FA kick tiny team out of Cup over £10 fine dispute, but still won’t reveal Grenfell money

By Tony Attwood

On 23 June 2017, the Daily Mail ran the headline “Grenfell Tower: £1.25m Community Shield proceeds pledged”

On 18 August 2017 Untold Arsenal wrote “What happened to the Grenfell Tower money collected from the Community Shield Match?”   We published that because in the two months since the announcement in the Mail, there had been no public statement about the handover of the money.  Nor has there been since despite a request from Untold to the FA for that information.

Meanwhile the FA’s own online article “Where the money goes” has not been updated for nine years.   It is here if you want to see: http://www.thefa.com/competitions/the-fa-community-shield/more/where-the-money-goes

OK – you’ve probably heard me go on and on and on about it before – and I do that because no one else ever seems to want to take up the story.   But just to show you what sort of organisation this government funded self-selected bunch of old men are (and I write that as an old man myself) take a look at this…

Literhland REMYCA is being kicked out of the FA Cup because it has not paid a £10 fine it says he knew nothing about.  As a result it will lose all funding from the FA Cup – which is expected to be several thousands of pounds – enough to keep a tiny team like that going for another year.

Now the whole thing goes back to that bane of football, “playing an ineligible player” – a rule that itself goes right back to the early days of the game, which was introduced to stop clubs poaching players match by match in the 19th century.

The club’s argument is that they were told that the fine of £10 for a booking was paid – the player himself paying it to his previous club, and believing that the club had paid the FA.  These fines could be seen as a kind of extortion money – one of the ways the FA keeps its leaders going in their lives of luxury.

Since there is no mechanism by which Literhland could find out if the money had been paid or not, the only source of information they had was their player, who said he had paid,so they played him, and now they have been kicked out of the Cup.  The club that should have paid the money (Knowsley) have seemingly now dropped out of the league they previous played in.   The FA say that as the administrative body in charge of football it is not (yes that is NOT) their duty to check that fines have been paid or keep tabs on such things. 

Personally I wonder what they do actually do, other than spend money and refuse to confirm when the Grenfell Tower money was paid, how much exactly, and to whom did it go.  Oh and go on junkets.  

It is a general rule in a democratic society that punishments fit the crime – so we don’t have the death penalty for saying something naughty about the members of the royal family for example – but this sort of general rule seems to have by-passed the FA, who are, as we have seen before, still struggling to enter the 20th century, let alone the 21st.

Apparently the FA think the fine is ok because the FA Challenge Cup sub-committee said that Litherland were not “diligent enough”. (Let me remind you this is the FA talking – the organisation that took on Sam Allerdyce seemingly without realising that he had been accused of all sorts of nefarious activity in a BBC TV Panorama programme, had threatened to sue the BBC, and then… oh, never did.  Where was their diligence in appointing Allerdyce?)

So, I wonder, can we bring a claim against the FA for not being “diligent enough” in telling those of us who gave money to the FA to give on to Grenfell victims?  Probably not. 

But let us consider for a moment how much money the FA gets each year.

The BBC, which pays the FA huge amounts of public money each year to show FA Cup matches have revealed that the FA get £7.5 million per year from the government funded Sport England.  It also receives £1.5 million a year for the FA Skills programme.

It then gets £10 million a year through the Facilities Fund and £8 million via the Parklife project.  Plus the FA receives £2 million a year for its coaching programmes.

Put all that together and the total is about £29 million of government funding per year.   But that is before they get grants from the state for running Wembley Stadium.  That sum dwarfs all the others and adds up to about £120,000,000.

And there is more, because the FA gets huge amounts of money from the BBC via Fifa for showing England world cup matches.   The BBC’s money comes from a state tax on everyone who owns a TV or computer in the UK – the “licence fee”.

And in getting all this money they think it is the duty of a tiny amateur team to launch an in-depth detective operation to find out if another club no longer associated with a league, actually paid a £10 fine after they had been given the money by a player to do so.

Quite simply every story we run about the FA is fairly nauseating, but this takes them to a new level.

Footnote: On 27 March 2014 Sport England announced that it was cutting its funding of the FA’s grassroots football programme for failing the deliver results and value for the public money it receives.  It was also told to improve its performance if it did not want further cuts.   The money that Sport England saved was then given directly to other bodies that were investing in grassroots football.  The media didn’t touch the story because of an agreement they have with the FA about coverage of England and FA Cup matches.  You can read the whole tale here.

 

 

 

14 Replies to “FA kick tiny team out of Cup over £10 fine dispute, but still won’t reveal Grenfell money”

  1. When I read stuff like this it really is sickening.

    Not just because I feel sorry for the poor sods on the end of their draconian rules and regulations, none of which actually seem to apply to them.

    Not just because it’s MY money keeping these fat cats in there life of luxury.

    Not just because they are allowed to be so secretive that it seems even if they were indeed spending charity money on themselves we would never be able to find out.

    No, what really gets me is the f***ing hack dwarfs that dedicated thousands of hours and millions of words, criticising, discrediting, and insulting one person, seem utterly incapable, unwilling, or both, of dedicating a single second, or a single word of criticism towards one of the most archaic, disreputable and possibly even corrupt organisations in the World.

    The FA are a disgrace and our pathetic, bottom feeding press are in bed with them every step of the way.

    I love Arsenal, but football?

    Every day I get more and more disillusioned because frankly it’s rotten to the core and it makes me sick.

  2. jammy

    And just to emphasis the point I was reading back through a few recent articles and came across a link to the Sun from jammy.

    (I haven’t posted the link because I don’t really want to give them oxygen. I wish I hadn’t really because the reason I don’t read the press in the first place is to avoid this kind of s**t)

    Basically they’re using Gazidis leaving as an excuse to attack him, the Club, and surprise surprise, Wenger.

    The article is complete and utter b****cks.

    What an absolute pile of garbage that disgraceful excuse for a ‘Newspaper’ is.

    And please, lets not have another apologist coming on here brushing it of as ‘click bait’ because this eternal attack on our club and personnel is far far more insidious than that.

    It is coordinated, agenda driven, and should be called out for what it is at every opportunity.

    I honestly believe these people are trying to destroy our club.

  3. In for a penny in for a pound.

    As I said, the last thing I want to do is give rags like the Sun Oxygen but I just want to see how they reported on Spurs defeat last night because I know exactly how it would of been reported on had it been Arsenal who had:

    ‘Bottled it’, following ‘disastrous substitutions’, made by their ‘clueless manager’.

    Nope we get this:

    “Kane took another touch and with the next he shinned it out of play for a goal kick.

    The poor fella, whatever his protests, does look a troubled soul out there.”

    Not ‘Bottling it’ then? Aaaarhh bless.

    “They have not lost three times in a row under their charismatic, highly-rated manager Mauricio Pochettino. Oh, they have now.”

    Not ‘clueless’ for his ‘disastrous substitutions’ then?

    And this from our own Nigel Winterburn in a different article:

    “Tottenham……..are also very strong and have started brightly.”

    Have they?

    I don’t think that has been said of our start despite being level on points.

    Anyway my point is, yes there is a little criticism of Spurs, after blowing a 1 nil lead like that in the last 5 minutes there has to be some, but it’s all very meek and actually quite sympathetic in tone.

    And don’t forget this is a Spurs team that hasn’t won a thing for years and has a bit of history of capitulating at vital times.

    Footnote:

    This is NOT a pop at Spurs, this is simply my attempt to yet again highlight the disgrepencies in the way other teams, in this case Spurs, are reported on as compared to us.

    In my opinion Spurs were the better team, deserved to win, and were undone by a ‘worldy’ and some poor defending under the impotus that such things give the home side.

    It was generally reported on as such.

    WE WOULD OF BEEN SLAUGHTERED. Thst’s my point.

  4. It seems Pochachino feels the need to demand respect from the gutter snipes.

    To this rather tepid question:

    And the Argentine manager took issue with being asked about leaving Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld at home.

    “Against Watford and against Liverpool, they were on the pitch,”

    (Yes that’s it)

    We get:

    “Wow, what a question, such an easy question? [It’s] easy to talk about the players that aren’t here. I think we need to talk about football.

    Because, you know I think you force me to say something that is not good.

    You disrespect the players that showed better qualities than the opponent.”

    Warming to his theme in the post-match media conference, Pochettino demanded:

    “Why disrespect the players that aren’t on the pitch?

    “You can blame me and say, ‘Gaffer, you were so, so rubbish in your selection of the starting XI’. But please don’t disrespect the players who were playing, because it’s my decision. Kieran Trippier, Toby Alderweireld – we have 25 players.

    And you believe that and sometimes you behave like you ask me with your question, that you can play only 11, and the other 13 or 14 players are rubbish.

    Sorry, but I am so disappointed because I am a person that respects you a lot and the players. When my decision is to play with an XI, you must respect my decision because I am the manager.

    I don’t understand. Sorry. It is so painful to hear when some people are not here, and you judge in that way, and you kill players who give their best.”

    So they simply ask why he left 2 players at home and he goes in to one.

    F**k knows what he’d be like if he got the kind of post match cross examination and criticism Wenger got, and Emery will no doubt soon be getting.

  5. The Daily Nazi edited it to make it tamer as well, Jeff lifelong Spuddy Powell head sports writer may have had something to do with that.

  6. As per offfical records the net proceeds from the 2017 Charity Shield a sum of £1,335,471 was handed over to by the FA.

  7. Nitram
    It is no wonder his team “don’t like it up em” when the chips are down.
    Their primary mode for gaining advantage over a superior, or even stubborn opposition seems to be multiple aggressive challenges, and then there’s the clever cheating shite. Didn’t see the game, don’t give a damn if they deserved it, glad they lost.

  8. Ferg

    I have no idea for the records published by the Charity Commison clearly document the sum donated by the FA. It took me all of 30 seconds to find the information

    As for the FA the game was played in August 2017 meaning it falls in their 2017/18 accounts which aren’t due to be published till around March 2019

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/739057/Grenfell_Charitable_Funds_Report_05_09_2018.pdf

  9. Mike T . Thanks
    The recipient was missing , handed over to…… got it now. As have they. Also well with the FA then . Sterling.

  10. Nitram – You’re definitely doing the right thing by not sharing that link, I know full well that I’m playing right into their hands by getting annoyed at articles like that and sharing them, and usually I wouldn’t, but the title of that particular article just really stood out to me and I can’t remember the last time I saw such a disingenuous and underhanded attack on our club and ex-manager. But the thing is, it’s got to the stage where that kind of thing is now perfectly acceptable when it comes to Arsenal. We are the team that everyone shits on and laughs at, made even worse by our fanbase who are entirely complicit in this whole thing.

  11. Surely, the whole point of the Charity Shield or whatever they call it now is that the net proceeds go to charity.

    So the fact that some money went to charity does not yet answer the question as to whether it went to the particular charity that the FA said they were giving it to.

    Do you think that if they were asked, the people running the Grenfell charity will be able to confirm whether they received anything from the FA and if so, how much?

  12. Jammy Spot on. We have people who come on here, some decent posters, insisting we shouldn’t care, it’s just ‘click bait’ or everyone gets it. Both those assertions are quite plainly not true. I simply could not believe what I was reading in that article.

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