there is a perception

within this country that football is

very rich and that it doesn't need

handouts from government to support it

and in the case of Premier League clubs

that that might be true but actually at

National League level that's not the

case

this government believes that sports

clubs are the beating hearts of their

communities will be to lose them we

would lose so much more than sport

that's why to help Community clubs

through this crisis dcms funding body

sport England announced a 210 million

pounds emergency fund question from

Tracy groucher is participant in

virtually so I will call Minister Nigel

Huddleston to answer the question but

the urgency of the question related to

the National League starting on Saturday

and therefore the reassurances are

welcome

but it is disappointing that there is no

specific announcement as of yet as to

what and when the leak will receive but

because it does appear to be coming can

I ask the minister to confirm that the

distribution formula will be based on

Lost gate receipts and not simply by

step I I Thank The Honorable lady for

that she's absolutely right that the

government support needs to go to those

in most need and therefore the criteria

which is as she recognized and accepted

is being developed by a fantastic team

at dcms literally as we speak it will be

based on those most in need it will

absolutely be focused on gate receipts

sports clubs have proven themselves

bedrocks of their communities during

this pandemic sports clubs have had our

backs we will have theirs in return

[Music]

on October 17th the news finally broke

that the national league would receive a

10 million pound Grant from the national

lottery the State Franchise Lottery

system I mean first of all Tracy um do

you know who it was that made that app

and how that actually came about well I

think government was very instrumental

in that it was scrambling around for

some time to find out exactly what the

source of that funding would be and they

had some very deep conversations with

the national lottery who were ultimately

the the people that coughed up the cash

with the lottery funding I I think there

was there was a sense of relief that

there was some money being produced at

one point I think it was hinted at it

was going to be 20 million pounds over

over six months um and then when it

materialized it it came from the lottery

which I think was a surprise to a fewer

after receiving the funding the national

league was made responsible for

Distributing the money to clubs like

many organizations it is run by a board

of directors that have voted for by

clubs some of these members have been

the board for many years

I think one of the challenges in the way

that the nationally board was set up is

that a lot of people that are on that

board

are are working at a club or our owners

of those clubs

seven days after the board was tasked

with splitting the 10 million pounds

between 66 clubs the national league

announced its plans for Distributing the

money

despite the initial promises made by

Nigel Huddleston in Parliament

it wasn't based on gate receipts

how did you at Chester feel when the

distribution model was Unreal very

disappointed very frustrated that this

this grant which for which we are you

know incredibly grateful for us it would

always been clear that that Grant was

was to replace the essential revenue

from fans not being able to attend games

so yeah there was that initial relief

that yes we can play on and we're gonna

have this financial support and very

quickly turn to frustration and anger I

mean anger's not even a strong enough

word

then you get into panic

you know the distribution was Stark to

cover a three-month period we were going

to get less than two months because

whatever way you cut it you're now going

backwards financially and what you

thought was a manageable debt starts to

become

an unmanageable one

the board decided to split the money 60

20 20 between the three divisions the 23

top tier clubs would get six million

pounds while the other 43 would receive

4 million

whoever secured their funding did a

great job that's my biggest frustration

is that pop

was enough and should have protected all

clubs

as I tried to make sense of the funding

model I wanted to find out why the money

was split this way and why the funding

seemed to favor clubs in the top

division

the only people who could answer that

question were the national league

themselves

[Music]

yeah it's all very generic um there's

very little information there's no idea

you know there's not a bit of press

officer is

um

there's nothing

to suggest

you know where you might go if you do

have a press inquiry there is no phone

number other than a generic office phone

number that you can call

[Music]

Mommy

I was um appropriate contacts that has

been supplied to your third secretary by

email automated thought the national

League

Dorking Wanderers are a very different

kind of Club to dulwich and Chester

funded largely by directors and sponsors

rather than gate money

docking all of the clubs that actually

benefited from the League's distribution

model but their owner and manager Mark

White could see the problems that lay

ahead

foreign

happening during that pandemic was what

I'd deem unprofessional

multitude of different versions of

opinions and clubs and people would

happily vote for or agree with things

that simply you know benefited them and

you know my attitude is as it should be

in life the governance has got to be

done properly it might not affect you

today but it could tomorrow so when it

got carved up in the way it did it was

bizarre if the team at the bottom or

second bottom had double the income they

normally would then forget the rest you

had to be wrong

I mean there was some non-lee boffins

out there so to speak that they're

actually producing really good ways of

putting the funding out there

um in a way that was representative of

the losses clubs had

and I was looking at these models

thinking well that makes complete sense

and we wouldn't argue with that one of

those non-league buffins Mark White was

referring to is Duncan Hart a dullage

fan who is one of the first to come up

with an alternative funding model MCU

came up with a distribution model can

you just tell us a bit about what you

did well yeah I seem to remember seeing

my news on BBC and maybe just before

lunchtime I I then wait for my lunch

break about half 12 opened up my laptop

did an Excel spreadsheet

Okay so

it looks like a complicated spreadsheet

but it's not really it is merely

um pasting in the averages attendances

for each of the clubs 1920 and then

allocating working out

what the total number of attendances was

and then dividing the 10 million pound

by each person

so then you've got a pound per person

basically if you're going to put on

attendances and then you allocate that

against the average attendances for each

Club

so total corrected subsidies there and

and then then work out the difference

between what was actually provided and

what should have been provided based on

attendances and this took you about half

an hour yeah I think so yeah

um because I I the news came out that

morning I did it at the beginning of my

lunch break maybe I'll start my lunch

break a little bit early 45 minutes

let's be generous okay

there has to be some form of equity

between all of the the clubs the purpose

of the the national league Grant was to

ensure that clubs survive now that

should not have therefore meant that

some clubs would have been better off

financially had the pandemic not taken

place and some clubs were substantially

worse off so I mean you look at like

substitute per fan using this existence

model Bull and wood

for each fan through the gate they got a

subsidy of 116 pounds compared to York

13 pounds

the biggest winners were boreham wood

aurum wood are in the constituency of

Oliver Dowden who at the time was

Secretary of State for digital culture

media and Sport although there's no

suggestion he played any part in the

distribution

eight clubs lost out by over a hundred

thousand pounds

in the top division Knotts County

Chesterfield Stockport and wrexham

in the North York Hereford and Chester

and in the south dulwich

meanwhile it didn't take long for some

clubs to notice they were now at a

disadvantage on the pitch

[Music]

we were playing the game on the Saturday

just the week after the distribution we

were playing against the team and we

were aware that they had two players

there one name I recognized one I didn't

recognize but they'd just gone out and

bought put a couple of players on loan

from Lake norion and and we thought we

can't afford to do that but of course

they could because they they'd hit the

absolute jackpot that week they thought

we were just after more money and that

wasn't the debate at all that wasn't the

issue the issue was they placed this

football club at risk

Club signed players to contracts on the

basis of the assurances they've been

given

it was these contracts that were now

threatening to drag them under

had the national league by the way when

awarding that getting that funding

turned around to all clubs and said we

are not going to be using this had they

told us before we all made the decision

to kick a ball we'd be having a

different conversation

there's just a really

unfortunate anomaly that I mean we did a

nice graphic that put all of the clubs

ranked by attendance and drew a line

through the middle

and astonishingly every board member

represents a club below that line

when I found out a bit later who's on

the national league board so always all

these numbers here in green are the

clubs which uh benefited from the system

that was used I.E they were granted more

subsidy than you would have perhaps got

what you would have got if it was based

on gate receipts so you've got these

clubs here yes National League board yes

National League board yes National

League board yes National League board

yes National League board and look

they're all in green by now the Fallout

was attracting negative headlines

including a story in the non-league

paper that Drew a furious response from

Seven members of the National League

board

they blasted the one-sided coverage of

an issue raised by a small minority of

Clubs

it concludes with a paragraph to say

that they have resisted the temptation

to take legal action and says we will

not be swayed from our efforts by a

noisy minority nor by bullying

public statements from the league were

shambolic I mean

they could still have come out and said

look we sat down we had meetings we went

through this we think it's unfair to

start

attacking clubs is the worst sort of

victim blaming

between

2028 783.

seven directors

signed a letter of protest to the

non-league paper

about the coverage

that the issue was given

and if we look

at the clubs in question and according

to this very rudimentary maths

they were net beneficiaries by 527

354 pounds

double check that on the calculator

well I'm out by two quid you've also

take into account Yeovil

chairman Scott Priestley didn't sign the

letter

488

341 pounds

in total under the new formula board

members clubs had benefited by nearly

half a million pounds

well that is interesting

so you immediately leave yourself open I

think to to upset into conflict and to

calls of of

vested interests and it's very hard I

suppose not to have a vested interest if

you're sitting in a boardroom as the

owner of a football club and that

nationally bordering is making decisions

you're obviously going to be looking out

for for your own club as much as the

league and it's quite clear that when

you've got a board with seven you know

clubs involved that are making a

decision

um yeah actually there is a vested

interest uh there that should have

perhaps been removed I also believe that

there should be transparency in those

decision making it's just good

governance

um it's not rocket science as far as I

see it in a statement the national

league says the funding model was

approved by the board

but why was the board even involved in

this process particularly when their own

rulebook specifically prohibits it

I would have been

far more confident in the chief

executive

and the finance officer of the National

League between them deciding what to do

their finance office is very strong

he had all of the

knowledge information and skill to make

a far better call than was made

you shouldn't be going to the board to

decide when a pot of money comes in

and we know that the only thing Up For

Debate is how much each member Club gets

how can seven people

take an objective view of that

long before the distribution issue

started Steve Brookfield the national

League's financial officer wrote to

Simon Daniel who is Maidstone United's

general manager

the email that we've seen reads as

follows

we are going to try and keep it simple

and Link it to average crowds

it's the seven days between when the

grant was announced and when the details

of the distribution model emerged that

are the key to understanding this

mystery

what happened to brookfield's initial

ideas

[Music]

[Music]

this is the Vodafone voicemail service

for please leave a message after the

pain

hey hi Steve my name is Fred Atkins I'm

a freelance journalist making a film

about the national league during the

lockdown I'd very much like to talk to

you if you get the chance to give us a

call back cheers bye

to loads and loads of football clubs

were saying well this can't be right you

must have made a mistake can you just

give us a bit of a backdrop and a bit of

a background to how you arrived at this

this figure this this this figure which

made no sense to anybody and after the

shock then just

ex I don't know you just felt as they'd

gone into a parallel universe you're

you're Alice in Wonderland and the more

you've fished into the whole the whole

distribution the more you dug into it

the more you realize that um it was just

crazy there seemed to be no minutes of

meetings probably the last thing that

happened like that was The Great Train

Robbery but they ended up that sort of

money without paperwork

but it was no I mean nothing like that

um it's absolute rubbish we've not seen

the paperwork to be fair to the national

league and I suspect that they were

under pressure from board members to

have a distribution model that was

sorted out quickly because clearly clubs

were losing money and there was a

genuine fear that some would have gone

out of business the national league will

claim that because no clubs have gone

out of business and therefore what their

decision was made with the best

intentions of all and and has proven to

be successful but in terms of any form

of equitable distribution I think it's

uh is difficult to justify

at this point presumably you were trying

to get in touch with people at the

league to ask them what had happened

yeah um who did you manage to talk to

well I mean the the longest conversation

I had and loudest according to my kids

was with uh Jack Pierce who's Vice chair

uh Jack's you know approachable he's

open he's transparent

uh so there was no attempt to to hide

what had happened he was very clear that

the the board and you know I'm not uh

doing anything other than telling you

exactly what was spoken to me

um the board had told him that they

wouldn't accept

a distribution method based on great

receipts

um

and told them to come up with another

one

welcome to the ee voicemail I'm sorry

but the person you call is not available

[Music]

[Music]

Jack Pierce

hi Jack well yeah I mean we are making a

documentary about the national league

during a lockdown and um we would really

like to do an interview with you ideally

on camera

he came back he said I'd have to run it

by the league he was actually very

friendly he asked

what the documentary was about

and gave a bit of a laugh

simply help if I sent over some

questions so he said yes put them in an

email

so put them in an email

[Music]

we approached a dozen officials and

executives

the chairman at the time Brian Barwick

called us back but politely declined to

participate suggesting that we should

talk to Jack Pierce instead

but after asking us to put the questions

to him in an email which we did we never

heard back from him

we sent emails to everybody else listed

and they all either ignores this or

refused the request for an interview

with the exception of Jim Parmenter of

Dover who after initially agreeing to

meet us then contacted us saying that he

understood I was a Maidstone United fan

and that as a result of the abuse he'd

received from Maidstone fans over this

matter he could no longer take part

[Music]

one board director did eventually

comment publicly Scott priestnil of

Yeovil gave an interview to his club's

website saying a documentary has been

produced to investigate the distribution

of payments to National League clubs as

board minutes will show I was one

director who voted against

and regularly opposed the formula and

the way the process was dealt with

but the board minutes he refers to have

never been made public and when we

contacted Yeovil to ask if priesthood

would say this on camera he once again

ignored us

[Music]

our last realistic hope of reply was

from Mark Ives the current chief

executive of the National League

oh is that Mark

yeah die yeah

no thanks for calling us back I do

appreciate that um it's basically as we

said in the message uh we are doing a

documentary on the national league

during the lockdown

and we've obviously spoken to a number

of Clubs we've spoken to a number of

people about you know what happened with

the funding situation and we were really

looking to get in touch with somebody at

the league to put their point of view

across

but he said he would you know get back

to us if we could send him an email it

would help

and

yeah hopefully he'll get back to us and

we'll you know see what he says

well that answers the question of um

whether or not we're going to get any

participation from the league

unfortunately the league and its

directors are unable to take part in

this proposed documentary many thanks

Mark

and that's it I mean that's um

well we're journalists and journalists

know there's usually more than one side

to a story

does that mean that they're they can't

be bothered to put their side of the

story

or does it mean they just can't put

their side of the story that they just

can't defend themselves

um that's a question we would like to

have asked them but now we can't

foreign

so what actually happened during that

handful of days in October

here's what we know for sure

in a letter to clubs Michael tattersall

said the allocation of funds between

clubs has been approved by the national

league board yet two days later one of

the board's members dover's Jim

Parmenter told BBC Radio Kent the

allocation amounts were not decided by

national league board members associated

with clubs because we would have been

conflicted

foreign

on November 12th tattersall wrote to the

protesting clubs

when there are wider issues at stake the

question of conflict simply does not

arise

[Music]

after complaints by several clubs the

national league announced it would hold

an independent review into funding

distribution

the review was to be led by David

Bernstein the former chairman of

Manchester City and a former head of the

Football Association

and he was more than happy to talk

[Music]

and I'm looking I'm looking at you I'm

obviously look at you you're doing the

interview so look it up I'm looking at

that remember how and why you first

heard about this National League

funding situation and how the grant was

was going to be distributed I was asked

to chair an independent panel to

adjudicate the situation and try and

come up with possible with a fairer

apportionment well I looked at the I

looked at all the papers and I looked at

the way this

um it was 10 million pounds of money

involved and it was being distributed

over a period of October to December

it's a three-month distribution in in

equal tranches and they had already

distributed the first one and when I

started work there was the possibility

of rejigging the payments for the second

the troj and certainly for the third

because I sat down and actually did my

own

um stab because this is not a perfect

science my own stab a reputable

split and then I spoke to the financial

controller at the National League

and he had done his own split and

amazingly what he had come up with when

I came up was all was almost identical

completely independent but almost there

which gave me a great deal of confidence

that what I'd done was actually quite

sensible now what I'd done was based

upon a memorandum of understanding

between Camelot

and the national league the memorandum

of understanding is a more formal

alternative to a gentleman's agreement

in the version We obtained the mou is

dated to November 2020 which would be

after the first structure funding had

been distributed to clubs

the copy we managed to get hold of is

also unsigned

and it had four component parts the

first was to maintain the integrity

of the National League competition the

second was to take account of the steps

the levels which the clubs played the

third was based upon attendances between

different clubs which very greatly and

the fourth with anywhere level factors

to make sure that thing was workable and

would lead to the survival of the clubs

now the difference between the method

adopted by the league and what I was

trying to do well the lead took no no

account of attendances

they based it upon the basically upon

the division in which the clubs were

operating and the effect of that was

that some of the bigger clubs with big

attendances seem to be receiving quite a

bit less than they should have been

and some of the smaller clubs

particularly small clubs in the top

division getting somewhat more and the

more I looked at it and worked on it and

the more actually taught to the

financial controller at the league

himself

um the more the stronger that view

became particularly credit they've done

really well to get the money in the

first place so we get get into getting

the 10 million pounds and it had been a

considerable achievement it was

substantially defeat from the jewels of

the victory by Distributing the the way

the way that they did

do you think anyone would have

complained if they had followed the

model suggested by the the boffins as

you put it I could have done I mean it

was I mean there's some great people out

there who who work all this stuff out

that just love football and there's some

there were some things out there that

just you know that told them exactly

what to do and not one person could have

complained

really interestingly I've experienced

you know every level of referee every

level of governance you'd imagine the

higher up you get the better it gets the

governance in the lower leagues is way

stronger it seemed to me that there was

a lack of governance here there was

conflicts of interest

have a vested interests and that as a

result of all those things they had

taken the position which they would not

prepare to change how did they try and

justify the formula they

they struck up well they did they did

try well frankly it didn't it didn't

amount to very much and we were totally

unconvinced by the arguments very

independent and this is where dependence

is so important Eddie independent view

would have supported

um the type of it had to be something

like the formula that we came up with

foreign

was quite good however as as it became

sort of clear the line we were taking

the the Lee became much less cooperative

and the degree of hostility built up in

the end because uh I could see they were

not going to publish this report they

weren't going to give it to the clubs

I decided to write an open letter to a

number of parties including the fa

members of parliament and of course to

the league but this set out in a way our

disappointment at the way the league had

reacted

the national league responded to

Bernstein's open letter by saying that

the report went outside its remit by

touching upon governance and conflict of

interest it went on to say that the

national league in its many years of

existence had never before had its own

governance criticized by its own

governing body the fa or indeed any

other relevant body

it manifested itself

in the league

trying to

position themselves

that if there was an imbalance in these

numbers if there was

it shouldn't be adjusted

during the three-month period October to

December but possibly in the next years

people who are expecting another paper

to come through I said to them well I

can't accept that because it sounds to

me like this next payment or subsidy

will be a loan not a grant

it turned out that Bernstein was right

in mid-February it was confirmed that

clubs would no longer be able to receive

grants and instead loans were on offer

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had the money been divided according to

gate receipts as the League's Financial

Officer once suggested it would be would

it have attracted anything like this

level of criticism

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I think that you know the national

lottery and it bored you know the

Camelot board

could and perhaps still should look at

the distribution of its money

this could have been a feel-good story

search wouldn't Camelot have been happy

to Grant another 10 million pounds to

see clubs through to the end of the

season

I mean do you think that's fair well I

mean those are questions for Camelot I

don't know

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okay so we obviously wanted to know what

Camelot thought about all of this

uh I've got an email here from Camelot

he says we've had a chat at this end and

wouldn't put someone up for interview as

you say the national league was

responsible for defining how the money

was distributed to clubs in England

Camelot was not involved in the process

well it's a reply I suppose

yeah

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I just think it's very bad planning

because they knew they would need

another 10 million pounds but

just having it suddenly cut off and

you'd already played January

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clubs like us were looking around

thinking well what are we going to do

we can't afford to carry on them

we had a countdown

we had a prediction date uh mid Feb that

we would run out of cash that for us was

I suppose almost time to hit the panic

button because we would be playing

around in carrying costs without any

significant source of Revenue and that

you know that's a disaster waiting to

happen the national league I believe

felt that they'd been given assurances

that the grant funding would would

continue whilst games were being played

behind closed doors the the government

feel that they they didn't promise that

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and I think people would like to see

that report and it's something just

makes it feel like there is something

odd and not quite right if the report

isn't published so somebody like David

Bernstein to be told that he didn't

understand the remit I would have

thought would be very insulting it just

confirmed all our worst fears that um

there was a massive cover-up going on

one of the big things that we wanted was

that report to be published in full the

fact that that hasn't happened is just

incredibly frustrating and it makes you

question why why it hasn't happened

um yes it's it's it doesn't look good I

got the feeling that they were looking

for inspector cluso and they got

Sherlock Holmes well I know what you're

saying and yes if if they don't then

what they know now they possibly

wouldn't have asked me

Bernstein's report was never made public

and when Ollie Bayless tried to find out

what had happened in the relevant

meetings his freedom of information

request was rejected

so we understand that there was there

was various meetings that went on in in

the late Autumn of of 2020 between the

between the government and between the

national league and the fa to talk about

the funding was going to be given to the

league I've submitted several Freedom of

Information requests to access that

they've always been dismissed by the

dcms who have said it's not in the

public interest to disclose that

information I think the public have a

right to know this was a discussion

between organization that's representing

60 odd local football clubs and the

government some minute should have been

taken and if they were I it doesn't seem

that unreasonable to to find out what

was agreed and what was discussed either

the national league were misled and told

one thing that didn't materialize or on

the flip side of that the national

league assured clubs that they were

promised something that they never were

ultimately one side or the other is not

being totally honest here we are well

over a year on and that process is still

ongoing and I've appealed it several

times but we now know who was at a

meeting in November but we we still

don't know what was agreed and what was

militant

the national league itself has voted to

carry on the season the national

League's North and South both voted to

have the season declared null and void

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thank you

by February the grant money had gone but

clubs were still expected to fulfill

their fixtures with no money to pay

wages some clubs furloughed their

players and prepared to field amethyst

sides to avoid getting fined

the league were insisting that we

completed our fixtures without any

grants it just made it impossible people

phoning up going are you putting your

team out if we put this team I'm a

teammate will you put an amateur team

out we couldn't afford

to carry on play the only option we had

was to get a squad together

who would play for nothing

I mean I can't see Man City turning

around and saying oh we need 11 people

off the street to come and play football

for us we're going to play in a European

Cup game

it makes a mockery

of

elite football

well we had to furlough everybody yeah I

mean it wasn't um because they weren't

on full money and footballers don't earn

a lot and when you take 20 of their

money off they're they're struggling I

think it's more difficult

standing in front of the South stand

full of our players who were wrong who

were playing for us

to tell them we couldn't afford to keep

them on

at the start of the Season public money

was being used to pay around a thousand

semi-professional footballers to play

football

now public money was being used to play

these same footballers not to play

football

and then the sort of the uh who's going

to call it off started so we were honest

we just told the league we can't we're

not and then we were playing clubs that

we knew weren't going to play either but

we were the ones that were getting

punished

one month later 17 clubs were found

guilty of breaching rule 8.39 for

failing to meet fixture obligations

you don't kick a man when he's down and

these clubs have already suffered

financially I can see no benefit

whatsoever you know a lot of these fires

relate to a time where clubs were voting

to end the league and it looked like

those leagues were going to end in a

week or two anyway they did I I think

it's

frustrating when there's little money

knocking around a lot of non-league

football but over a hundred thousand

pounds was taken from clubs at a point

when there was very little income they

weren't playing games there was no

Revenue it must have made life even

harder for them and it showed a complete

lack of understanding I think of what

the where the clubs were and it

absolutely unprecedented circumstances

happy to be corrected on this by someone

I can't think of another organization

that find companies

for not being able to trade during the

pandemic that's what it boils down to

for me

every company in this country was on its

knees to a certain extent or had to

adapt dramatically

having a mindset that says I'm going to

find you because of that is there's

something wrong there

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for the first time since World War II a

season was abandoned

players were furloughed the grounds were

locked again the live streams were

Switched Off

by this stage of the pandemic although

thousands of people had died Britain was

retaining its stiff upper lip

but it seemed that if you really wanted

to rile an Englishman you went after his

football team

there was a proposal from Maidstone

United and Dorking Wanderers that there

should be a vote of no confidence in

both the board and Brian Barwick who's

the chair as you would expect in an

organization such as the national league

we now have to go through the small

print National League North and National

League South have four votes each they

need 75 percent to pass the motion I.E

they need 24 votes out of 31. now

another way to think of it you need

seven clubs to say well actually we're

quite happy with the board and remember

we've got people from Individual clubs

in the National League who are on the

board

producer guy has emailed the national

league we wanted to give them a right of

reply we have tried to cover this story

as equitably as we can but we end up

running one side of the story because

they don't want to talk

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[Applause]

foreign

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we wanted to do along with eight or nine

other clubs was actually take take the

national league to court that was our

that was our plan on our own but the

fact is that the costs of taking them to

court was so astronomical that we simply

couldn't afford to do it what the

national league might have learned and

football was that these little

but not cover-ups but these little um

Shenanigans or old Pals ax maybe when

there wasn't social media and stuff like

that like you could get away with them a

bit more it was horrific for everybody

concerned and not really there wasn't

really an apology in sight or any kind

of anything like that at all no sympathy

openness Independence and these are

these are issues and principles that uh

you know go go away through all

organizations and certainly all sporting

organizations lack of Independence is

always going to produce problems of

disorder

I strongly believe in the need for an

independent regulator part of the reason

why we need an independent regulator is

remove some of the vested interests in

decision making which is why I was asked

to chair the fan head review into

football governance and that extends

down to you know national league and

Grassroots as much as it does involve

the Premier League

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foreign

disappointing that that level of

incompetence is rewarded with promotion

and and that can't be right

I was a bit surprised but then

you you look back at the history of

everything in his fa we do what we're

told most of the time making sure we

survive

um if you start rocking the boat

fine I have written I've written to Mark

Ives emails

um about various things and

we don't really get responses they're

not really interesting the question from

Tunbridge

I mean I literally don't know what the

board is now I I wanted to find out for

this interview yeah how it's changed

who's on it now who I know you know I

know like Jack Pierce is now he's the

German right yeah he is I've read that I

can't I can't I literally can't find out

without why can't I just go on their

website and go who's representing the

league that the club I support is a

member of

foreign

it really seems to me like it's the

decision-making process is based on

something that was probably for the

purpose of the 1970s it doesn't

represent modern governance

there is a there's a group of our fans

that go to the away games

the money which has become a new game

and seeing their new changing rooms

scoreboards stands Club shops bars

how they found the capital to build that

during a pandemic is amazing article

23-1

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saves otherwise provided by these

articles a Broadband which are not vote

at a meeting of the board of directors

on any resolution concerning a master

which he or any club which is involved

has directly or directly of Interest

really well I mean the world is

absolutely proper and clear-cut

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the happy outcome comes from us taking

the stance that we did yeah because we

protected the club

and it will allow us to rebuild uh we're

here

you know in spite of the National League

rather than because of

good

put it right to them today and ask my

money back

foreign

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