THE wider football community still “does not care” about the Shakers’ demise and what it meant for the town, the latest fan-led review into football governance has been told.

A parliamentary panel, chaired by former sports minister Tracey Crouch, is canvassing supporters’ views on ownership, governance and financial flows within the game.

In comes in the wake of the European Super League debacle that saw six Premier League clubs attempt to break away and form their own continental competition.

With calls increasing for an independent regulator, Bury’s plight has again been highlighted, the club currently in administration with Gigg Lane up for sale after expulsion from the Football League nearly two years ago.

Bury AFC, the club formed in the wake of the Shakers’ crisis have submitted their views and James Daly, MP for Bury North, addressed the committee this week.

“I am absolutely fed up to the back teeth of football being talked about through the prism of five or six clubs in the Premier League who think they have a God-given right to dominate football and decide what happens to other clubs in their vicinity,” he said.

“The lack of care within English football from those clubs, from the EFL and from the FA regarding Bury is something I would not have believed until I became an MP and found out the complete negligence with which the history, hope and passion of people in Bury was let down. Nobody cared and still nobody cares in respect of that.

“I support the call for an independent regulatory body. I have seen personally how people in Bury have been affected by the loss of it. For 70, 80 years people have been going to watch it, it’s part of their lives, part of their heritage and part of what makes them proud of the town of Bury.

“The fans of Bury have been left to themselves.”

AFC, a fan-owned Community Benefit Society gearing up for a second season in the North West Counties First Division North, have submitted a five-page document to the committee following discussions with their ‘Fair Game’ colleagues - a group of clubs looking to bring about real change to the way football is run.

The club suggests something similar to the DNCG (Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion) model in France where the body has the power to compel clubs to submit a monthly payroll or even relegate them on economic grounds.

In 2019, nine clubs in France either had their promotion annulled or were relegated to a lower division.

“The early intervention of reviewing accounts and budgets on an annual basis would have prevented the scenario faced by Bury FC,” the letter reads. “Costs and debts were allowed to spiral out of control.”

AFC’s submission also calls for greater protection of clubs and their assets, including owners being licensed by any new regulator, and a greater role for the Football Supporters’ Association overseeing supporters’ trusts.

Damian Collins the former chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee who visited Gigg Lane when in that post, believes there has to be a decisive outcome to the review with a regulator put in place.

The Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe said: “If the fan-led review, the latest football governance review, is to be meaningful in its outcome, it needs to recommend an independent regulatory body that can oversee the financial management of clubs, have the power to intervene when things go wrong, see accounts to ensure clubs are spending within the limits of their rules and not overspending, and ensure that clubs are being run in a sustainable way, so that they are there for the future.

“Football does not have an effective governing body in this country. It is run by a combination of vested interests that do not always agree with each other and at league level it is run by a rule book that is set and voted on by the chairs of the clubs themselves. Historically, they have not been interested in independent scrutiny of what they do.”