The latest from Chairman Ben Clasper, from the programme of our Home game against Millwall Lionesses Sunday January 6th.

Welcome back to Champion Hill for the first women’s game of 2022 and I hope you were able to enjoy as much of the holiday period as possible considering the ongoing disruption. We start the new year at a very strange time with rules and regulations continuing to be relaxed while infection rates continue to rise across the UK. In the past week we have seen isolation periods shortened and the need to take a PCR test discarded as the government continues in its general direction of encouraging the population to ‘ride the wave’ rather than increasing preventative measures.

The one glimmer of hope in the numbers is that Southwark has experienced two significant week on week drops in infection rates which gives some insight into the expected overall duration of the latest variant as we were one of the first areas to be hit and were certainly the hardest hit in December. We were hit by two outbreaks during that time, one in the women’s team followed by one in the men’s team and so have joined the long list of clubs struggling with postponement protocols.

Every league and every competition has adopted its own approach on postponements and having walked through the various rules and guidelines I can tell you they are unsatisfactory and in some case cannot actually be applied when you try to step through them. It is a classic example of how committees rush through regulations without actually testing them against each scenario we are likely to encounter.

You will have heard much about the postponements involving the men’s premier league clubs and it is the lack of transparency is the primary issue. Whilst many of the rumblings imply the smaller clubs are being treated unfairly it is hard to judge when the reasons and statistics behind each postponement go undisclosed. We can only trust that the same rules are being applied in the same way each time but I can understand the anger of fans at that level whose trust has been eroded by their experiences with other ‘behind closed doors’ subjective decision making initiatives such as VAR or selecting clubs for promotion over clubs who finish top of their league.

I do believe the integrity of all competitions will be negatively impacted this season but the priority for all leagues is to complete them, to get over the finish line come what may and many already have one eye on the dreaded points per game thresholds. Our own league has been sub-optimal from the start with its ill-conceived ‘opt-out’ policy handing every club the chance to skip a game without punishment rather than go through the complex process of proving they could not fulfil the fixture. You will recall we found ourselves two games behind from the start of the season as both of our first two opponents chose to opt out of playing us. I can see how that idea came about, someone had the idea of making the process easier, trusting that clubs would use it only when necessary and keep the league moving, but it no one applied the ‘what if..’ test and clubs just find themselves even further behind on games than they should be.

The league is now stating that we have to play games if we have 9 players available. That’s their policy on the basis that clubs ‘clearly showing they wished the FA to try to ensure normal promotion’ however to twist a club’s desire in August to complete a season after two failed attempts into claiming you have a mandate for clubs agreeing to play with 9 players is indefensible. Our complaints to the league that our early season opponents played friendlies instead of fulfilling league fixtures were met with silence. When we were unable to play before Christmas due to a covid outbreak the league decided to roar and gnash its teeth.

Everyone associated with football wants fairness and consistency and the more I see of those that govern our game the fundamental problem is ideas are not thought through or tested properly and when they come up short the majority of those involved show their true colours – a belief that they are not accountable to clubs and fans.