Financial fitness tests plan as FA toughen up their act
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Your support makes all the difference.The Football Association hope to spike the guns of two critical reports, to be published within 24 hours of each other this week, by introducing a raft of measures, including a Fit and Proper Person test for club directors and greater transparency over transfers. But they will resist any sort of quota system for ethnic minorities on committees.
On Tuesday, the Independent Football Commission, set up in response to recommendations by the Task Force, will present their second annual report. The next day, the All Party Parliamentary Football Group publishresults of their investigation into football finance. The IFC, criticised in the past for lacking teeth, call their report "hard-hitting and robust".
They will say that the public still believes the sport is badly governed and "would welcome a firmer hand" from the FA, the Premier League and the Football League in dealing with malpractice. Although the FA set up a compliance unit some time ago, one IFC source said: "It's under-resourced and is not doing the job that needs to be done. We were told that 90 per cent of its work deals with on-field misdemeanours".
Having demanded a Fit and Proper Person test before the start of the next season, the IFC were surprised but gratified to learn that the FA's Financial Advisory Committee, set up last August, will put forward plans for one to the full FA Board on Wednesday. The FAC's other proposals are that prospective club owners must set out credible funding plans; directors must guarantee a club will stay at their ground for a full season; and that all agents, managers and coaching staff involved in transfers must be identified.
The IFC chairman, Professor Derek Fraser, said: "There's obviously a meeting of minds as they're taking up all our ideas." He hopes it will work in the IFC's favour during the forthcoming debate about their future. An investigation into agents may be the next step for the All Party Group of 150 MPs and peers. Their committee, who heard evidence from a wide range of parties over seven sessions last year, were believed to be impressed by the case for a Fit and Proper Person test and greater openness in financial matters.
Meanwhile, Manchester United fans groups have joined forces to demand major shareholders John Magnier and JP McManus "come clean" over their intentions for the club. Shareholders United and the Independent Supporters' Association have posed 99 questions of their own to the racing tycoons who are pondering the answers to a similar number of corporate governance questions they set chairman Sir Roy Gardner.
The fans claim to have compiled a dossier about the pair's past business dealings as well as "their personal and political affairs". "We are entitled to know who these people are, where they came from and what they expect to achieve by waging this dirty war," says a joint statement.
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