League offends natural justice

By Nicholas Winterton, MP for Macclesfield

Moss Rose was a good place to be on Saturday. Macclesfield Town, playing their final home match of the season, were in celebratory mood as they collected the Vauxhall Conference championship trophy, which had been secured earlier in the week.

Nobody can doubt that Macclesfield are worthy champions, even if the carnival atmosphere appeared to get the better of them on this occasion, as Stevenage won the match 3-0. But no matter. Macclesfield have played enterprising football all year, and have been universally acknowledged as the best team in the league this season.

They have an excellent chairman in Arthur Jones, who has put a great deal of money and effort into the club, a hard- working board of directors comprising some highly competent business people, and a talented manager, Sammy McIlroy, who recently signed a new two-year contract and turned down the chance to manage a club already in the Football League, Rochdale.

The club also has a stadium of which it can be proud. A programme of improvements costing some £200,000 is nearing completion, and the Football Licensing Authority has indicated that the ground meets the League's requirements in terms of safety and capacity.

Moss Rose will have a capacity of more than 6,000 at the start of next season, which will rise to over 9,000 (including nearly 3,500 seats) when the next phase of work is completed, which, it is hoped, will be by November.

Yet, amazingly, the Football League has said that it will not accept Macclesfield into the Third Division. The reason is the League's absurd rule which says that clubs seeking promotion from the Conference must have their ground ready by 31 December of the previous year.

The League would not even sanction a temporary ground-sharing scheme with Chester City, on the basis that it would contravene a rule specifying that clubs can only share facilities within their own conurbations. Yet when Chester were building a new ground recently, the League were quite happy for them to share Moss Rose for two years.

Of course, one recognises the need for stadiums to meet certain standards. Indeed, as members of the Conference, Macclesfield already have to comply with strict criteria.

Clubs seeking promotion into the Conference have their facilities inspected towards the end of the season, and are given sensible summer deadlines by which to complete any improvement work.

It is wholly unrealistic to expect Conference clubs to meet League standards such a long time in advance. Indeed, this actively encourages clubs to risk bankrupting themselves by gambling on their future, particularly as grant aid is so limited for the Conference clubs.

While lower-division clubs in the Football League and Scottish League (where gates of less than 200 are commonplace) may claim up to £500,000 each from the Football Trust, the 22 Conference clubs have to share a maximum annual total of £750,000. There should be a much fairer distribution of funds be- tween League and non-League clubs.

It is not as though Macclesfield have been involved in some last-ditch scramble to get the ground ready for next season. The planning application for the current improvements was submitted last June, and the major work would have been completed a while ago had the contractors not twice accidentally broken into a culvert while building a new stand. Even so, the ground should be ready by the time the League holds its annual meeting early next month.

However, I do not believe the cause is lost. The Minister for Sport, Iain Sproat, has indicated to me his strong support, and I hope that he will bring pressure to bear upon the Football League, whose ruling offends all sense of natural justice.

Football's reputation has suffered many severe setbacks in the last year, and this decision can only harm the game's already tarnished image. It is not too late to reverse a decision which football fans everywhere believe to be unjust.