Fans deserve to know what’s really going on
IMAGINE you’ve dropped a clanger at work. A dodgy expenses claim. A false sickie. Repeatedly turning up late.
You get caught. Placed on six months’ probation. Chances are, you’d be on your best behaviour, at least until the warning expired.
Similarly, a driver with nine points on his licence would be a lot less blase around those average speed cameras.
That’s why it is difficult to have any sympathy with Birmingham City - or more specifically their bungling CEO Xiangdong Ren.
Ordered to stop signing players by the EFL after breaching Profit & Sustainability regulations, the Blues went straight out and bought Kristian Pedersen for £2m.
It was arrogant, provocative and just plain stupid. Is it any surprise the Blues have been hauled before a disciplinary committee and threatened with a 12-point deduction?
Say what you want about P&S rules and there is certainly an argument that they represent a block on ambition. But to disregard them so blatantly was always going to warrant a backlash.
You wouldn’t, after all, demonstrate your objection to caged animals by opening the lion enclosure at London Zoo.
Objection
Dejphon Chansiri, the wealthy Sheffield Wednesday owner, shares Ren’s frustrations. But having received the exact same warning as Birmingham, he managed to get through the summer without waving two fingers and a chequebook at the EFL.
That is why the Owls had their embargo lifted in September - and why complaints that the EFL is making an example of Birmingham are nonsense.
The issue here is not whether a sanction is deserved. It is, simply because other clubs - namely Wednesday and QPR - complied, putting them at a competitive disadvantage when Birmingham flouted the rules.
The real problem is a lack of transparency and explanation. Birmingham’s owners rarely break cover. When they do, it is usually to sidestep and obfuscate - as in May, when diBut rector Edward Zheng was asked about potential P&S issues only to dismiss “unfounded and incorrect rumours”.
Besides, any club with season tickets to sell will bury bad news. Isn’t it therefore incumbent on the EFL to keep supporters informed?
Birmingham were effectively under embargo from July 13, yet it was August 2 before any official statement was released.
Likewise, the first time anybody heard that Blues were heading for a disciplinary panel was through an article in the Telegraph.
In its wake, the Birmingham Mail sent a list of 17 questions to the EFL. None of them were answered.
“Given the circumstances, the EFL is not in a position to respond at this time as any response may prejudice the outcome of the current case,” was the reply. Or fobbing off, as it’s also known.
I had a similar experience in the summer during an interview with EFL chief exec Shaun Harvey at Meadow Lane.
I asked him about Birmingham’s situation and to expand on the feeling of “exceptional disappointment” an EFL statement had ascribed to the signing of Pedersen.
“I ain’t going to talk specifics about any player and I’m not going to give any indication about the details of the situation,” he said. “The club know what
they have to do.” their fans did not – and that isn’t right. They didn’t break any regulations. They didn’t blow the budget. Yet they are the ones being held at arm’s length like a yapping child badgering a parent for sweets. What scant information they do have has been gleaned from bloggers or journalists, who have simply reverse engineered the regulations to deduce what Birmingham have done wrong. Why would a factual explanation of the alleged crime, procedure and potential punishment prejudice a hearing? Ren and his cohort must have received exactly that. It is the same with the modern scourge of undisclosed fees. Clubs say that publicising transfer fees exposes their hand in future negotiations. But any agent worth his salt knows exactly how much money changed hands.
Information
Paying fans deserve to know where their cash has gone. It would be a simple task for the EFL to demand financial information alongside registration documents, yet they choose not to. The EFL may reasonably posit that it is the clubs’ duty, not theirs, to keep fans informed. Yet this is an organisation that in 2016 worked with Supporters Direct to draw up regulations forcing clubs to engage with their fanbase. It’s right there on the EFL website. “Clubs are required to meet with a representative group of supporters at least twice a season to discuss significant issues relating to the club,” reads the explanation. “EFL regulations require clubs to appoint a Supporter Liaison Officer. Their role is principally to ensure proper and constructive discourse between a club and its supporters.” Yes, the onus is on clubs. But to enforce rules and then undermine their spirit is hypocritical. Once again, fans are the last to know, an irritation and an afterthought. They deserve better.