Sources: Tottenham talks update after controversial boardroom reveal
Tottenham are one of 10 Premier League clubs who are yet to hold their first Fan Advisory Board (FAB) meeting, Football Insider has learned.
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Man City, Brighton, West Ham, Leed United, Everton and Southampton have already held formal FAB meetings, while Brentford’s first is scheduled for later this month.
Spurs announced the launch of its FAB on Tuesday (25 April), 48 hours after they were thumped 6-1 by Newcastle United.
The North London club has also confirmed that it will refund supporters who attended the St James’ Park humiliation, which has left their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League hanging by a thread.
Both developments have been welcomed by groups such as the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust.
However, what some fans perceive to be the cynical timing of the FAB announcement has sparked controversy.
The club set out its intentions to launch an FAB in May 2021 in response to the monumental backlash to their attempts to join the European Super League the previous month.
They then reiterated their commitment to the scheme in March of this year following the Premier League’s publication of the Fan Engagement Standard, which commits top-flight clubs to greater engagement with supporters.
They were not alone in issuing a statement in support of the charter – all 20 Premier League clubs did so.
Sources have told this site that if recent events did accelerate Spurs’ launch of the FAB, it will have only been by a short amount of time given the obligations they now have under the Fan Engagement Standard.
Some clubs privately claim that short-listing, DBS checks and election results for supporter representatives have delayed the launch of their FABs.
But the fact that Arsenal, Leeds United and Everton held their first FAB meetings within 12 months of the Super League rebellion would, in the eyes of many analysts, invalidate that position.
Man City, Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton meanwhile already had club-supporter meeting structures in place which closely echo the terms outlined in the Fan Engagement Standard.
Every club in the Premier League has now committed to either having an operational FAB before 2023-24 or to outlining a new fan engagement plan by that time.
The Spurs FAB will meet four times per year and will be constituted of members from existing supporter organisations, season ticket holders, and domestic and international subscribers to the Official Supporters’ Club.
In other news, major update on Tottenham potentially appointing Silva as talks intensify.