Ask your Parliamentary candidates whether they support football reform

[pompeydunc]

Please take one minute to help achieve reform by:
- Going to http://votefootball.org/
- Scroll down and click on "take part"
- Select Dulwich Hamlet (or another team if you so wish!)
- Enter your postcode and click on find candidates
- Scroll down and fill out your details and click "send letter"

Read more here - http://dhst.org.uk/demand-football-reform/

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Anyone who would suggest to their MP that football issues are the decisive factor in this election should be stripped of their vote.

 

[Fingers]

Done. Will see what comes back, though with Artificial Beast at the Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol party, I may have to wait until he has got out of bed.

 

[Dulwich Mishi]

Be interesting if any of our fans do this, but at the same time don't vote because they're all the same...

 

[pompeydunc]

Anyone who would suggest to their MP that football issues are the decisive factor in this election should be stripped of their vote.

Who said decisive factor? It's not an either / or situation. This the time to get parties to make commitments. DCMS will have a mandate to deliver after the election, and football reform should be part of it.

 

[pompeydunc]

Response from National Health Action Party candidate for Camberwell & Peckham

Dear Duncan,

Thanks for getting in touch.

I've read the proposal and I definitely support the legislative changes. Thanks for drawing it to my attention.

The National Health Action Party is focused on defending and improving the NHS. If you also care about this, you might want to ask all candidates whether they support the NHS Reinstatement Bill 2015, www.nhsbill2015.org. This bill rolls back the Coalition's disastrous Health and Social Care Act and reflects what the majority of the British public want. However, as far as I know, only the Greens and NHA are committed to supporting this bill. Labour's rival bill, the Efford Bill, does not go far enough in restoring a publicly-run NHS.

I hope you consider voting NHA. Camberwell and Peckham is a very safe Labour seat so please use your vote to defend our NHS, and protest against privatisation.

Best wishes,

Rebecca Fox
National Health Action Party candidate for Camberwell & Peckham

 

[pompeydunc]

Response from Harriet Harman (Labour, Peckham & Camberwell), not a surprise as this was announced last month.

Thank you for your email on football reform. I appreciate you taking the time to write to me on this issue.

Fans have the long-term interest of their club at heart and I believe they should be heard when decisions are being made that impact on them.

A Labour government will legislate to ensure clubs share power and responsibility with their fans. Our national game will only succeed in the long term if the voices of fans are heard in every boardroom and they are given the chance to hold owners to account.

We will enable supporters to come together to form a single accredited trust in return for the right to appoint and remove up to a quarter and not less than two of a football club’s board of directors. This would be underpinned by the right to obtain (under an obligation of confidentiality) financial and commercial information about the business and affairs of a football club.

The legislation will also allow the Supporters Trust to purchase up to 10 per cent of the shares when a club changes ownership if they so wish however supporters would not be able to block takeovers or change corporate strategy.

We will continue to consult on the detail of these proposals with supporters.

Thank you once again for writing to me and for sharing your views.

Best wishes,

Harriet Harman

 

[pompeydunc]

Response from Nick Wrack (Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) & Left Unity, Camberwell & Peckham)

Dear Duncan,

Thanks for your letter, which is about a subject very close to my heart.

I am a fan and founder member of FC United of Manchester (FCUM). I am celebrating not only winning our league and promotion but the completion this season of our own ground.

I believe that football as it is now is unsustainable. The money injected into the Premier League has taken it out of the price range of working-class fans. As a boy I used to stand on the terraces at Old Trafford with my sister (Stretford End, Scoreboard End, Paddock). We paid for it out of our pocket money. Now it is not possible for a working class family to take their children to see a top flight game. I am wholly behind any move to return football to the fans. AFC Wimbledon and FCUM show how football can be run in the interests of the fans, by the fans and bring ordinary people to watch football at a price they can afford and in a friendly environment.

I am afraid that I have not read all of the material on the website that you linked me to, but I will support any steps to put football and the fans ahead of the profits of shareholders and those who use football as ways of boosting their own incomes/dodging tax/laundering criminal money etc.

I hope this answers your questions satisfactorily. If not, please get back in touch.

Best wishes,

Nick Wrack

 

[Fingers]

Response from Harriet Harman (Labour, Peckham & Camberwell), not a surprise as this was announced last month.

Thank you for your email on football reform. I appreciate you taking the time to write to me on this issue.

Fans have the long-term interest of their club at heart and I believe they should be heard when decisions are being made that impact on them.

A Labour government will legislate to ensure clubs share power and responsibility with their fans. Our national game will only succeed in the long term if the voices of fans are heard in every boardroom and they are given the chance to hold owners to account.

We will enable supporters to come together to form a single accredited trust in return for the right to appoint and remove up to a quarter and not less than two of a football club’s board of directors. This would be underpinned by the right to obtain (under an obligation of confidentiality) financial and commercial information about the business and affairs of a football club.

The legislation will also allow the Supporters Trust to purchase up to 10 per cent of the shares when a club changes ownership if they so wish however supporters would not be able to block takeovers or change corporate strategy.

We will continue to consult on the detail of these proposals with supporters.

Thank you once again for writing to me and for sharing your views.

Best wishes,

Harriet Harman

I have had sod all back from the Streatham candidates :-(

 

[Fingers]

I like Nick

 

[Fingers]

and Ms H

 

[Fingers]

Green Party's Jonathan Bartley (Streatham)

Hi - I'm a Nottingham Forest fan (long story - although I have lived in the local area all my life, my cousins from nottingham persuaded me in 1978, and I have stayed loyal. Well you do, don't you!)

Re legislation to reform football governance, yes I do support it. I have been really concerned about the way that big money has dominated the game, and owners dump huge debts onto clubs.

It may be of interest that I helped to get something included in the Green Party manifesto that is related to it (though not my idea!) that would grant the right to turn football clubs, into community and supporter cooperatives by giving powers for season ticket holders backed by the local community to take over the running of a club. It's on page 48: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/asset...015_General_Election_Manifesto_Searchable.pdf

With all good wishes,

Jonathan

 

[EDC]

1978? Glory hunter then.

 

[Dulwich Mishi]

Could you ask him, as he's said he's an exiled football fan, if he's even been to local non-league football in South London?

 

[Fingers]

Could you ask him, as he's said he's an exiled football fan, if he's even been to local non-league football in South London?

I can do. This is from the Lib Dems Amna Ahmed

Many thanks for taking the time to get in touch about football governance. I come from a big family of football lovers and understand the importance of putting in place the proper governance rules to ensure that fans are not exploited. Football is too important to allow it to continue unregulated.

As a Liberal Democrat, I inherently prefer that organisations (including football clubs) regular themselves - rather than imposing the will of Government legislation. I believe in people power. But from reading the Vote Football Proposal, it appears to me that this self-regulatory approach has not worked and there is much cause for concern still. If elected, I commit to putting your views forward on this matter in Parliament (whatever the make-up of the next Government). As a party, we have commented on the need for football regulation ( see this BBC article from 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29518392) but more time needs to be spent discussing and agreeing further action.

Thanks for getting in touch.

Best wishes
Amna

 

[pompeydunc]

Just in case you were thinking of voting for the Whig party!

Dear Duncan

Thank you for your email. I agree with you that legislation is required to reform football governance. More specifically, the Whig Party agrees with Labour's plans to allow supporters to appoint or remove two club directors and buy shares when their club changes hands.Thanks again for getting in touchBest wishes
Felicity Anscomb

Felicity Anscomb, Whig Party candidate for Camberwell and Peckham

 

[Puddy_Tat]

If I lived in Witney, this might be fun.

Can just imagine condom-face dictating a reply to his secretary

"football? does he mean the one with the round ball that the oiks go to? better say something that sounds supportive that doesn't really say anything. you know the sort of thing. and don't say anything that would upset my rich chums who own the clubs, of course. and put something in about me being a committed supporter of - oh heck - who is it? i can't bloody remember. i'm sure you've got a note of it somewhere"

 

[Cyclodunc]

I think Vicky Foxcroft is a Millwall season ticket holder. Not had a reply from the tweet I sent her about this bizniss

 

[jonesyboyo]

I thought I was emailing Rashid Nix, green candidate for Dulwich & W. Norwood through this, however got this one response this AM from the Lib dems, grammar error included

Will you support football governance reform legislation?

Apologies Jonesy - just spotted you’re email in my spam folder.
Bit academic now but yes I would have. I’m keen on the fan cooperative model which I believe is so successful in Germany. Not just successful for the clubs but also the national team.
For DHFC I think it could be a successful model. The key will be getting the existing club ground into the fans hands.

Regards james barber
Liberal Democrat Councillor for East Dulwich ward
Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Dulwich & West Norwood
07900 227366
www.jamesbarber.org.uk
@cllrjamesbarber

 

[Dulwich Mishi]

What a fool! The key is getting a sustainable stadium that can ensure the Club survives for many years to come...in the future.
Hopefully this clown will go the way of simple Simon Hughes! The former Lib-Dem MP who opposed the building of our current ground. If simple Simon had had his way The Hamlet would have been a long forgotten footnote in football history.
And Germany is not a co-operative model...it is their 50+1 model, which is different. Which I would be more than happy with, incidentally...

 

[EDC]

What a fool! The key is getting a sustainable stadium that can ensure the Club survives for many years to come...in the future.
Hopefully this clown will go the way of simple Simon Hughes! The former Lib-Dem MP who opposed the building of our current ground. If simple Simon had had his way The Hamlet would have been a long forgotten footnote in football history.
And Germany is not a co-operative model...it is their 50+1 model, which is different. Which I would be more than happy with, incidentally...

Well said Mishi, the bloke is an idiot of the first order. He makes it appear on the East Dulwich Forum, being the local councillor that everything good and positive that happens in East Dulwich is down to him and his failing party. I've never seen him at Champion Hill before and then has the fucking cheek to turn up at the Maidstone match during an election campaign and post on the EDF shortly afterwards how "WE" need a bigger ground. To make it clear not you, me, other fans or the club in general, but WE as in he's one of us. Fuck all about Hadleys plans for the future of the club and for community use, proposed Fan Ownership and what a great asset the club is to the area. It almost appeared that he wasn't even aware of Hadley's proposals which is unusual for someone who generally sticks his oar into everything.