Dear Hilary Benn,

I am writing to you as Chair of Bantams Supporters Trust and on behalf of our Supporters Trust for Bradford City fans with regards to an Early Day Motion 1765 proposing a Fan-Led Review of Football Governance, tabled by your colleague Ian Mearns, Labour MP for Gateshead, and urging all MP's to back it.

I am sure you are aware of the failed plans of the 'big 6' Clubs within the Premier League that were prepared to join 6 other big European Clubs to join a European Super League a proposal that further whet's the appetites for yet more profit of their owners.

Football is big business but we want football to take a real hard look at itself. A Government fan-led review is the first step in making a series of reforms that will make football clubs accountable and transparent, that will engage with fans in a football structure where the wealth in the came should be redistributed to all and not accumilated by the richest few.

Here are a list of demands/proposals which the FSA (Football Supporters Association) feels are necessary to redress the balance:

Football has shown that it is not fit to regulate itself – the people who are bound by the rules shouldn’t be the very same people who make them – there needs to be independent regulation of football.

Barriers to supporter ownership should be removed, and supporters should be empowered to take a meaningful ownership stake in their clubs.

Fans need a much greater say in the decision-making structures of clubs and should be embedded on club boards to prevent any chance of this sort of thing happening again.

Too many clubs further down the football pyramid have gone to the wall because of a lack of transparency and financial oversight – more needs to be done to ensure that community institutions are not lost, and reckless owners can’t destroy our clubs.

The women’s game should not be an afterthought, and clubs should not be tethered to their men’s equivalent but free to make the decisions that are best for their continued growth and success.

Nothing should be off the table, including Government legislation if necessary, to make the changes we need.

Fans need to be front and centre of the fan-led review, and that includes key issues like ticket pricing, kick-off times and the dozens of other things that actually matter to match-going supporters.

33 MP's, predominantly Labour have signed, and I urge you to sign it as well.

Yours sincerely

Manny Dominguez

Bantams Supporters Trust Chair

You can see more about the Fan-led Review here, and our Fan-led Review Guide, here.

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On the 13th May, The Premier League agreed a proposal (see DCMS Statement) by the Government to renew, or roll-over the existing broadcasting rights deal from 2019/20 – 22/23 for another three years, which will see it end in 2025. The broadcasters include Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime and BBC Sport.

The roll-over or renewal means that, the Premier League agree to temporarily exclude the competition law from their broadcasting deal for three years without going to tender (we're now at the end of the second year). This is quite a coup for the PL and means broadcast revenues will remain stable. Many people may have expected them to fall off a cliff.

There is probably an instinctive reaction on Twitter that, whenever the PL gets its way, it's automatically a bad thing. That might be understandable but it isn't always true and in this instance the FSA will cautiously welcome stability in an unstable world - the reality is that if the PL deal collapsed so would grassroots funding and solidarity payments to EFL/non-league so that isn't something we want to see either.

Part of the Government deal is that the PL has agreed to beef up some of its solidarity payments, with an extra £100 million to "to the National League, women’s football, League One and Two clubs, grassroots football and cross-game initiatives". There is a total value of £1.5bn distributed in parachute payments, solidarity payments and youth development etc.

It is more than likely that the commitment to £100 million of extra funding to the lower end of the Pyramid including Leagues One and Two will fall short of what is necessary to financially secure them, and the PL and it’s clubs could put up a lot more despite their own broadcasting revenue losses of £1.5 billion due to Covid.

It does gets a cautious welcome with a few very important caveats:

• DCMS has confirmed that the fan-led review will still look at broadcast revenue distribution. The deal might offer some stability, but the fan-led review must look at everything afresh. This is critical as it in no way, shape or form gets the PL "off the hook". In fact, you could argue it makes our case that football is a unique business and needs to be looked at in that context.

• Match-going fans will look at the continuation of KO times around the calendar and let out a few expletives.

• The business secretary has invited "representations" around the "exceptional and compelling reasons" for allowing the PL to roll over its 3-yr broadcast deal without going to tender. That's something we'll be looking at and all "interested parties".

With regards to the EFL statement, here, we share the same concerns about distribution of monies and the solution.

The EFL Statement is a damning criticism of the PL’s financial redistribution structure and sees the Government’s announcement as a ‘missed opportunity to press the PL further to address its’ ‘financial imbalances that exist between the top division and the rest of football’.

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We have two programme collectors wanting programmes and are prepared to make a donation to the Trust.

One from a Southend supporter wanting to know if anyone has a spare City v Southend at VP from 2011/12. And the other is a Plymouth Argyle fan looking for a City at home versus Plymouth Argyle from 2012/13.

Here is a little summary of them

Stephen, the Shrimpers fan fell in love with football programmes in the 70’s. His mum had a collection from the 50’s, and in the early 90’s he decided to collect Southend programmes and get every programme going back to 1955 (the year they moved to Roots Hall). After getting married and started a family, he stopped buying current programmes in 2002.

Recently, about 2016, with more disposable income and a ‘man-cave’ he decided to start collecting again, post 2002, but also pre-1955 going back to the war.

He now needs just a handful of Southend programmes going back to 1945 and the Bradford one from 2011/12 is one of only two from the modern era he is looking for.

Jordan, the Pilgrims fan, is extremely passionate about collecting match programmes. He has been collecting ever since he first stood on the terraces at my first ever game as a 9-year-old boy 20 years ago. Like many collectors, he sees the matchday programme as a souvenir, as a moment of time that triggers your best memories of football.

Every programme always reminds him of being stood on those terraces with his father. Since first going to football, the only programme missing from his collection is the Bradford City v Plymouth Argyle one for the match that took place on Tuesday 20th November 2012.

Can you help?

If you can help these football programme collectors find their missing ones please contact us here.

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While the club has increased the prices of the tickets we welcome they remain affordable. We also welcome the introduction of the monthly subscription – For Adults It is £203.50 per year if you go monthly when you take into consideration online sale and delivery.

As an outlay for a family it can be expensive all at one go, and to have that split over 12 months makes the Club more accessible.

All other prices categories are still good value per month too.

We hope that with the added revenue from the price increase the club can give us the desired effect to finally exit League Two at the end of next season.

We welcome the Clubs’ survey sent out to fans. It’s a fan engagement method that can reach a majority of fans.

We also support the Club having continued communications through the Supporters Board (which we are a part of), and ourselves, Bantams Supporters Trust which is part of wider football supporters Trust movement that is key in placing ‘Structured Dialogue’ with supporters trusts at the heart of every club.

Join the Trust here.

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FIT FANS is a FREE health programme for men and women aged 35-65 who are looking to lose weight, get fitter and lead a more active life.

Bradford City FC Community Foundation is launching its’ Fit Fans programme this week.

The programme ran successfully prior to Covid and has changed lives of many people as well as providing participants the opportunity to take to the Valley Parade Pitch.

You can sign up via the EFL website link here.

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We are calling time to fill in our online City Fans’ Survey, due to a number of factors; The further lifting of Covid restrictions on June 21st and how that may impact on fans returning to football stadium, and following from that, it is only a matter of time as to when the Club will launch its ‘City For All’ season-tickets.

We are also keen to engage with our Club, revealing the findings of our survey.

The deadline for completing it is 5pm on Monday 17th May.

It should only take 5 minutes of your time to fill it out. Our survey is here.

Our surveys are important to us as they give us an indication of your views, and the more of you that fill these surveys in, the bigger the impact of our influence when we engage with our Club.

If you’re not already a Member, we encourage all City fans to join the Supporters Trust. It is here for you. Join us today here.

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