It has been a long time since supporting Burnley has been this difficult.

As we sit in our lowest league position in almost 30 years with our second head coach of the season, it’s now been a full calendar year since we last won a league match at Turf Moor. Off the pitch, the club have gone from cash in the bank to £142 million in debt, according to the latest accounts. That is the fourth-highest external debt in English football behind Spurs and Everton, who built new stadiums, and Manchester United, after a similar leveraged buyout, all with far higher revenues than ours.

Poor results and day-to-day frustrations are felt by every fan, and by all of us on the committee. As a supporters’ association, our job is to keep looking at the bigger picture, which is the long-term health of the club, and the areas where we can make a real difference.

Since our launch in May 2025, members have raised a wide range of concerns through surveys, emails and conversations, with many now worried about the future and sustainability of the club itself. Then on Friday 23rd October, we put out a call for members’ views on the current situation. One thing came up more than anything else, again and again: members and supporters feel disconnected from their own club and hold serious, legitimate concerns about the long-term future of our club. That should concern everyone at Turf Moor. When supporters no longer feel part of their club and worry for its future, something has gone badly wrong, and putting it right has to come first.

 

Despite only launching last year, we are now the largest Burnley supporters’ group, and with that comes responsibility. Our constitution asks us to maintain channels of communication with the club’s directors and management, and we have worked to establish them. The Burnley FC Independent Supporters’ Association (BFCISA) committee of elected volunteers have listened to members and represented their views in discussions with the club. We have questioned and challenged the changes to the Cricket Field Stand, the lack of consultation on season ticket changes and the Chairman’s negative comments about the fanbase, and so farthis has been effective in places.

However, our Statement of Values also commits us to safeguarding the club’s future as “a community-based, well-stewarded sustainable organisation”, and as a football supporters’ group, we now sit in a unique situation.

Last year’s Football Governance Act created the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), and from next season every club will need a licence from the regulator to play. The licence looks at three things – whether a club is financially sound, whether it is properly run, and whether it listens to its fans. At the heart of this lies the regulator’s commitment to protect clubs as “prized social and cultural assets”, and for the first time there is a body with the power to enforce it.

Behind the scenes, we have spent the past few months making sure Burnley fans’ voices are heard as the new licensing regime begins. The regulator has said it will speak directly with fan groups as part of its licensing regime, and we have made sure Burnley fans are part of that conversation. Having first met the IFR in September 2025, while it was being set up, we can now share that we met them again recently on 24th September to set out how members feel about the club. The IFR have offered a further meeting as the licensing process continues. Fans hold their club to account in many ways, and we were built to do it as an elected group, accountable to our members and working through the right channels. This, we believe, is the power of a democratically elected fan group.

In the summer, we also became Affiliate members of the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), the national body representing football fans. The FSA work closely with the regulator, and in recent weeks we have met them repeatedly for advice on how best to engage the club and build accountability. Their guidance is clear that fans should be consulted while decisions are still open to influence, given enough information and time to respond, and have their views genuinely taken into account. In the FSA’s words, consultation “should not just be a procedural exercise”. They are just as clear that clubs “should not hand pick” fan representatives.

This is the first of a series of articles we’ll publish over the coming weeks, called “Where We Stand”. Each one takes a key value the BFCISA is based on, from our Constitution and Statement of Values, and sets out our position, using member views, the IFR licensing regime and the FSA position as a guide. Together, they explain what we see as good, long-term stewardship of our football club.

Alongside these articles, we will be working to make this happen, continuing to represent members and, importantly, meeting the club again before the end of the year. Supporters deserve to know what the owners’ long-term plans are for Burnley Football Club and this meeting will be publicised and reported promptly, and we intend it to be the start of reconnecting Burnley fans with our club.

We will always be constructive. But constructive doesn’t mean quiet.