NOT only were Millwall chosen to host the EFL’s ‘Together – Supporting Communities’ initiative, but they also played a key role in setting it up in the first place.
CEO Steve Kavanagh was elected to the EFL board earlier this year, and while he has the best interests of the football club at his heart, he also works hard to help communities across the country form strong bonds with their local football clubs.
The aforementioned scheme certainly achieves this, highlighting the work that each of the 72 clubs does to help supporters in need amidst the cost of living crisis.
“There was a working party set up on it,” Kavanagh explains.
“The government had spoken to the EFL and asked them to look at this alongside cinemas and supermarkets. It started with whether we could do discounted ticket pricing and quickly broadened out into what we’re already doing, what is the broad community work.
“One cap doesn’t fit all and actually recognising all of the things that clubs are doing in this space was key. We quickly moved on to saying that there’s a whole load of work taking place and let’s recognise all of that work, because it’s all taking place.
“We’ll carry on working hard on what’s going on. The community trust is there, we’re running courses for the kids, numeracy courses. All of that work takes place.
“What we’ll do is address and adapt that work to what the next need is and how we progress those needs.
“As councils write their community action plans, we’ll be working with Lewisham, Southwark and Sevenoaks now to understand what those community action plans are and seeing how we can key into those and deliver against them, and help councils to deliver for their communities.”
That doesn’t mean that this is easy for Millwall to do. Like every Championship club, their costs are high and their income is fairly low. The Lions are lucky that owner John Berylson is able to invest a sizeable sum to keep them afloat and competing at the top end of the table.
It’s more than that, however, as without Millwall there would be no coffee mornings, no Lions Food Hub and no schemes whatsoever that could support the community around Bermondsey in what is an incredibly difficult time.
As a result, Kavanagh has stressed the importance of receiving extra support from the government to alleviate this financial pressure by giving EFL clubs a cut of the income that wealthy Premier League clubs bring in on a day-to-day basis… read more
This article originally appeared in Southwark News
