Tottenham announce formation of Fan Advisory Board

At a time when relations between Tottenham Hotspur and its fans are at one of its lowest points in the past 30 years, the club today announced the formation of a Fan Advisory Board, in order to give Spurs supporters greater representation into how the club is run.

The announcement was posted on Tottenham’s website and via social media channels. The Fan Advisory Board (FAB) is intended to “represent significantly greater fan engagement and wide representation for supporters at home and abroad.”

The FAB membership will include representatives drawn from the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust (THST), Proud Lilywhite, Spurs Ability, and Spurs REACH organizations, and additional members will be selected as part of an application and voting system.

According to the release, applications will be open to:

• Season Ticket Holders for the Men’s team (including Seasonal Premium Members)
• Season Ticket Holders for the Women’s team
• One Hotspur Members
• Domestic Official Supporters’ Club members
• International Official Supporters’ Club members

Fans in the above groups can submit an application for consideration by May 14.

The club will be represented by club Executive Director Donna-Marie Cullen and Head of Supporter Engagement Levi Harris, with other Spurs executives periodically joining meetings where appropriate.

The timing of this announcement feels very appropriate considering the extremely low morale within the fanbase at the moment, but this does appear to have been in the works for a while. It may feel a bit reactionary, but the creation of a Fan Advisory Board is something that has been requested by groups like the THST and Proud Lilywhites for a long time.

It’s also a positive step. The best way to improve relations between the fans and the club is to actually have fan representation in talks with the board; this was ostensibly done via the THST but this new structure feels more robust. It also doesn’t preclude the possibility of including international fans from outside of the UK; meetings can be easily held via Zoom so that people who live abroad can still participate fully.

The formation of an FAB won’t magically fix everything that’s gone wrong over the past four years and to be sure there are still massive structural issues at Tottenham that need to be addressed, but this does at least appear to give Spurs fans a greater seat at the table. It looks like a good thing, and something that fans have wanted. Let’s hope it is.