Magpies join call for review of cash package
NOTTS County have joined forces with 10 National League clubs to demand an urgent review of how a £10m government Covid grant has been distributed.
The Magpies are one of seven clubs to receive £95,000 a month in the National League’s top flight as part of a package designed to help clubs survive the Covid crisis.
The split was supposed to be decided on lost gate revenue but Magpies’ chief executive Jason Turner has said its distribution has not followed that criteria set out by the government.
Last season, Notts had an average gate of 5,200 supporters but are receiving just £11,000 more in funding than Boreham Wood, whose average attendance last year was 724.
It has left a number of leading clubs in non-league unhappy at how the cash has been divided amid claims that some teams are now actually profiting from the grant.
Hereford United chairman Andrew Graham has now written a letter to the National League demanding the board follow the government’s criteria or appoint an independent panel to decide how it should be split.
Notts have signed the letter along with Chester, Chesterfield, Dulwich Hamlet, AFC Fylde, Hereford, Kidderminster, Maidstone United, AFC Telford, Wrexham and Yeovil Town.
The letter included the following: “I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely express how extremely grateful, each and every signatory to this letter is, for the intervention of government in seeking to compensate us via National Lottery funding for losses incurred as a direct result of its decision to prevent supporters attending matches due to the impact of Covid-19.”
It added: “There is no doubt that the government decision to take this unprecedented step is due to the unquestionable fact, that each and every club plays a significant and socially irreplaceable role in sustaining local economies.
“There is also the immeasurable impact that local football clubs have on the collective well-being of those that follow them, together with the valuable work our clubs undertake in their local communities.
“Although of course we agree with you that it is desirable for all our remaining 66 member clubs to sururvive the season, this cannot be guaranteed by an arbitrary and subjective decision on distribution of funding, as every club is operated according to different models and the reality of their situation simply cannot be sufficiently factually known for the League to play judge and jury of it.
“Even the clubs couldn’t be expected to know exactly how their heir income and cost basis would pan out when they filled in the League gue forms a few weeks ago. “The one irrefutable fact is that the government / National Lottery funding was earmarked to cover clubs’ ‘lost gate revenues’, i.e. shortfalls in income through the turnstiles as a result of government preventing fans from returning to stadia. This the best basis upon which to fulfill government instructions equitably.
“We were therefore disappointed, (and w we cannot legally as directors accep accept a situation where we have ma made strategically significant de decisions, based on a promise to compensate us for one corporate factor), to then be faced with a ‘fait accompli’ where no set parameters were used, to determine this unacceptable outcome. “In brief, the distribution, as rat ratified by the National League Boar Board, has not been done on the intend intended basis. There appears to be no con confirmation from member clubs that th their representatives were communicating with, or indeed representing them in the purest sense of the word!
“By virtue of using a distribution method, which largely ignored the government guidelines, some clubs, including those represented by members of the National League Board, were handed far in excess of their actual losses of gate revenues, while other clubs were penalised and received less than half of their actual gate revenue loss.
“In extreme cases this resulted in some clubs receiving around five times as much funding – per absent spectator – as other clubs.
“This is patently unfair and, although the National League may have persuaded DCMS to accept this as a rational and diligently deliberated outcome, it contradicts the express purpose of the funding and unintentionally exposes the League Board to criticism based on conflicts of interest.”
The group have asked the National League Board to call an emergency board meeting tomorrow.
In extreme cases this resulted in some clubs receiving around five times as much funding – per absent spectator – as other clubs. Hereford United chairman Andrew Graham