By Mark Baber
June 27 – English Football Conference side Macclesfield Town has withdrawn their pay-to-play offer to fans. The cash-strapped club had planned to allow a fan to make a 10-minute appearance in the league or cup in exchange for a £20,000 donation.
According to the club’s statement, “The “pay-to-play” proposal was one of many innovative ideas that have been considered in the last few weeks to raise both funds and interest in the club. It was intended to be a light-hearted idea that would be of interest only to our local media.
“We now recognise that, whatever controls are put in place, it creates a possibility of altering the outcome of a competitive fixture and as such, clearly crosses an important line with respect to the integrity of the game. We are therefore withdrawing the offer and would like to apologise unreservedly to the football authorities and to the Football Conference for our error of judgement in this matter.”
Macclesfield need to raise £100,000 by the end of August to survive and hoped the offer, which was only open to “fit males between 18 and 35” would help to pay off a portion of the club’s debt. Macclesfield played in the Football League’s third division before relegation to the Conference in 2012. The club was formed in 1874.
Despite Macclesfield’s knock back, their offer isn’t entirely unique in recent times – in 2003, Doncaster owner John Ryan became the oldest man to turn out for a professional club when he appeared as a substitute in the final minute of their last league game of the Conference season at Hereford, and at the age of 52 years and 11 months.
On 2 December 2003, dedicated Barnet fan Steve Percy played the last 5 minutes of a competitive match between Barnet and Ware in the Herts Senior Cup as the home club were 4-1 ahead. Percy’s wife had won a ticket in a lottery to sit on the bench, passed it to husband and manager Martin Allen decided to bring him on notwithstanding Ware’s protests, saying “Nobody tells me who to bring on at my club, I’ll bring on who I want.”
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