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FC United to take part in Europe-wide better football governance project

FC United has been selected as a partner in the ‘Clubs and Supporters for better Governance in Football’ project, and will attend the launch of the initiative in London next week.

Partners, contributing organisations and others involved in the project will gather in London next week, the first in a series of in-person events scheduled to take place between now and December 2017. Next week will also see the launch of a dedicated project website.

Clubs and Supporters for better Governance in Football is a two-year project coordinated by SD Europe, and co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and UEFA. The project will help promote EU principles on good governance in sport.

It will do this through a training, education and exchange programme involving member-run football clubs and national supporters’ organisations; covering the full range of the football pyramid and aimed at promoting co-operation between like-minded organisations.

The partners and contributing organisations (in italics) are as follows:

• C.A.P. Ciudad de Murcia; FASFE (Spain)
• Cava United; Supporters in Campo (Italy)
Conseil National des Supporters de Football (France)
• Cork City FC; Irish Supporters’ Network (Republic of Ireland)
• FC United of Manchester (UK)
• Malmö FF; Svenskafotbollssupporterunionen (Sweden)
• Schalke 04; Unsere Kurve (Germany)



The project will address three core areas, which are of importance to all the partners - good governance, financial sustainability, and member/volunteer engagement and democratic participation.

Partners will attend a total of three in-person sessions, plus opening and closing events. These will be supplemented by a series of one-to-one exchanges. The project will also include a research and evaluation element, in order to assist the ongoing measurement of good governance in sport; and the development of an online training resource, which will provide long-term impact beyond the lifetime of the project.

FC United’s community and education manager Andy Cheshire, who will be attending the launch event next week, said: “FC United is delighted to be involved in this important initiative and to be selected as a partner. The ‘Clubs and Supporters for better Governance in Football’ project will undertake valuable work that will promote better governance for the game and promote best practice across Europe.

“We look forward to sharing our knowledge and experiences with football supporters from across Europe. Being chosen to take part in such an important project for the future governance of football is a very significant development for our club and recognition of what our members and supporters have achieved over the past decade,??? Andy said.

The project is being supported by an advisory board, made up of:

• Sean Hamil (Director, Birkbeck Sport Business Centre, Department of Management, Birkbeck College, University of London)
• Dr Joachim Lammert (Universität Leipzig, Sportwissenschaftliche Fakultät, FG Sportmanagement)
• Jonas Baer-Hoffmann (Head of Public Affairs, FIFPro Division Europe)
• Ivo Belet MEP
• Pedro Velázquez (EU sports governance expert)

This is the second EC-funded project to be coordinated by SD Europe, following the successful ‘Improving Football Governance through Supporter Involvement and Community Ownership’ pre-paratory action in the field of sport, which also involved three other members of this collaborative partnership.

At next week’s meeting, hosted by project coordinators SD Europe, partners will discuss the results of the recent partner survey, which was undertaken in order to inform the development of content for the forthcoming training and education events, as well as the partner exchanges. Other items on the agenda include communication and dissemination of the project activities and results, recording and reporting activities, and confirmation of a timeline for the coming months.

As well as the project partnership, two other like-minded organisations will be represented at the meeting: Israfans (the national organisation for supporters’ groups and member-run clubs in Israel) and Sandlanders Football (an organisation working to promote supporter involvement and com-munity ownership in Africa). Their experiences and ideas will be vital to the project, and help fulfil one of its key aims - to ensure the activities deliver benefits beyond the core partnership.




First Posted ~ 13:01 Wed 16 Mar 2016
News ID ~ 6718
Last Updated ~ 00:47 Tue 16 Feb 2021