Page 8 - Keynsham Town Ladies programme v St Austell

KEYNSHAM TOWN LADIES 8
WHY THE COUNTY FA SYSTEM IS FAILING CLUBS AND
NEEDS TO BE REFORMED

The County Football Associations were set up as the local interface with clubs underneath the
umbrella of the Football Association. The last 20 years has seen massive changes and a serious
fall off in their service levels. Here are some thoughts.

* In the past 20 years the County FAs have expanded their workforce many fold from a handful
per County to many dozen in each. Yet so many people feel that this has led to a decline in
service to their core club members. The decline in male football numbers has had to be masked
by ventures into ancillary areas with more staff having to justify their salaries with more non
core operations. Now they are too busy counting coloured boot laces to care about what else
needs to be done.
* As a result service levels to the core members have declined. Have you ever tried to contact
your County FA on a Monday morning or any other time? The phone is rarely answered. If you
send an e mail, you are likely to get a reply that they have too many e mails to deal with and
can’t reply yet. If County FAs were a commercial business, they would have no customers.

* The quality of management at the FA is by general agreement poor, hence the current
Government intervention, in football matters, because supporters are not being properly
served. Management at County FAs is even worse.
* County FAs never seem to have a dialogue with their members. They never listen to
members and respect and trust is being lost. Insulated from personal interface with their
members they spend most of the time deciding how to punish and fine members, if they step
over the line and dare to want something better. As one person recently told me, ‘They are
now just a money making operation’ I can also see similarities with Honore de Balzac‘s
famous quotation that ‘Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.’ in these entities.

* There is no easy solution to these failings. The first thing to do is to recognise the problems.
That recognition needs to come from outside, as it will not come from inside these
organisations. After all, Turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

* Here are a couple of ideas. If one looks at the assets and staff that have mushroomed in
recent years to the detriment of service levels, then why not merge some of these county FAs
to free up assets and reduce labour levels, thereby improving efficiency and putting excess
resources back into the grass roots game. Already we have the joint Berks and Bucks FA
straddling two counties. There are good examples in other service areas such as the Devon
and Cornwall police.
Another thought is to inject some competition into the landscape. At present every club has to
affiliate to its County FA. There is no ability to seek a better service from an adjacent County
FA. What if this restriction was simply removed and a club from Somerset could choose to
affiliate to Gloucestershire or Wiltshire or Devon or Dorset, if they believed that they would
provide a better service? Counties would then have to compete for club members and be
forced to sharpen up and improve service levels to the benefit of everyone.