{"id":15285,"date":"2017-11-01T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T09:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=15285"},"modified":"2017-11-01T09:00:35","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T09:00:35","slug":"london-university-team-introduce-fines-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/london-university-team-introduce-fines-system\/","title":{"rendered":"London university team introduce divisive fines system"},"content":{"rendered":"

University footballers are sometimes seen as lacking commitment. By introducing a lengthy fines system however, the University of Westminster Dragons are looking to change that. <\/span><\/h3>\n

Club captain Jack Scott told <\/span>Voice of London Sport<\/span><\/i>: \u201cwe just thought if we introduced a fines system it would make players let us know what they\u2019re up to,\u201d going on to explain, \u201cif they can\u2019t tell us in enough time, they get fined – simple.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend used to play semi professional football, obviously they\u2019re getting paid so they\u2019re getting heftier fines for more trivial things like not wearing certain types of shoes to training. When he told me about it I thought it might make the club run a little bit more smoothly.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

So what exactly warrants a fine in this new system? A booking sees a player receive an extra <\/span>\u00a35 on top of the existing fine that the league sets. Arriving late for a match could see a player fined up to \u00a35 and a \u201cnegative remark about a teammate\u201d could see a \u00a32 fine. At the start of the season, on top of the initial \u00a360 annual club membership fee, players are asked to pay an extra \u00a320 towards fines, that they will receive back at the end of year if they haven\u2019t broken the rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The original fines list obtained by Voice of London Sport<\/p><\/div>\n

Not everyone is as happy with the new scheme however.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dragons 2nd XI goalkeeper Lee Pearson told us: \u201c<\/span>obviously you\u2019re getting fined for yellows by the league so it\u2019s \u00a310 but then they\u2019ve added an extra fiver which was not necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo if it was a silly foul that you shouldn\u2019t have done, you\u2019re getting fined, but then also for events and stuff like that which is a bit annoying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

University sports teams are notorious for outrageous drinking and regular socials. Rugby in particular holds the worst reputation, but there is a fear that including a <\/span>\u00a32 fine for missing a social event could bring that culture into football. <\/span><\/p>\n

On this, Pearson said: \u201c<\/span>obviously there\u2019s a football culture, isn\u2019t there? A team culture where you\u2019ve got to be one of the lads.\u201d He then admitted: \u201cif I don\u2019t want to go out, I don\u2019t want to go out, but at the same time you do feel a little bit under pressure to go out and drink because it\u2019s supposed to be in that culture.”<\/span><\/p>\n

However for Scott, socials are about something different: \u201ca lot of the boys in our team are also musicians and hold concerts, if they ask us to come and we don\u2019t, and we don\u2019t give enough notice, a fine is given out- it\u2019s more of a togetherness thing, we\u2019re a team, we should be doing things together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This kind of system has always been a staple of the professional game, as UCL thirds captain James Sherrin recalled, after he was informed of Westminster\u2019s new system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to train and play at Watford\u2019s training ground, Shenley, so we would see that sort of stuff in the Watford changing rooms, which were the ones the under 18s, 19s and 17s would use. They had things on the walls they\u2019d be charged for. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very similar, they were professional players being paid about <\/span>\u00a3500<\/span> a week and they\u2019d be fined twenty quid for not bringing flip flops for the shower.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sherrin revealed that he was surprised that a university team had decided to take that approach: \u201cIt\u2019s almost like the manager\u2019s got way ahead of himself and needs to understand that this is uni football, it isn\u2019t as competitive or serious as that, it\u2019s supposed to be fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sherrin wasn\u2019t particularly impressed with the financial aspect<\/span>: \u201c<\/span>that\u2019s \u00a380 club fee; considering we pay \u00a330 club fees for our season, I think that\u2019s quite expensive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been playing for years and I’m captain but definitely in first year it would make you a lot more hesitant to join, 100%.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When <\/span>Voice of London Sport <\/span><\/i>asked Sherrin if he could see his own team ever employing a similar scheme, his response was emphatic: \u201cThey seem excessive. We certainly as a club don\u2019t have that sort of an issue with discipline. It sounds very autocratic to be like that. I don\u2019t think we\u2019d ever need to.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But, with rumours of infighting amongst the Dragons last season, can it be criticised if it is working? Turnout to training sessions has never been better, and Jack Scott believes this can lead to increased success: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past couple of years we were just turning up and seeing how many people turned up on the day, sometimes you can\u2019t run a full session when you haven\u2019t got say, four of your five strikers and midfielders so yeah that was the kind of idea about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s working because people obviously don\u2019t want to be handing over money unnecessarily so they\u2019re trying to make more of an effort to get to the games and matches which is helpful for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you think about Westminster\u2019s new fines system? Would you be happy with that if you were a university sportsman or woman? Let us know in the comments section below.<\/span><\/p>\n

Words: <\/strong>\u00c9tienne Fermie | Subbing: <\/strong>Reuben Pinder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University footballers are sometimes seen as lacking commitment. By introducing a lengthy fines system however, the University of Westminster Dragons are looking to change that. Club captain Jack Scott told Voice of London Sport: \u201cwe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}