Leicester City FC have announced its Fan Engagement Plan: View

LCFC have announced its Fan Engagement Plan.  Despite the club showing a willingness to work with The Foxes Trust to develop the plan, their recent actions in finalising the details mean that whilst we back the overall framework, we do have concerns about the Terms of Reference and Code of Conduct.

Premier League clubs are required to produce a Fan Engagement Plan.

At the top of the pyramid of LCFC supporter engagement is the Fan Advisory Board providing Leicester City supporters with the opportunity to represent, at Board level, the views of the whole LCFC fan-base on issues that affect our club and fans.

Premier League clubs weren’t required to engage with existing fan groups in creating their plans, but to LCFC’s credit, they started consulting with the Foxes Trust almost two years ago, and through our negotiation we had managed to influence the shape of the Fan Engagement Framework (FEF) and Fan Advisory Board (FAB) structures, increasing the number of fans on the FAB and how fan representatives are selected.

The FEF that has been developed goes well beyond the levels created at other clubs.  It includes the opportunity for fan input as part of Fans Consultative Committee (FCC) working groups, Your 90 Minutes meetings and fan surveys, with information gathered from these feeding through the pyramid structure, all of which the Trust welcomes.

However, in finalising its Fan Engagement Plan the club failed to make available to the Trust the Terms of Reference and Code of Conduct until the night before publication and then refused to consider any of our suggested changes. Had the club provided draft documents to the Trust earlier, we feel many of our concerns could have been addressed.

What is the structure of the Fan Advisory Board?

Five places on the FAB will be held by people from the football club, including one from the LCFC Board. The other six places will be held by fans.

• In accordance with the government’s Fan-Led Review of Football, as the designated Supporters Trust for LCFC, the Foxes Trust has been allocated one position on the FAB.
• Two places will be determined by an election process from members of the current Fans Consultative Committee. Members of the FCC who wish to stand for election have been advised they will need to submit a statement outlining why they are suited to hold one of the positions.
• The remaining three places on the FAB are open for any LCFC fans who hold a season ticket or are a LCFC Member.

How to apply to join the FAB is detailed within the club’s statement which is available with other relevant document links at the end of this article. The application process closes at 5pm on 20 August 2024.

What does becoming an FAB member involve?

The Terms of Reference and the Code of Conduct set out the role of an FAB member, including having to sign a legally binding non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). This is because you will be discussing board-level corporate and operational matters that require confidentiality.

Our concerns are:

• The wording of the Code of Conduct could constrain the ability of any member of the Fans Advisory Board (FAB) to be critical of the club
• The wording of the Terms of Reference enables the club to veto any person put forward by the Trust to take their designated place on the FAB
• Despite the three fans’ positions on the FAB for members and season ticket holders going through a process including an interview panel consisting of a representative of LCFC, a representative of the Foxes Trust and an independent representative from the Football Supporters’ Association, the Terms of Reference state that the ‘Club will select three individuals’.
• We asked for the four-times-a-season wording for FAB meetings to be changed to quarterly meetings, to ensure they take place evenly across the season.
• The absence of deadlines for issuing minutes to FAB members and issuing redacted minutes to the wider fanbase.
• Supporter representatives should have the ability to request additional FAB meetings if an important issue arises and our proposal was that this would require a unanimous request by all the supporter representatives.
• The decision over which items make FAB agendas should not be at the sole discretion of the club.

The Trust will be monitoring the process closely and quickly highlight to the wider fan base when we feel real engagement with the club is not working as it should.

Conclusion

The Fan Engagement Plan is a chance for the club to reset fan engagement.  This is a needed reset, as the results to date in our end of season survey do not make good reading for the club.

We will be publishing the results of the survey, along with sharing and discussing with the club.

Overall, the Fan Engagement Plan represents a historic moment in fan engagement at our club and we urge supporters to get involved at all levels and to look out for the Your 90 Minutes sessions open to all LCFC supporters.