Dale Vince sets the record straight on FGR's women’s team.
Chairman of Forest Green Rovers, Dale Vince OBE, said: “This will be our third season in the National League and as a result we face the full £1.5million loss of income, it having been mitigated until now by reducing parachute payments.
Seeing this coming for some weeks, we’ve reviewed all spending and our focus has had to be on regaining our place in the EFL - it’s the logical thing to do.
As a result, we already had to cut the boys' football program - but faced no criticism for that, worth noting.
We believed we had found a way to continue with the women’s team and the girls’ system, by partnering with Hartpury - but they changed their position very late in the day, leaving us facing the six-figure cost of running the women’s team alone - and so we’ve needed to make this decision.
FGR have been supporting women’s football for over a decade; the criticism we’ve faced in the last few days for this is entirely misplaced - it’s unfair, in fact.
Economic realities have forced us to cut spending in many areas; we already cut funding to the system for boys as part of that.
The women’s team cuts have come at the very end and only due to a last-minute let-down - that’s hardly indicative of a club that does not care about women’s football.
Our focus on getting back to the EFL is the most logical thing for us to do, once we have achieved that we can restore all of the programs we’ve not been able to afford this year - the boys, girls and the women’s team.
That’s our plan, to get back to where we were in all respects, in the EFL and with the wherewithal to fund the things we believe in, which - yes, does include football for women and girls. And boys.”
