Can Tracey Crouch save our shirts?

Matthew Riley, Fair Game’s Regional Media Manager, spells out the need for politicians to step forward

IN HER interim report, released in July 2021, Crouch shared the same values as a group I am proud to work for. In my role as Regional Media Manager for Fair Game, it gives me a real sense of pride to see how we all believe fans should be given the final say on any proposed change to a club’s ‘crown jewels’, which includes the club’s name, nickname, colours, badge and the geographical location of where the club plays. Crouch described our approach as ‘protecting heritage assets’ and adopted a strident and uncompromising approach that gave us great hope:

“We have seen strong evidence that existing protections of key club heritage items of great cultural and emotional importance to fans is not sufficient. The most pressing of these has been the many clubs who appear to have lost the rights to their home grounds, but much evidence was also received of concerns relating to items such as club badges, location, colours and competitions. I therefore intend to develop proposals with the Panel to offer greater protection for these important assets through a ‘golden share’ for fans, giving veto powers over reserved items, to be held by a democratic legally constituted fan group.”

This paragraph was music to our Fair Game ears and gave us added momentum through the summer as we welcomed clubs, MPs and even Town Councils to our collective determination to preserve our heritage assets. But now is our Big Bang moment when the report needs to deliver and MPs need to pass her recommendations into legislation. We are watching. There is only now…