7th Place!

[Svlad Cjelli]

The FSF has analysed every club charter in the top two divisions, rating them 0-5 across a range of categories encompassing accessibility, timeliness, quality, clarity of complaints procedure, appeals process, and contacts for the relevant league and Independent Football Ombudsman.

Reading came 7th in the Championship ratings (just missing out on the play-offs!).

Rating figures : http://www.fsf.org.uk/media/uploaded/Fi ... -table.pdf

Full story : http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/Football-fan ... rs.php?id=

[biscuitman]

HA Sheffield Utd

[Fox Talbot]

The FSF has analysed every club charter in the top two divisions, rating them 0-5 across a range of categories encompassing accessibility, timeliness, quality, clarity of complaints procedure, appeals process, and contacts for the relevant league and Independent Football Ombudsman.

Reading came 7th in the Championship ratings (just missing out on the play-offs!).

Rating figures : http://www.fsf.org.uk/media/uploaded/Fi ... -table.pdf

Full story : http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/Football-fan ... rs.php?id=

In which areas did we slip up?

[PieEater]

What are IFO details?

Independant Fans Organisation?
International Family Officer?
Independant Financial Ombudsman?

[Svlad Cjelli]

What are IFO details?

Independant Fans Organisation?
International Family Officer?
Independant Financial Ombudsman?

If it was in teh cahrter you'd know

It's the Independent Football Ombudsman. http://www.theifo.co.uk/

Every supporter has the right to complain, and the complaint goes to the club.

If the complaint is not resolved to the complainant's satisfaction, they have the right to appeal to the competition organiser (FL, FA or PL depending on the match concerned).

If the complaint is still not resolved to the complainant's satisfaction, they have the right to appeal to the IFO, who will gather evidence and make a judgement.

But hardly any supporters know this, and for some reason lots of clubs still don't publicise it properly in their club charters.

[Row Z Royal]

Identified Flying Objects

[biscuitman]

Nil points.

http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/Liverpool-an ... rs.php?id=

[PieEater]

It's probably there but just impossible to find on our great new website

[Rex]

What are IFO details?

Independant Fans Organisation?
International Family Officer?
Independant Financial Ombudsman?

If it was in teh cahrter you'd know

It's the Independent Football Ombudsman. http://www.theifo.co.uk/

Every supporter has the right to complain, and the complaint goes to the club.

If the complaint is not resolved to the complainant's satisfaction, they have the right to appeal to the competition organiser (FL, FA or PL depending on the match concerned).

If the complaint is still not resolved to the complainant's satisfaction, they have the right to appeal to the IFO, who will gather evidence and make a judgement.

But hardly any supporters know this, and for some reason lots of clubs still don't publicise it properly in their club charters.

RL take note.

[Ian Royal]

That'd be a waste of time. Ombudsmen services have to apply the letter of the rules and make their judgements based on hard evidence. So the chances of a football complaint getting far with them seem pretty slim to me. Generally their level of customer satisfaction with the outcome of their complaint are in the region of 40% - 55% from the figures I've seen from some different ombudsman services.

So I'd only recommend going to one if a complaint is clear cut and supported by rules / laws / regulations. And there is video or written evidence or something similar. If it's subjective you probably won't get far. Although at least they do have powers to take action if they do come down on your side.

Personally I prefer a watchdog with credibility and the respect of the company's its watching to an ombudsman, even though they have no formal powers. More wiggle room to make recommendations where things aren't clear cut and the company hasn't technically done anything wrong but the customer's been hard done by. But then I would say that, because I work for one.