Guest speakers will be the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, secretary of state for culture, media and sport and Lord Triesman, chairman of the Football Association.
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STAR will be quite heavily involved in the conference - two STAR members are standing in the elections (1 for National Council of the FSF and one as an Officer), and STAR members are proposing and seconding a number of motions, as below :
These are :
5. Football authorities to give full support for proper respect for match officials Conference applauds the aims of the Football Association’s “Respect” Campaign to improve player behaviour, but believes that the core of this strategy to “start at the bottom” by targeting the behaviour of young players is misguided, since many already take their cue from what they see
professionals do on television.
Conference believes that the Laws of the Game already equip referees with sufficient powers to allow them to deal with the bad language, abuse and lack of respect which is endemic in the professional game, but that referees are inhibited from using these powers. Conference therefore calls upon the Football Association, Premier League and Football League to give full backing to referees with the instruction to apply the Laws of the Game stringently and vigorously in order to drive up standards of player behaviour, in particular by adopting a “zero tolerance” policy towards all players and club staff whenever they display any bad language, abuse and disrespect towards officials or other players.
(Proposed by STAR member, Seconded by STAR)
14. Conference calls for referees in televised matches to be “wired up” with suitable microphone and transmitting equipment to enable the broadcast of what they say and hear to be received by those equipped with suitable equipment. Conference believes this will bring three benefits to the game by :
(i)allowing viewers to see in real time abuse, disrespect and bad language which is directed at referees by some players. Making the behaviour of players so clearly visible would inevitably raise standards of player behaviour since current standards would be unacceptable to audiences, sponsors and broadcasters alike;
(ii) allowing commentators and viewers to hear the communication between referees and players and to properly understand the basis on which referees are making decisions. This would help raise standards of commentary by reducing the occasions where commentators criticise referees through ignorance of the situation or the laws of the game;
(iii) allowing an additional revenue stream through the selling/sponsorship of this audio channel in order to overcome any financial objections to its introduction.
(Proposed by STAR member, Seconded by STAR)
15. In negotiating future TV contracts FSF calls upon all football authorities to insert a requirement for more rigid, and publicly known, advance notification of changes of scheduled dates and/or kick-off times. Furthermore, where the TV company fails to meet the contractual deadline, it will itself be liable to reimburse the validated additional, or non-refundable, expenses incurred by any fan of the competing teams in instances where such expenditure was incurred after the known deadline.
(Proposed by Sunderland AFCSA, Seconded by STAR)
16. Conference deplores the repeated use of Stop and Search powers under Section 60 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1994 when these are deployed indiscriminately against football supporters or those appearing to be football supporters based upon appearance or stereotyping alone.
Conference calls upon Police Forces to base their policing methods solely on properly targeted, intelligence-based, policing of supporters rather than upon an automatic assumption that everyone who chooses to spend their leisure time watching football matches is by implication a potential criminal.
(Proposed by STAR member, Seconded by STAR)
