Following on from our article in February regarding the Trust’s work with the Football Action Network (FAN), the group’s manifesto has now been published via the Observer newspaper. We are pleased to have played a role in developing these ideas and ensuring that the wellbeing of non-league football is a discussion that is held within the spotlight of the national media. The manifesto itself even has a mention of Dulwich Hamlet in relation to the clubs decision to pay the London Living Wage.

In addition to the call for league clubs to follow Hamlet’s example in regards to the wages of their staff, there are a number of points raised that are particularly pertinent to non-league football and we are delighted to have been involved in shaping the manifesto.

They include statutory rights for supporters’ trusts to buy clubs whenever a it faces insolvency or its shares are sold, changes in the tax regime to support social ownership of clubs and perhaps most significantly, a windfall tax on the Premier League. FAN want the Premier League to raise its contribution to 15%, with half of this being spend on grassroots, non-league football and social projects, with the other half being used to form a supporters ownership fund that will underwrite supporter trust buy outs. It also suggests a levy on bookmakers and a contribution of the sales of media rights to social projects.

The manifesto in its entirety and the article that accompanied it are available in full here. There are likely to be additional developments with regards to the manifesto in the coming weeks and months and we would like to encourage our fans to support these ambitions.

Indeed, you may wish to keep the morning of 18 April free, before our home game versus Maidstone, further details will be published in due course