[Football] Fair Game Index

[Neville's Breakfast]

Fair Game Index 2023 - Fair Game

The most comprehensive survey of English football ever. The top 92 clubs ranked on financial sustainability, good governance, fan engagement and equality standards - using over 80 different touchpoints

www.fairgameuk.org

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6047aabc7130e94a70ed3515/t/64b458116f614e7c17eb2160/1689540674225/Fair+Game+Index+Report+July+2023

No top 10 finish this time.

 

[Titanic]

No idea what any of that means, below Palace for 'Financial Sustainability' suggests it is a bit crap.

 

[banjo]

5th from bottom. Barber out!!

 

[El Presidente]

Looking at the financial sustainability scores, Manchester City and Chelsea are the two biggest loss making clubs in Premier League history, Manchester United have paid £900m interest on £700m of borrowings and West Ham are subsidised by the taxpayer paying £3m a year rent on a £700m Stadium...yet all do well in the table

 

[Mackenzie]

Yeah looks like a load of made up bollocks doesn’t it.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

I don't really understand how the figures in the categories are decided and there doesn't seem to be a clear explanation within the report or on the website.

"The four criteria are weighted: 40% financial measures; 30% governance; 20% fan engagement; 10% equality standards. Each of the criteria is developed from dozens of touchpoints, creating the most comprehensive analysis of teams at the top end of the English football pyramid. The weighting was settled on my Fair Game's team of experts. However, the Index is built on an ethos of constant improvement and the weighting will always be under review.'

Genuinely, WTF?

 

[KZNSeagull]

"touchpoints"? What a load of shite

 

[Eeyore]

Looking at the financial sustainability scores, Manchester City and Chelsea are the two biggest loss making clubs in Premier League history, Manchester United have paid £900m interest on £700m of borrowings and West Ham are subsidised by the taxpayer paying £3m a year rent on a £700m Stadium...yet all do well in the table

Well, if you says it's tosh then as far as I'm concerned it's tosh.

It's not correct until the DULLARD says it's correct.

 

[Creaky]

Yeah looks like a load of made up bollocks doesn’t it.

Whether it is or not I don’t know without evidence for or against.

I do agree with a lot of the recommendations they make.

The 10 strategic recommendations of the Fan-Led Review are:
1. To ensure the long-term sustainability of football, the Government should create a new independent regulator for English football (IREF).
2. To ensure financial sustainability of the professional game, IREF should oversee financial regulation in football.
3. New owners’ and directors’ tests for clubs should be established by IREF replacing the three existing tests and ensuring that only good custodians and qualified directors can run these vital assets.
4. Football needs a new approach to corporate governance to support a long-term sustainable future of the game.
5. Football needs to improve equality, diversity and inclusion in clubs with committed EDI Action Plans regularly assessed by IREF.
6. As a uniquely important stakeholder, supporters should be properly consulted by their clubs in taking key decisions by means of a Shadow Board.
7. Football clubs are a vital part of their local communities, in recognition of this there should be additional protection for key items of club heritage.
8. Fair distributions are vital to the long term health of football. The Premier League should guarantee its support to the pyramid and make additional, proportionate contributions to further support football.
9. Women’s football should be treated with parity and given its own dedicated review.
10. As an urgent matter, the welfare of players exiting the game needs to be better protected – particularly at a young age.

 

[Stato]

Looking at the financial sustainability scores, Manchester City and Chelsea are the two biggest loss making clubs in Premier League history, Manchester United have paid £900m interest on £700m of borrowings and West Ham are subsidised by the taxpayer paying £3m a year rent on a £700m Stadium...yet all do well in the table

You should seek more explanation from one of their advisors: https://www.fairgameuk.org/experts. Third one along in the fourth row looks like he knows his stuff.

 

[SAC]

You should seek more explanation from one of their advisors: https://www.fairgameuk.org/experts. Third one along in the fourth row looks like he knows his stuff.

We better not say it's all made up crap then!

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

You should seek more explanation from one of their advisors: https://www.fairgameuk.org/experts. Third one along in the fourth row looks like he knows his stuff.

I hadn’t noticed that !
Got it from the Tranmere website. If implemented Rovers would receive an extra £10m a year for being the 9th best run club in the country.
‘Crucially, Fair Game wants the new Independent Regulator to use the Index to put an end to football’s unfair financial flow. Clubs would receive a greater portion of the vast pie of television revenue the better they performed in the Index. Well-run clubs would be rewarded for upholding the values fans demand of their clubs - values which, as a Fair Game club, we hold close to our hearts.’

Tranmere Rovers among top 10 in ground-breaking assessment of England’s best-run clubs

Tranmere would be £10 million better off under new model for football’s financial flow. Tranmere are delighted to be among England’s best-run clubs, according to the Fair Game Index, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive survey of football governance.

www.tranmererovers.co.uk

I think a few on this thread are dismissing the idea a little too easily and based purely upon the Albion’s relatively low placing. Some preconceived ideas being challenged perhaps.

 

[Farehamseagull]

Looking at the financial sustainability scores, Manchester City and Chelsea are the two biggest loss making clubs in Premier League history, Manchester United have paid £900m interest on £700m of borrowings and West Ham are subsidised by the taxpayer paying £3m a year rent on a £700m Stadium...yet all do well in the table

Am I right in saying we score low because of our reliance on one man financially? Whether he’s a fan or not, they give a low score if a club is is that financially dependent on one party?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Man Utd are fifth for financial sustainability, but have been fined by UEFA for Financial Fair Play rules?

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I hadn’t noticed that !
Got it from the Tranmere website. If implemented Rovers would receive an extra £10m a year for being the 9th best run club in the country.
‘Crucially, Fair Game wants the new Independent Regulator to use the Index to put an end to football’s unfair financial flow. Clubs would receive a greater portion of the vast pie of television revenue the better they performed in the Index. Well-run clubs would be rewarded for upholding the values fans demand of their clubs - values which, as a Fair Game club, we hold close to our hearts.’

Tranmere Rovers among top 10 in ground-breaking assessment of England’s best-run clubs

Tranmere would be £10 million better off under new model for football’s financial flow. Tranmere are delighted to be among England’s best-run clubs, according to the Fair Game Index, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive survey of football governance.

www.tranmererovers.co.uk

I think a few on this thread are dismissing the idea a little too easily and based purely upon the Albion’s relatively low placing. Some preconceived ideas being challenged perhaps.

I think the problem is it's highly subjective. Also trying to dig into how exactly each category works led me into a cirlcle of buzz words , generalisations and puff. There are so many "experts" that i feel they've ended up with a camel ( a horse designed by a committee)

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I think the problem is it's highly subjective. Also trying to dig into how exactly each category works led me into a cirlcle of buzz words , generalisations and puff. There are so many "experts" that i feel they've ended up with a camel ( a horse designed by a committee)

You’ve probably researched it more than I have tbh. I just read it on the Rovers website and put it on here. I do think though that a change in the system to one that financially rewards good governance (and distributes tv money accordingly) is better than the current one that focuses on success (league position) whatever the means. This has to be a step in the right direction. Whether this is the best template, who knows. But it would see a big increase in tv money going to well run clubs in the lower divisions at the expense of poorly run clubs higher up the ladder.

 

[beorhthelm]

aside obvious financial sustainability, Everton being top for fan engagement is, er, interesting. i suppose having a protests are a sort of engagement.

 

[Stato]

I think the problem is it's highly subjective. Also trying to dig into how exactly each category works led me into a cirlcle of buzz words , generalisations and puff. There are so many "experts" that i feel they've ended up with a camel ( a horse designed by a committee)

To be fair, I don't think that there is suggestion that all of the advisors to Fair Game as an organisation have contributed to this index.

There is a lack of clarity about how the scores for each element are allocated and I do wonder what has changed so much at our club in the last six months to drop our scores so significantly since their January report which was presumably based either on different figures, or different metrics. (No explanation of the methodology, or the sources for the base figures seems available without signing up).

Whatever is different between the two reports has significantly dropped our financial sustainablity. Perhaps it was our qualification for one of those notoriously financially disadvantageous European competitions, or perhaps it was the accounts being published in March showing that the club had made a profit for the first time since it has been in the EPL? Who knows?

 

[Braggfan]

Yeah looks like a load of made up bollocks doesn’t it.

Spot on. In what world are Everton the next club behind us in terms of good governance. And Wolves ahead of us in Equality standards, despite them getting fined for their fans homophobic chanting. This is a nonsense index

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Spot on. In what world are Everton the next club behind us in terms of good governance. And Wolves ahead of us in Equality standards, despite them getting fined for their fans homophobic chanting. This is a nonsense index

Are Everton the next club behind us or just the next PL club ? (I haven’t looked).
Fans’ chanting has nothing to do with club equality standards.