The Scottish Government are promoting the opportunity for supporters in Scotland to have their views heard around the creation of legislation to help with advancing supporters involvement within the game.<\/p>\n
Minister for Sport Jamie Hepburn said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Scottish Government is committed to ensuring football supporters have the opportunity to be involved in the decision making and running of their football club wherever possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some clubs already engage well with their fans, but I believe we can do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur consultation is seeking views on each of the main options to strengthen supporter involvement in clubs: a right to influence, a right to govern, a right to bid, and a right to buy.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball clubs occupy a special place in the hearts of supporters and communities in Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a unique opportunity to help shape the future of Scottish football. I encourage you to make your voice heard and have your say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Scottish Government believes supporters should have a role in decision-making \u2013 or even ownership, when the opportunity arises \u2013 of their clubs.<\/p>\n
Andrew Jenkin, head of Supporters Direct Scotland said, \u201cwe look forward to seeing the outcome of this consultation process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe truly believe supporters are vital to football in Scotland and their views should be listened to throughout all aspects of the game\u2019s governance. For the last 15 years, Supporters Direct Scotland have been working towards further involving supporters within the ownership of clubs through democratic structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pleased that the Government are going to be taking on-board supporters views within this process and\u00a0are happy to promote this opportunity to supporters to ensure their views\u00a0are represented.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parliamentary debate on\u00a0legislation\u00a0earlier this year demonstrated unanimous support for this position and a consultation is now underway on the full range of options available on football supporter involvement \u2013 including ownership:<\/p>\n
\n- right to influence;<\/li>\n
- right to govern;<\/li>\n
- right to bid; and<\/li>\n
- right to buy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The consultation is\u00a0available online\u00a0for people to complete, and the Scottish Government is working with fans\u2019 representatives, football bodies and MSPs to ensure all views are heard.<\/p>\n
The consultation timeline is longer than usual and will run until 15 January 2016 to specifically allow for the widest and most representative range of responses.<\/p>\n
Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence. It is expected that a report on the consultation will be published in Spring 2016.<\/p>\n
The consultation follows on from the Scottish Government\u2019s establishment of a working group led by an independent chair, Senior Lecturer Stephen Morrow of Stirling University, which was asked to identify, consider and provide recommendations on potential ways to increase and improve supporter involvement clubs. The working group \u2013 which included representatives from the Scottish FA, Scottish Professional Football League, Supporters Direct Scotland and sportScotland \u2013\u00a0published its report on 30 January 2015\u00a0and made a number of recommendations which are now being taken forward.<\/p>\n
About Supporters Direct:<\/p>\n
\n- Supporters Direct help fans to set up democratic cooperatives (known as supporters\u2019 trusts) to gain influence in the running and ownership of their clubs.<\/li>\n
- SD and SD Scotland represent\u00a0over\u00a0200\u00a0supporters\u2019\u00a0trusts and\u00a0similar organisations in England, Scotland and across Europe, with over 750,000 members.<\/li>\n
- 39\u00a0 clubs\u00a0 in\u00a0 the\u00a0 UK\u00a0 are\u00a0 owned\u00a0 by\u00a0 their\u00a0 supporters, with three in the Scottish Professional Football League; four in the English Football League; and three in the top three divisions of English Rugby League<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Supporters Direct have issues the following press release regarding a consultation process which will run until mid January. Have your say online at: http:\/\/www.gov.scot\/Publications\/2015\/09\/8222 The Scottish Government are promoting the opportunity for supporters in Scotland to have their views heard around the creation of legislation to help with advancing supporters...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-in-general","category-supporters-direct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raithtrust.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}