With the increase of owners from abroad who know or care little about a club's heritage and see it purely as a flagship for their own agenda's in some cases, the Football Association is to introduce new legislation to protect it's members.

The most prominent case of this happening was at Cardiff City a few years ago when their owner decided that he wanted the club to wear red, a lucky colour in his country and changed the strip from their traditional blue to red.

But it isn't just the owners who have done this, from the 1970's onwards club's themselves seemed determined to get flashy new badges and strips that looked nothing like designs that were synonymous with the club itself.

The truly iconic clubs in the main did not get involved with this, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc have in the main always kept their home kits to a traditional design, they see football clubs as traditional and part of that is keeping the club's brand for want of a better word.

At Saints we have seen some god awful kits, I always find it ironic that some of the kits we have worn, mainly in the decade or so between 1976 & 1989 are now seen by a younger generation as good, when at the time they were universally disliked by the fan base.

Our current kit is a case in kind, some would say it is a nice looking kit, but no one would recognise it as a Southampton kit , it is not just the owners who sneer at our traditions and heritage but those in charge of marketing.

Now the FA are stepping in to stop clubs being at the whim of an owner who want something different and the good news is that these laws will include consulting supporters.

The Football Supporters Association had this to say:

The FA has said it will be introducing new rules to protect the heritage of football clubs in the men’s and women’s game.

The new rules will protect a club’s crest and home kit colours and require any club seeking to substantially change either to consult with supporters.

“In the event a club is found to be in breach of the rules,” the FA said. “The FA is able to take appropriate action, such as ordering a club to revert back to a previous crest or home shirt colour combination.

“The aim of the new rules is to put supporters at the heart of the decision-making process regarding these important club heritage matters.

“As part of our ongoing response to the fan led review, we will be continuing a consultation process regarding potential ground relocation rules this season.”

Starting from the 2022-23 season, those rules will cover the Premier League, EFL and National League in the men’s game and the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship.

The Football Supporters Association was consulted about the new rules alongside the relevant leagues.

FSA vice chair Tom Greatrex said:

“This is a significant step forward in terms of protecting the heritage of our clubs and ensuring supporter consultation is in the FA rules — as playing name changes already are.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the Fan-led Review and the determination of supporters who’ve continued to make the case for our clubs, which are vital community assets, to be protected.”

What does the Football Supporters Association think?

This is a welcome and positive step, but there is more to do.

One of the key recommendations of the Fan-led Review was that there should be additional protection for key items of club heritage through a “Golden Share” for fans requiring supporter consent and overseen by an independent regulator.

The FA’s new rules stop short of that and the FSA will continue to work to ensure the Fan-led Review’s recommendations are implemented in full.

More information about the FSA, its work and how to join for free can be found here.

https://thefsa.org.uk/

Photo: Action Images

WestSussexSaint added 10:36 - Aug 10 So taking our new home kit in question, would the club have had to consult with fans? Saints are red and white stripes with emphasis on the red. Technically the new shirt is still red and white but the multi stripes are absent and it is predominantly white. Either way if fans had been consulted I doubt it would have received a majority approval and the rules say the fans have to be CONSULTED but nothing about their views being taken into account in the final outcome.

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SanMarco added 17:35 - Aug 10 The FA come out with this nonsense having allowed the Newcastle take-over. I think it would be wonderful if the 'iconic' black and white stripes of Newcastle were changed to the colours of the Saudi flag. Heritage and culture is not valuable to football clubs because it is difficult to monetise - there is no actual good reason to ever change your kit once it is established. Strips rarely changed before the replica shirt market took off.

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