THOUGHTS ON CHARLES KOPPEL BEING EVIL  

Note: This was written a while ago (see post-script at bottom for update), so is a bit out of date. Still, makes for good background...

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of Wimbledon’s current mess, but I am constantly amazed at how little the issue has permeated public consciousness, to the extent that ill-informed pundits can get away proclaiming that moving to Milton Keynes is ‘the only option’ for Wimbledon FC. For this reason, I just want to run through the basics of the current war.

First and foremost, Wimbledon should not be short of money. When Sam Hammam sold Plough Lane, rather than plough the £30m back into the club, he pocketed the money and proceeded to spend it on Cardiff City FC. The fact that this was virtually unnoticed at the time was due primarily to the fact that he had left the club in the hands of billionaires – Norwegians with money to burn. However, they have since shown that they would indeed rather burn it than spend a penny on Wimbledon. The only significant outlay in recent times has been the million spent by Koppel in trying to force a move to Milton Keynes through the Football League machinery. We are, in the meantime, told the club is losing £20,000 a day. This apparently justifies the fact that top players such as Cooper, Hughes, Ainsworth and Roberts were off-loaded for minimal income just as the team was attempting to claim a place in the play-offs.

Beyond this, the problem lies almost exclusively with Koppel – it is remarkable to see one man doing so much damage. He is not, and has never claimed to be, a Wimbledon fan. He is simply a businessman who saw, in a top-level club without a ground or many fans, a chance to create a new franchise in a new part of the country. The place is Milton Keynes, a man-made city up the motorway, outside of London. Is there anything wrong with this? This depends what you believe a football club to be. If it is merely a team of 11 men playing in a nominal and alterable location on the whim of businessmen, then this is fine. In that case, clubs are franchises to be bid for in order to bring in the economical benefits of high-profile football without a local team having to climb through the non-league structure to get there as Wimbledon once did.

This has never been the case however. Clubs are named after their location because, whilst the stadium, players, board and kits may change, they have always maintained a historical geographical connection. Fans grow up watching their local team and therefore feel a sense of attachment, a sense of community. Fans often support the same team as did their granddad, and his dad before him. Remove the local roots and the fans and you lose any recognisable essence of a football club beyond another corporate logo. If there is no loyalty to a club’s fans and history, then the loyalty that sees working people paying ludicrously inflated ticket and merchandising prices to fund exorbitant wages and signing-on fees will soon vanish in turn. Football will pay the price if it continues to entirely disregard the hand that feeds it.

But it is only Wimbledon after all, a team with a notorious lack of fans. So does that make it all right? If so, where is the line drawn? If you can entirely ignore the passionate and emotional protests of 5,000 fans (and the level of protest has impressed most), why not 6,000, 7,000 or more. If the dissolution of Wimbledon Football Club is allowed to happen (and it is a dissolution, not a mere move – I reiterate, a club is unrecognisable without its community links) then others will follow. Chairmen will not feel the need to pursue local solutions if they are allowed to simply up and leave for more prosperous areas. Cities with unsuccessful clubs could simply replace them with a more favourable Premiership model.

Anyway, grander issues aside, there are simpler demonstrations of Koppel’s evil. He is petty, threatening to wind down the club if he doesn’t get his way. He is refusing to offer new deals to out-of-contract players, and he has shown himself willing to sell anyone, leaving the question of what type of team he is intending to take to MK. Above all, he lies continually, insisting to the fans that his priority has always been the development of a stadium in Merton. This has been shown to be untrue, not least by the fact that Koppel stated, “We want Wimbledon FC to play in Milton Keynes” on Norwegian TV. There is also the fact that if he did want to pursue a Merton solution, it would actually be the more practical solution. Merton local council, the MP for Wimbledon and 85% of the residents have voiced their support for a return of Wimbledon to Plough Lane and Safeway, who purchased the site, have had planning permission turned down. The Milton Keynes option, on the other hand, has been turned down categorically on every occasion by the Football League. In defiance of all evidence, however, Koppel puts his fingers in his ears and pushes on regardless.

It was a few weeks ago, however, that Koppel performed the act that forced football to take notice. Terry Burton, the Wimbledon manager who, in the past two seasons, had guided the team to 8^th and 9^th despite the raging war around him, was sacked at the end of the season. The reasons given vary, from Burton’s selection of Peter Hawkins to play against Bradford City in defiance of his chairman’s orders (the player was in line for a bonus if he played a certain number of 1^st-team games), to the manager’s heartfelt backing of a fans anti-MK protest after that match. Either way, Koppel axed a talented and respected football man, citing failure to reach the play-offs (this despite the fact half the team had been sold during the season). He has not spoken to the fans over the incident, and it is unlikely he will. The Wimbledon FC club website is a place of censorship and propaganda, to the extent that when an independently produced video highlights package on the site included a shot of a ‘Koppel Out’ poster, a threat of legal action was made. All protestors or members of the Wimbledon Independent Supporter’s Association (WISA) are branded the disruptive minority. Ever fewer believe him however. Messages of support for the WISA campaign have now come from the likes of Ian Wright, Graham Kelly, Alec Stewart, Peter Kay, not to mention various journalists and politicians. Whoever is brought in to replace Burton will doubtless prove a pawn – a man vowing support to the MK scheme before being handed the reins.

So, does the financially attained position of running a football club give someone permission to alter, damage and, eventually, dissolve that club at will? If not, who will prevent it from happening? With a bit of luck – the FA, or at least the 3 men making up its commission panel, can demonstrate the courage to back their previously shown instincts and adjudicate against Koppel. If this occurs, it should thankfully draw a line under the issue and send a truly odious individual running for the exits.

POST-SCRIPT: On 28^th May the FA panel ruled that Koppel could proceed with plans to move Wimbledon FC to Milton Keynes. They said that they were not setting a precedent, but that the situation was ‘exceptional’. In other words, ‘its only Wimbledon’… It would seem than that the club is a victim of its own success. The club has a proud history of more than 100 years, primarily as one of the country’s most successful non-league competitors and FA Cup giant-killers, but on account of its rapid rise to the top level of the game without a sufficient fanbase or ground to back it up, Wimbledon is now losing its right to a football team. It would have been far more honourable to simply put us back in non-league competition. Hopefully a new club will appear there now – one playing in Merton. If it does, that is whom I shall support…

FURTHER POST-SCRIPT: On 25th June, AFC Wimbledon, owned by Dons Trust, was accepted into the Combined Counties League for this season. Get in! Watch another meteoric rise...