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Dulwich Hamlet and Coronavirus

Pink Panther said:
I'm sure we won't just pay up without a fight but ultimately we'll have little choice if we can't get it cancelled through official or legal appeals procedures. Eventually the National League won't let us play and the FA would block us from joining another league with outstanding unpaid fines.
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Yeah, you're right. It's just the injustice of it sticks in the craw somewhat.
 
we could raise the 8k via friendlies and say you can have it or better still local community/good causes groups ie foodbank can have it
 
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Curzon Ashton's Chairman has said they can't pay their 8k fine.

There may be an argument for the fined tier two clubs pooling any fundraising to pay off the fines. Collectively they are only as strong as their weakest member and there's a few quite small clubs facing substantial fines
 
SagaLout said:
The fine covered on ITV local news. Suggestion that if the fine is paid the money will come from the women's team ?
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Presumably the club makes a net loss on running the women's (and men's academy) teams plus other community focused initiatives, so theoretically the £8,000 fine leaves less money available for those areas. I'm sure the club would not cut back disproportionately on funding the women's teams but it doesn't exactly help. It's just an example of how hammering clubs with punitive sanctions after forcing us to play behind closed doors is adding insult to injury.

The National League had an opportunity to position itself as the elite competition for football clubs who play primarily for the benefit of supporters who enjoy attending games live in the flesh. All they had to do was suspend the season and say: "we don't play until our supporters can be here, at the stadiums" to support their clubs in the customary manner." Instead they've prioritised deluded owners and big money sponsors by trying to emulate the Premier League in pressing ahead behind closed doors.

The Premier League is the most watched competition in world sport, with a global television audience of billions driving massive broadcasting and sponsorship deals. National League matches are typically watched by attendances ranging from the low hundreds to the low thousands and the competition is of limited interest beyond those who actually turn up at the turnstiles to watch its 66 member clubs on a matchday. At a rough guess that's an aggregate average attendance of less than 100,000. Yet the National League Board tried to emulate the Premier League by playing behind closed doors and went cap in hand to the DCMS for the funding to make it possible, deceived its member clubs into starting the season under false pretences, then left each club to fend for itself when it became apparent that there would be no more grant funding. All they have achieved is to firmly establish themselves as an embarrassing tinpot version of the Premier League and Football League, instead of the refreshing alternative to those competitions that attracts so many supporters to its matches in the first place.
 
SagaLout said:
The fine covered on ITV local news. Suggestion that if the fine is paid the money will come from the women's team ?

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I'm not sure about the wisdom not appealing the fine but I definitely think we need to go to the FA to show that the NL board are not fit for purpose.
 
They've completely lost control:

12 points deducted – Dover Athletic (£40,000 fine)
8 suspended points deducted – Dulwich Hamlet (£8,000 fine)
8 suspended points deducted – Curzon Ashton (£8,000 fine)
8 suspended points deducted – Slough Town (£8,000 fine)
8 suspended points deducted – Chippenham Town (£8,000 fine)
6 suspended points deducted – Bradford (Park Avenue) (£6,000 fine)
6 suspended points deducted – Blyth Spartans (£6,000 fine)
6 suspended points deducted – Farsley Celtic (£6,000 fine) (reduced to £4,200 for accepting the charge ahead of the hearing)
4 suspended points deducted – Bath City (£4,000 fine)
2 suspended points deducted – Southport (£2,000 fine) (+ £2,000 for covid breaches)
2 suspended points deducted – Concord Rangers (£2,000 fine)
2 suspended points deducted – Darlington (£2,000 fine)
2 suspended points deducted – Gateshead (£2,000 fine) (reduced to £1,400 for accepting the charge ahead of the hearing)
2 suspended points deducted – Kettering Town – (2,000 fine)

fanbanter.co.uk

REVEALED: The 17 clubs handed a suspended points deduction by the National League - Fan Banter

The 17 clubs handed a suspended points deduction by the National League have been revealed following that shocking statement on Friday. As we know, Dover Athletic will play no further part in the National League this season with their results expunged after failing to meet fixture obligations...
fanbanter.co.uk fanbanter.co.uk
 
Pink Panther said:
Presumably the club makes a net loss on running the women's (and men's academy) teams plus other community focused initiatives, so theoretically the £8,000 fine leaves less money available for those areas. I'm sure the club would not cut back disproportionately on funding the women's teams but it doesn't exactly help. It's just an example of how hammering clubs with punitive sanctions after forcing us to play behind closed doors is adding insult to injury.

The National League had an opportunity to position itself as the elite competition for football clubs who play primarily for the benefit of supporters who enjoy attending games live in the flesh. All they had to do was suspend the season and say: "we don't play until our supporters can be here, at the stadiums" to support their clubs in the customary manner." Instead they've prioritised deluded owners and big money sponsors by trying to emulate the Premier League in pressing ahead behind closed doors ...................
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Good post and I agree with most of it. However, it would be intersting to know the net cost of running the women's team given home match day attendances in the hundreds.
 
SagaLout said:
Good post and I agree with most of it. However, it would be intersting to know the net cost of running the women's team given home match day attendances in the hundreds.
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I've no idea what the net cost of running the women's teams is, but don't forget the overheads for the reserves are probably much the same as for the first team and they don't pull a paying attendance.

The last couple of matches against Orient and Dartford pulled crowds of almost 600 when there were no crowds allowed for the men's games, which is great, but until then it was 200-300 with admission prices £4/£2. Many of those attending will be season ticket holders, so I would think matchday gate receipts are typically in the low £ hundreds and they play relatively few fixtures compared to the men's team. Hopefully they'll continue to attract larger crowds next season after people saw how entertaining and exciting those last two matches were.

Returning to the matter of the £8,000 fine, clubs at our level work very hard to raise additional funds of that size through 50/50 draws, 12th Man Funds and other similar initiatives. It's pretty sickening for the league to undermine that by issuing fines, even more so in the current climate and following their own incompetent handling of the situation.
 
Maidstone and Dorking are formally seeking support for an EGM to debate a motion stating thr meeting has no confidence in the Chairman and League Board.



Edited to say the motion needs the support of 10% of voting rights to call the meeting. Will be stunned if they don't get that. They ask for responses by midday on Wednesday.

Edited again to say Concord have already confirmed they are supporting the motion.
 
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It's all very well to call for the removal of a clearly incompetent chairman and board who have mishandled the whole season catastrophically.

what comes next, though? Is the a better calibre of leadership waiting in the wings?

football leagues are voluntary membership associations run by the clubs. The league effectively is the clubs...one thing to oust the leadership, but hope they have a better alternative in place.

It is really sad to see this happening, incidentally. I love English non league and it really is a roaring binfire administratively, and has been for months.
 
steeplejack said:
football leagues are voluntary membership associations run by the clubs. The league effectively is the clubs...one thing to oust the leadership, but hope they have a better alternative in place.
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This is why it's so bizarre that rather than acting to protect those clubs in an extreme situation they've decided to attack a large section of those clubs. You'd think they'd be ideally placed to recognise what is required here as the overall aim - which clearly should be 'ensure the survival of all the clubs as ongoing entities' not 'try and get board member's clubs promoted.'
 
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The Chairman's latest thoughts on the ongoing omnishambles:

Dulwich Hamlet – South London News (londonnewsonline.co.uk)

Apparently the "independent" committee that came up with the charges consisted of three members, two of whom are former FA colleagues of Mark Ives, so it looks suspiciously like he just briefed them on what sort of outcome was expected by the League Board. This was mentioned by one of the Chippenham Town directors in a podcast I listened to earlier today.
 
Dover are echoing Ben's point about when is the fine due? They have said if it is called in now, the club is insolvent.
 
Roger D said:
Dover are echoing Ben's point about when is the fine due? They have said if it is called in now, the club is insolvent.
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It's bloody obvious when you think about it, isnt it? Clubs haven't had any income since December, so if they ran out of funds to play the games how are they going to find the money to pay these fines before next season? Unless of course people within the clubs pay them out of their own pocket, which shouldn't need to happen.

This isn't the first time this season that our directors have publicly reported being unable to get a response to a simple question from the League Board. As for League Chairman Brian Barwick OBE, he seems to have spent most of the season doing a passable impersonation of Lord Lucan while the league has been faced with its greatest ever crisis. What does he actually do?
 
Most people in Rugby League seemed to be asking what Brian did before he went. He clearly does something so crucial us mere mortals can't work it out
 
Ollie Bayliss is reporting significant club support for an EGM. The voting deadline has been extended until Monday as some clubs need more time to discuss internally.
 
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