OnlyBarnet.com - Barnet FC Fans Forum

Another Barnet FC piece is now up online for you to read:

http://www.footballwriting.blog

Very good read as always, especially the information regarding the FA trophy and FA vase. I am sure many supporters Inc myself did not know the financial structure. And how poor this is. And as stated it is amazing but sad to see why clubs might or consider not to choose to enter a competition run by the FA. This really needs to be ovaralled.

Roy57 wrote:Very good read as always, especially the information regarding the FA trophy and FA vase. I am sure many supporters Inc myself did not know the financial structure. And how poor this is. And as stated it is amazing but sad to see why clubs might or consider not to choose to enter a competition run by the FA. This really needs to be ovaralled.

Thank you very much, appreciate you reading more than just the piece on the Bees. The prize money structure is open to all on the FA website, but my advantage from being involved with a Step 6 club for two years has given me great insight into what it takes financially to run those size clubs and how scarce money is at that level.

The FA, in my opinion, have no clue about the game any more, I'm not suggesting the prize pot goes mad because I know clubs even at our level will pay players instead of using it to pay bills or improving facilities, but unless you manage to get good draws all the way to Wembley the cost would easily outweigh any profit, I just can't see it ever improving. I will however point out that it cost us £165 to apply to enter the FA Cup, Vase and Youth Cup and we did get our Cup money refunded as we didn't finish high enough to compete this year, so at least they didn't keep all the money!

The FA appear to be clueless, but half the problem is that we are looking to them for direction and it is in fact the Premier League dictating everything with regards money etc. I for one believe that the FA should be the ones finding the right balance between having the most competitive leagues in Europe, and having a successful national team which ultimatelygives us all the most pride. But it still feels like the National team plays second fiddle to the premier league. The work the FA have done with the younger sides is good, but at present they are powerless to get these kids playing week in week out in our top league.

I think the prize money offering in the FA cup is good. It wasn't there in the earlier rounds not too many years ago.

I would like to see them beef it up a bit in the FA Trophy and Vase, as that's at the level where clubs need it most. If they do that, then clubs in the NL might be less tempted to field weakened sides in the earlier rounds, which may help improve gates. A lot of NL teams see it as a distraction so make it worth their while.

But i agree when you say it's pointless giving money away, as clubs will just spend it on wages trying to buy promotion to the promised land of the next division up. Maybe the solution is to provide prize money in these competitions in two forms. Half as a cash bonus, half in the form of a FA grant which can only be used for youth, academy, facilities upgrades, or local marketing initiatives to promote their club... the club could choose the category before the FA pays out on exiting the relevant competition?

A good blog by the way. I like the honesty in the way it's written. I think it touches on the one big issue facing the club. It's no longer the playing side, as DC seems to be the right fit with a decent squad. The issue is now about getting more people through the gate. Under 1,000 for a Saturday match not having played at home for a while is poor. We could be in the playoff positions if we beat Aldershot. And yet i do wonder whether this would make a vast difference to our gate. That's why my suggestion above of having a grant to incentivise local marketing was made. A lot of clubs are feeling the pinch with less people walking through the gate. We need to find a way of showing them that live football beats what you get watching from your sofa.

That grant idea is bloody good! Certainly then would be no way to fiddle the system and in my opinion with my club would help out massively however big or small the size of it.

We all know the Premier League run the game and the FA are merely a puppet or plaything.

FA Cup prize money is good, but thats been added because of a big sponsor. As great as Buildbase are, the FA should be looking for something bigger especially when the amount of clubs they are responsible for compared with just 20 clubs in the Premier League.

I just feel that different clubs have varying priorities. For some clubs in the lower leagues, there have been issues with needing to upgrade changing rooms. A grant to support that sort of project would be massive. For us at Barnet, we have the facilities already. Our priority might be funding our youth development at a time when parachute payments are about to get squeezed. A grant of a reasonable size might delay the need for scaling the operation down and buy us time whilst we (hopefully) get back up to thd FL.

Maybe the sponsors of these competitions should not only give prize money for the round, but the sponsors themselves could have an opportunity to award a one off grant for giant-killing of the round (as an example). That way the competition reaches out and rewards the smaller clubs more.

I've added another blog piece, but this time on the club I'm involved in. If you look your non-league lower level football, go take a look

www.footballwriting.blog