Nothing is simple at Spurs, even when it’s FAB

Elections for the new Fan Advisory Board at THFC are up and running, but there’s a lack of transparency around the process that is prompting doubts among fans, whose buy-in is essential.

While the existence of a panel to select candidates prompted suspicion, it’s standard practice for candidates to bodies of this type to be subject to some filtering to ensure they have the right set of skills. Governance is a complex business and involves more than just representation.

However, representing fan views is an important part of the job, and the candidates’ statements for my constituency – the season ticket holder rep – at least are light on mention of fan representation. There are some impressive individuals, but reps on the FAB need to understand and care about the issues facing supporters as well as possess business acumen. The statements read more like applications for the club’s executive board than for a fan advisory board.

The impression is that the Club board is trying to ensure applicants are in its own image. It has not disclosed the criteria upon which the selection panel based its decisions to shortlist, the imposition of a non-disclosure order on the panel members does the opposite of engender confidence. The decision only to disclose the names and application statements of those standing to their constituencies is also unnecessarily proscriptive.

Just before the voting period opened, the club ran a story on its website about a call Daniel Levy had taken part in with the Trust, Spurs REACH, Proud Lilywhites and SpursAbility in which he expressed thanks for help in setting up the FAB. It was a chance for the club to push its latest line that the executive board had made no mistakes, and for Levy to air his views on financial fair play. It also sent a clear message that the club views the FAB as its vehicle, not the fans’.

For the FAB to work, the broad base of supporters need to have confidence in it. But, yet again, the club board’s obsession with controlling absolutely everything is causing problems where there could be solutions.

I don’t like being critical so early in the process, especially because I argued strongly that supporters should put forward constructive proposals to reform the governance of the club. This was done after the announcement of the fan-led review and the damage done to the existing framework by the club’s participation in the European Super League plot. As co-chair of the Supporters Trust, I worked with a really good group of people to come up with what was acknowledged as a well-rounded and proportionate set of measures – although not, of course, by the club. We drew on those measures when we submitted evidence to the fan-led review.

Let’s remember that, in the wake of the ESL debacle, THFC announced what it said was “fan representation on the board”. It said it would establish a “club advisory panel” whose chair would be “appointed annually as a full Non-Executive of the Club Board”. And that the new structure would provide “authentic, genuine representation and ensure fans are at the heart of decision-making”.

When the Trust sent its proposals to the Club on 22 June 2021 it was told that consideration of those proposals, plus implementation of the plans announced by the club in its statement, would be put on hold until the conclusion of the recently announced fan-led review. It could be argued that pre-empting the conclusions of a national review was unwise. It could also be argued that the club, alongside other clubs and the football authorities, was waiting to see if it could influence the review into setting a low bar.

The Club could have worked with fans to come up with something that set a high bar. But it waited to see what the minimum it could get away with was. This was not an uncommon attitude in football.

The Government White Paper that came out of the fan-led review was better than many of us expected. Although we weren’t surprised that it was weakest on fan engagement. It ruled out requiring the supporter, or shadow, board structure we had proposed, but it did say that such a structure “can work well for many clubs” and that “we expect most clubs will employ a ‘shadow board’”.

To briefly recap, the Trust pushed for the establishment of independent non-executive directors (INEDS) with “legal responsibility to prioritise the interests of the club as a sporting institution”. It also said that: “The establishment of direct fan representation on the board alongside the INEDs is vital to complete the jigsaw. The Fan Director should be elected by and accountable to a supporter body and should be a full member of the main executive board with the same rights and responsibilities as all other directors.”

It added: “It is essential that the Fan Director is underpinned by the creation of a Supervisory Board. The Fan Director would be accountable to that Supervisory Board and would have the right and responsibility to report to that Supervisory Board.” And, it said: “We are particularly keen to ensure that the Fan Director is drawn from as wide a pool of candidates as possible.”

The structure that has been agreed does not deliver the club’s original commitment to “fan representation on the board”. The body set up is pointedly not a supporter or shadow board, but an “advisory” board. And not only will its chair not be “appointed annually as a full Non-Executive of the Club Board”, it will be co-chaired by one of the Club’s Executive directors.

In the words of the White Paper “fans are a uniquely important stakeholder and their involvement improves transparency and accountability, improving the long-term sustainability of clubs”. The club board can choose whether or not to take the advice of the advisory board, so that board should at least function independently as a means by which fans can put views forward. Having a club executive as co-chair seriously compromises that objective, and is simply another example of the stultifying control culture at THFC.

But, during long months of negotiations it became clear that the club would not drop its insistence on the executive director co-chair, and the Trust could not persuade the other groups involved that it was an important enough issue to dig heels in over. There is concern at the FSA, too, over club executives holding key positions on supporter boards, and it is not a route other clubs have insisted upon.

The White Paper emphasises the importance of transparency and accountability, but both are in shorter supply than they should be in the arrangements at Spurs. The club website’s description of the FAB is cursory, and there are no full terms of reference documents published. It’s being claimed that this is in keeping with the situation at other clubs, but this is factually incorrect. Neither is there any indication of how the FAB will be accountable, or how information about discussions is to be reported.

Clearly, key elements of some discussions would need to be confidential in keeping with common practice in governance. But the club’s obsession with secrecy and control threatens to make the process so opaque that it will be difficult for the broader supporter base to have any confidence in it. On the official FAB site we are told: “FAB members will be required to sign and abide by an FAB Member Agreement which will include a commitment to respect confidentiality, data protection and intellectual property requirements.

“FAB members may be barred or removed from office in the event of a breach of legal requirements with a process for removal and appeal in place.”

Worries about what can and will be reported are amplified by reading the Memorandum of Understanding the Trust has signed with the club. An MoU was something we pushed for over many years while I was on the Trust board. It’s even more necessary now as one of the worries across the movement was that the establishment of advisory or shadow boards could marginalise Trusts.

The MoU is good in that it defines that the Trust’s role is essentially to function as the trade union to the FAB’s works council. But this sentence about how meetings between the club and Trust are to be reported back on is alarming. “Any minutes issued to the Trust’s members must be approved in writing by the club prior to publication.”

When the Trust rebooted in 2013, one of the first things its board did was to insist that minutes of meetings were agreed jointly and published within 72 hours. Previously, the Club had sat on minutes for so long that any report became irrelevant, something that had contributed heavily to the organisation becoming moribund.

Over my years of involvement, we fought hard against the club’s attempts to delay minutes of our meetings, or to insert content after the event that materially changed the context of discussion. All that has now been signed away and nothing can be reported without the express approval of the club alone. The Trust should not have allowed an important element of its own communication to become an arm of the club’s PR machine. If the same approach is applied to reports of the FAB, and there is no reason to assume it won’t, the only information fans will get about how they are represented is the club’s PR spin.

The candidate statements shown to voters are, I understand, the second statement each candidate was required to submit. The club, again as I understand, asked each candidate not initially rejected to submit a second statement with more emphasis on the business aspect of the role. Why were second statements required? What criteria were used to reject the candidates who didn’t make the second stage? What was the basis of the two-stage process? Have candidates been asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest? All of these are legitimate questions, the answers to which could help to generate faith in the process. But no answers are forthcoming because the club has enveloped the process in secrecy.

Some of the candidates shortlisted have expressed that unease – including the questioning of why they were required to submit second statements – on social media. Whether or not we find out if that may or may not disqualify them from progressing further is something we will never know. Because, confidentiality.

One more point, which I acknowledge is difficult to make without appearing stabby, is that few of the candidates are people who have ever indicated any interest in representing fans in all the years I have been involved in independent fan organisation at Spurs – which dates back to 1988. And most of them are my generation. So much for diversity. (For the record, I didn’t apply).

No set up at any club in the wake of the fan-led review is perfect, but at clubs such as Liverpool and Manchester United, for example, it is clear that the owners have learned that they need to concede a little in order to progress. The structures announced at those clubs acknowledge a role for fans without the club needing to control every muscle move. You could argue that those clubs have been smarter but less honest than Spurs. My view is that they are more emotionally mature and less hubristic, and genuinely recognise the benefits of – albeit limited – engagement with fans.

Despite all the doubts, I still believe we have to make this work. And I think more strongly than ever that this is what most fans want because I’ve noticed the backlash against the increasingly deranged conspiracy theories being pushed by the fundamentalist wing of the ENIC Out brigade. There is much to criticise about our club and its board. But most of us want things to improve, not for our worst fears to be realised. The pity is that the club itself seems intent on undermining the pragmatists.

The flawed process of establishing the first FAB at Spurs cannot now be changed. It will be tough for those who get elected who are genuinely committed to the idea. Easier for those who just think it’s important to be important. The Trust would be ideally placed to address the gap between expectation and reality now that it has a formal MoU that sets out its remit, but that has been undermined somewhat by it signing up to secrecy and the puzzling decision by its former chairs to step down in order to concentrate on the FAB. An action that clearly signals priorities.

Trust members voted to approve a process they acknowledged was flawed on the basis that the operation of the FAB would be reviewed after one year. That review should involve the new independent regulator, and could provide the new body with a chance to demonstrate its worth.