Fair and Independent Fan Engagement

18th October 2023

West Ham United have recently published the Club’s approach to Fan Engagement.  The ISC are negotiating on the Clubs’ proposals.  The context is set by the Fan Led Review and the commitment to set up a Statutory, Independent Regulator for English football as announced in the Governments’ recent White Paper and confirmed in the subsequent consultations.  WHUST will push to see the Bill enacting the Regulator introduced in Parliament before Christmas.    The Bill will include a legal requirement for Club’s to engage fans as one of the conditions for being granted a Licence to Operate. 

West Ham’s approach to fan engagement broadly follows a formula set out by the Premier League’s (PL) generic Fan Engagement Standards.  Like the FSA, WHUST were disappointed with the PL approach and want to see Clubs go beyond the minimal standards proposed.  WHUST want to see the Club, like others, introduce a Golden Share to protect cherished Heritage items; to set up a Shadow Board and/or offer a Fan Director position on the Clubs’ Main Board.  Crucially we want the Club to work with the ISC and put in place agreed, independent assessment arrangements to ground confidence in any proposals, policies and processes for fan engagement.  It won’t help build trust if the Club retain their unilateral ability to make judgements about how well fan engagement is working.  WHUST strongly encourages the Club and colleague fan representatives in their continuing work to make the most of opportunities in advance of Regulation to deliver world class engagement founded on independently assessed jointly agreed standards and focused on the highest, not minimal, aspirations. 

WHUST and supporter consultation

WHUST believes West Ham United would benefit hugely from full and transparent fan involvement. Meeting fans will do more than help the club understand and discuss fans’ needs and find out what fans see as important for our club. It can also be a proactive force for good, with ideas and initiatives generated by fans helping the club to further improve.

The White Paper, A sustainable future - reforming club football governance, says the Independent Regulator for English Football (IREF) must ensure proper consultation and gives some key examples. Most recently the Premier League (PL) has published its fan engagement standards. The PL Standard is just one contribution to the possible standard IREF will set for fan engagement.  It’s not sensible to move ahead on the basis of the PL proposal.

West Ham has, so far, had an Official Supporters' Board and an Independent Supporters' Committee. It is now discussing the PL fan engagement standards. WHUST sees all of these as small evolutionary steps towards achieving robust, meaningful fan consultation, which is an inevitability and will benefit the club and fans alike.

WHUST believes West Ham fans deserve more than small steps and asks that the club, instead of creating another short-term fan body that will be superseded, takes a big leap. Processes and standards should exceed those specified by the (Shadow) IREF as required for the relevant element of the Licence to Operate.

The fanbase is not a single homogeneous group. WHUST is keen to continue work with others on a multi-level engagement plan with appropriate representations at each level. Direct representation should be supplemented using information gathered through surveys, panels and other research tools as well as input from fan group specific meetings.  Extra care should be taken to gather the views of those groups who might otherwise be marginalised.

Here’s what WHUST believes is essential for meaningful fan input:

Who should be involved?

The White Paper (section 8.10) says: “we expect most clubs will employ a ‘shadow board’, but this representative group should at least include a club’s Supporters’ Trust”.

There could be places reserved for specific groups of fans, such as the LGBTQ community, women supporters, disabled supporters etc. West Ham already has these groups.

Individuals should, as a minimum, meet standards required to hold board level office..

If IREF applies any additional standards or requirements on clubs, then members of the shadow board should comply with those rules too.

Process measures

·       As per White paper – supporters’ trust are core to fan bodies.

·       On the record meetings with the club take place on regular basis having board involvement. Relevant key senior club personnel attend. Meetings should be recorded and the recordings stored for later scrutiny.

·       Agendas shared ahead of all meetings with fanbase. Agendas to be fan led.

·       Minutes of all meetings shared within seven days of each meeting with the fanbase. Minutes will list attendees as well as detail actions and timescales and identify the person or groups responsible for each action. Where possible, measurements of success for each action should be listed. Minutes to be taken by fans and published. This will help with transparency. If there are disputes about the accuracy or emphasis of any section of the proposed minutes, that section of the meeting’s recording should be published alongside the minutes to enable fans to make their own decisions.

·       Where it is necessary to share confidential information, that confidentiality must be respected by all parties. Confidentially extends to the entire WHUST board, not just to the individual attending the relevant meeting. The minutes should include a brief description of the nature of the confidential information shared and the reasons for its confidentiality. However, there must be care and consideration around the use of confidentiality. The reason why confidentiality is required must be proven. Transparency must not be compromised.

·       Rationale for decisions and positions taken by supporters and clubs to be shared (transparency).

·       Consultation to take place before decisions are made, particularly if relevant to fans.

·       Supporter reps to be consulted over strategic priorities of the club.

·       Agreed timescales for responses each way must be clearly communicated.

·       MOU, standing orders, codes of conduct, dispute resolution processes and other relevant documentation must be agreed by supporters and club. Documents jointly reviewed at least once per season. Documents must be published.

·       There must be a clear and simple process for enabling fans to have a veto over decisions concerning the core heritage items that the Fan Led Review said should be protected by a golden share.

·       Fans to be part of the club’s communication process particularly when relevant to supporters. This can be through variety of methods (‘dry run’ testing and feedback, meeting discussions, email responses, etc). Club to respond to supporter feedback and share relevant monitoring and measurement data (with necessary confidentiality respected).

·       There must be frequent fan representative feedback, independent of league assessments, to measure fans’ satisfaction with how engagement is working in practice. FSA may be able to help here. Involvement of club in assessment should focus on how to further develop/improve.

·       Intellectual Property – if created by a fan group is the property of the fan group and not the club.

·       A system for supporter feedback/sharing of concerns/thoughts/issues to be in place to fast-track issues that arise between meetings. Supporter reps to work to set this process up and monitor impact. For consultation to be impactful and meaningful – time needs to be given to this part of the process and genuine consideration of fan views made clear by club.

Fans’ and club’s responsibilities

·       Fans to independently appoint members to supporter involvement body and any subcommittees or working groups, not the club. Fans and the club may appoint different people to different workstreams so the burden of work is shared and expertise can be brought in. Any working groups or subcommittees on key issues, such as ticketing or match-day experience, to be established by the supporter involvement body.

·       Membership of the supporter involvement body, any terms of office, lengths of service and restrictions on any of these to be set by supporters, independent of the club.

·       Supporter involvement body to seek to represent the diverse nature of the fanbase.

·       Fan representatives to commit to key standards of professionalism, confidentially and a commitment to work together and to achieve consensus where possible.

·     There must be an agreed code of conduct for all reps and a mechanism for monitoring compliance and dealing with any breaches of the code.

·       There must be agreed routes for issue escalation and dispute resolution that are clearly communicated.

The final plan for developing fan engagement must be agreed by fans and club.