Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 16

Memorandum submitted by the National Football Museum

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  The National Football Museum is a major new museum of national and international significance.

  It holds the world's finest football collection, consisting of over 25,000 items, including the FIFA Museum Collection, and the collections of the FA, the Football League and Wembley Stadium.

  The Museum has attained National Registration Status with Resource, the Government body for promoting standards in museums. Only 19 museums in England have achieved this.

  The National Football Museum is the only one of these 19 registered national museums currently operating without either national or local public revenue funding.

  The Museum has been nominated for European Museum of the Year 2003, and has been very positively received by the public and the media.

  The Museum is an independent charitable trust, and is currently dependent on admissions charges and other earned income to meet its revenue costs.

  The Museum was a £15 million capital project, primarily made possible by a grant of £9.3 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

  It is the only major new museum created by HLF funding, which is not an out-station of an existing national museum or museum service.

  Revenue funding of £400,000 per annum is required to meet the Government's commitment that national museums would have free access to all.

  The National Football Museum is strongly positioned to fulfil both the cultural and sporting objectives of DCMS.

  It represents excellent value for money in comparison with the national and non-national museums funded by DCMS.

  DCMS has set a precedent for funding a new national museum, in the support given from 2001-02 onwards to the National Coal Mining Museum of England.

  This paper is structured as follows:

  1.  Background: the development and significance of the Museum

  2.  The Revenue Funding Need: why the Museum needs additional funding support

  3.  Sources of Funding: the potential sources of funding to meet this need

  4.  The Case for DCMS support: on what grounds should DCMS support the Museum?

1.  BACKGROUND

1.1  The National Museum of the National Game

  Football is the "the people's game", a key part of England's heritage and way of life. England is also the home of football, the birthplace of the world's most popular sport. Over the past century football has spread from England to over 200 countries worldwide: there are more member countries in FIFA, football's world governing body, than in the United Nations.

  The "national game" clearly needed a national museum to reflect this unique contribution that England has made to international sport and culture. It is surprising, therefore, that it took until 2001 to establish the National Football Museum. Sir Stanley Rous, as Secretary of the Football Association, first considered the possibility of establishing such a museum in 1953. A number of attempts were made, until the announcement of a grant award by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in November 1997 to the project based in Preston, Lancashire, finally made the creation of the National Football Museum possible. As the "home" of football, it was entirely appropriate that FIFA should choose the English National Football Museum as the permanent home for the FIFA Museum Collection.

  HLF recognised the special importance of football's heritage in making the grant award to establish the Museum. HLF's general policy was (and remains today) that there were already sufficient museums in existence, which therefore should have the priority for support. However, football was too significant a part of England's heritage not to be represented in a national museum, and none of the existing national museums could appropriately establish a national football museum as a new out-station (as, for example, the Science Museum had done in setting up the National Railway Museum in York and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford). HLF therefore decided it was appropriate to fund an entirely new and independently established national museum for football. The National Football Museum remains the only major new museum funded by HLF, that is not a branch of a pre-existing national (or indeed, local) museum service.

  The Museum opened to the public in February 2001, and was officially opened by the Duke of Kent on 21 June 2001.

1.2  The Museums' Mission Statement

Why does the Museum exist?

  The National Football Museum exists to explain how and why football has become "the people's game", a key part of England's heritage and way of life. It also aims to explain why England is the home of football, the birthplace of the world's most popular sport.

Who is the Museum for?

  The Museum is for everyone, football fans and non-fans alike. People without a keen interest in football will enjoy finding out why so many people are so passionate about the game.

How does the Museum achieve its goals?

  The Museum seeks to achieve this by undertaking the following seven key aims:

    —  Developing the finest and most significant collection of objects and associated evidence connected with the development of football around the world.

    —  Protecting this important part of our cultural heritage for the benefit of all, both now and in the future.

    —  Researching the collection to explain how and why football has become the most popular sport in the world.

    —  Interpreting the collection in an entertaining and informative way, primarily through exhibitions, events and publications.

    —  Providing a range of educational opportunities based on the collection, for learners of all ages and levels of attainment.

    —  Satisfying customers with a level of visitor care which exceeds their expectations.

    —  Managing our resources effectively and creatively, to constantly innovate and improve the services we offer.

1.3  Capital Funding

  The Museum was a £15 million project, primarily made possible by a grant of £9.3 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Other sources included over £300,000 from the North West Development Agency, £200,000 from the Football Foundation and £100,000 from the Professional Footballers Association (PFA).

1.4  The World's Finest Football Collection

  The National Football Museum holds not just the finest football collection in England, consisting of over 25,000 items, but the finest collection in the world. The 10 individual major collections which make up the collection of the Museum as a whole include the FIFA Museum Collection, the FIFA World Cup Collection, The FIFA Book Collection, the collections of the FA, the Football League and Wembley Stadium, and items from over 500 individual donors. The collections tell as much about the international development of the game, as they do about the history of football within England. The international significance of the collections was demonstrated by the loan of over 100 items to the centenary exhibition of the German FA in 2000. During the 2002 World Cup, the Museum produced an exhibition in partnership with Awaji, the host city for the England team in Japan. The exhibition received over 100,000 visitors. Discussions are under way for a similar exhibition in China for the Women's World Cup in 2003. We have also loaned items for display to the British Library and the Imperial War Museum, as well as many local museums across the UK. The international significance of the collections means that the proposed development of a "virtual museum" on the web is a tremendous opportunity to make the collections accessible to football fans and others around the world.

1.5  National Registration Status

  The Museum has attained National Registration Status with Resource, the Government body for promoting standards in museums. Only 19 museums in England have achieved this. The National Football Museum is the only one of these 19 registered national museums currently operating without either national or local public revenue funding.

1.6  International Significance of the Museum

  There are national football museums in Scotland and Norway, and museums are planned in Germany, Wales and Brazil. However, The National Football Museum of England is, and will always remain, the world's most significant national football museum. This unique status is because England is the acknowledged "home" of football, where the modern game was developed. This was recognised by FIFA, in choosing the English National Football Museum as the permanent home for the FIFA Museum Collection. In the words of FIFA, England was the "cradle of the modern game".

  The Museum has been nominated for European Museum of the Year 2003.

1.7  Why Preston?

  There could be no more appropriate location for the Museum than Deepdale Stadium, the home of Preston North End FC, which is the oldest football league ground in the world. Preston has been playing at the same ground since 1878, longer than any other football league club. Preston North End was the first winner of the world's oldest football league in 1888-89. The Football League was based in Preston from 1902 to 1959, and then in nearby Lytham until 2000, when it returned to Preston.

  The Museum's entrance building leads to display areas within two of the stands at the stadium, the Sir Tom Finney Stand and the Bill Shankly Kop. The Museum is run entirely independently from the football club.

1.8  Charitable Status

  The Museum is a registered charity, governed by a board of independent trustees. At present the trustees are:

  Brian Booth—Chairman of Trustees; Chairman of Preston and Chorley Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

  David Fleming—Director, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside.

  Bryan Gray—Chairman of the North West Development Agency.

  Chris Newbery—Director, Royal Marines Museum, Portsmouth.

  Les Dawson—Managing Director, United Utilities.

  Cathy Long—Research and Information Executive, FA Premier League.

  Michael Burns—Professional Footballers Association.

1.9  Comments by Visitors

  Comments have been very positive, as the following demonstrate:

    "It was wonderful, we enjoyed it so much that it has come into our conversation several times each day since. It summed up the world of football for us both: expectation, excitement, poignancy, elation, and glory."

    "Echoing down the corridors of time, the clattering studs, the roar of the crowd, I swear I could smell the wintergreen. Wonderful!"

    "Everyone should come to this outstanding football experience."

    "Excellent, even if football is not your main interest."

    "Stupendous—some items were so poignant I nearly wept."

    "A national treasure. Should be an inspiration to young footballers of today".

  Visitors have come from over 20 countries, a recognition that England is the birthplace of football. As a Ukrainian visitor wrote, "Thank you for the beautiful game".

1.10  Media Coverage

  The Museum has secured extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally, including over 50 television features since the official opening in June 2001. This has included, for example, a 30-minute programme seen by 240 million viewers in China. Press quotes have included:

    "It is a fantastic place. Yes, fantastic." The Times

    "I spent five hours, dazed by all the wonders, and can't wait to go again. It's brilliant". Hunter Davies, The Mail on Sunday

    ". . . the marvellous National Football Museum . . . On one level, this is simply an unparalleled collection of football memorabilia. . . But you really don't have to know anything about football to enjoy the museum, since `the true story of the world's greatest game' is backed by fascinating print, film and sound material on football's origins, its social importance, the experience of fans through the ages, and other relevant themes. Plus there are some great interactive exhibits". The Rough Guide to England, 2002

    "The place is truly captivating . . . should become a place of pilgrimage for anyone with even the remotest interest in football . . . It is though you'd died and woken up in football heaven" The Daily Telegraph

    "The most extraordinary collection of memorabilia I have ever seen . . . Even those who profess to hate the sport will be captivated" Independent on Sunday

    "If you think museums are musty, dusty old places, forget it. This one is a sheer delight, for fans of every age and persuasion . . . A football shrine to gladden the heart" Sunday Express

    "Sumptuously designed pictorial evidence . . . The public will be hammering on the doors" The Independent

  Since opening international press coverage has included FIFA Magazine, and coverage in the following countries: France, Holland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, Russia, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia and Belgium.

  International television coverage to date has included features in Japan (Fuji, NHK, TBS); Korea (KBS); China; France; Italy; Greece; Norway; Australia; and mainland Europe (FIFA TV on Sky Sports, and Sky Sports Features).

1.11  Education and Social Inclusion

  The Museum has developed a number of groundbreaking initiatives in the field of social inclusion. These have included a project, funded by the New Opportunities Fund, to digitise the collections and develop a web site, working in partnership with a charity for vulnerable young people in housing need.

  The Institute of Football Studies (IFS) is a partnership between the National Football Museum and the University of Central Lancashire. It aims to promote the understanding of the impact of football on society and to advance knowledge of all aspects of football through excellence in teaching, research and scholarship. A number of major research projects have been undertaken, including a study of the impact of football on the lives of deaf people, which was funded by The Football Association.

1.12  The National Football Museum "Hall of Fame"

  The concept of a sporting Hall of Fame is well established, particularly in the USA, where induction is seen as the ultimate recognition of the contribution and performance of sporting greats over their careers. And yet, until now, there has not been a Hall of Fame to celebrate the heroes of the world's greatest game—football.

  As the natural next stage in our development, we are launching The National Football Museum Hall of Fame, to recognise and celebrate the achievements of the players and managers who have made the greatest contributions to the history of the game in this country. Eligibility will be based on outstanding sporting excellence and achievement and will cover great names like Matthews, Finney, Charlton, Moore, Best, Shankly, Dalglish—and the list goes on.

  Selection for entry to the Hall of Fame will be based on the views of those who know best—a panel of experts drawn from the ranks of players and managers of the past and present. We are delighted that amongst other distinguished names, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Tom Finney, Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alex Ferguson have agreed to be members of the panel. Needless to say, membership of the panel will not preclude an individual from being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

  To launch the Hall of Fame we will be holding an induction reception and dinner at the Museum on 1 December 2002. At this event, the first 29 inductees—22 male players, one female player and six managers—will be honoured. The dinner will be attended by the inductees, our selection panel and by supporters of the Museum from the worlds of football, politics, entertainment and business.

2.  THE MUSEUM'S REVENUE FUNDING NEEDS

  None of the national museums (or indeed, any museums in the country) operate without substantial revenue funding, primarily from public sources. No museum can operate on admissions income alone. 14 of the national museums receive substantial funding from DCMS; two from the Ministry of Defence; two from local sources; leaving only The National Football Museum without public revenue support.

  To fulfill its mission in the long term, The National Football Museum will require public revenue funding. This has become a problem in the short term, given that to date the Museum has not met its initial visitor admissions target. A target of 80,000 visitors per annum was set, but the Museum attracted 40,000 visitors in its first year. There are a number of reasons for this shortfall in visitor numbers to date:

    —  The lack of an adequate marketing budget—no funding was provided by the HLF or other stakeholders to launch the Museum.

    —  The success of government policy in extending free admission to all at the national (and non-national) museums funded by DCMS, which has drawn substantially more visitors to the museums in Liverpool and Manchester.

    —  The particular difficulties in launching a new museum in 2001, ie the foot-and-mouth issue and the events of 11 September, both of which had a major impact on tourism.

    —  The free admission at the national museums has highlighted the fact that the admission charges at the National Football Museum have inevitably discouraged some visitors. We have done all we can to offer a full range of concessions to less affluent members of society. Any further reductions in the admissions price would mean that the Museum would have to attract substantially more visitors.

    —  The location of the Museum. The Museum is in Preston for heritage reasons, as discussed in 1.7 above, but it is the first major visitor attraction in England's newest city. New national museums in London have had the advantage of an existing tourism infrastructure. This was also the case with the National Railway Museum in York, which opened in 1975. The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, opened in 1983, has demonstrated that a new national museum can succeed in a town or city which previously attracted few tourists or day-trippers. However, it had the advantage of free admission at the time of opening.

  Ideally, as the national museum of the national game, the National Football Museum should be free to all. Indeed, as the museum of the people's game, the game traditionally of the less affluent in society, the working class, there is a strong argument that free entry is needed even more at The National Football Museum than at the other national museums, particularly those in London.

  The National Football Museum has a lean and efficient staff structure and revenue cost base in comparison with other national museums. The Museum employs nine full-time and five part-time staff. The total running costs of the Museum in the financial year 2002-03 will be £568,000. The Museum would require a grant of £400,000 in order to allow free admission to all.

3.  SOURCES OF REVENUE FUNDING

  Who could or should fund The National Football Museum? The key current and potential sources are discussed in turn below.

3.1  Local authorities

  The relevant local authorities, ie Preston Borough Council and Lancashire County Council, already operate substantial museum services of their own, and so neither authority is in a position to provide substantial funding for The National Football Museum.

3.2  Regional developments

  The recently launched major report by Resource, Renaissance in the Regions: a new vision for England's museums, offers a valuable strategy for the development of regional museums. It does not, and is not intended to address, funding issues relating to national museums in the regions.

3.3  Sponsorship and other private sources

  The Museum continues to be successful in raising sponsorship and donations from private individuals and companies, but these will never be sufficient to meet operational costs. These private sources are also in general attracted for capital developments, such as new exhibitions or purchases for the collections, rather than for revenue funding.

3.4  The Football Bodies

  FIFA have provided a great deal of support to the project to date, but it is difficult for them to assist further. They cannot be seen to favour one member country above over two hundred others.

  The English football bodies provided just two per cent of the capital project. The FA Premier League has made no contribution to either revenue or capital. The FA and the Football League have loaned their collections but have yet to provide any funding. Fourteen individual Football League clubs have made small donations. The Football Foundation have provided £200,000 of capital funding and £100,000 of revenue, but all of this is in the form of a secured loan. The PFA have made a grant of £100,000.

  Further support will hopefully be secured from the football bodies. However, preserving and interpreting the heritage of the game is not currently a key objective for any of these bodies, which inevitably are focused on the current and future development of the game. The increased support of the football bodies will not in itself provide the required revenue funding for the Museum.

3.5  HLF

  The Museum would not have been created without the capital grant of £9.3 million from the HLF. While HLF does have some funds for revenue related projects, it does not provide long-term, regular, revenue funding for museums.

3.6  Conclusion

  Considered either individually or collectively, these five possible sources will not meet either the short-term or long-term needs of the Museum.

4.  THE CASE FOR DCMS SUPPORT

  On what grounds could DCMS fund The National Football Museum? Nine major arguments are raised in turn below.

4.1  Fulfilling the Mission of DCMS

  The National Football Museum contributes significantly to the fulfillment of the mission and objectives of DCMS in a number of ways. The DCMS Annual Report 2002 states that:

    "Our aim is to ensure everyone has the opportunity to improve the quality of their lives through cultural and sporting activities, and to champion the creative and leisure industries. In pursuing this aim we seek to maximise the contribution that culture, media and sport can make to the Government's wider social, educational and economic objectives".

  The National Football Museum is a unique institution, in the sense that it links the cultural aims of DCMS to its sporting aims, through the national sport. The National Football Museum is both a national cultural and a national sporting institution.

  The National Football Museum also has a unique role to play in maximising the contribution that culture and sport can make to the Government's wider social and educational objectives. In terms of education, a great deal has already been achieved, by means of a grant to develop the educational services of the Museum, through the Museums and Galleries Education Programme of the DfES. This project has demonstrated that football can be used to develop the interest of students in almost all aspects of the National Curriculum, particularly those students targeted by social inclusion projects.

  In its first few months of operation, the Museum has also been involved in, or initiated, a number of groundbreaking initiatives to combat social exclusion. This includes, as mentioned above, a project funded by a grant of £100,000 from the New Opportunities Fund, to digitise the collections and develop a web site, working in partnership with a charity for young homeless people. The Museum has hosted visits by over 700 local schoolchildren, in partnership with the award-winning Preston-based anti-racism project, the Respect All Football Fans Initiative (RAFFI). The Museum has particularly strong potential through its subject matter to reach out to the target groups identified by DCMS for social inclusion initiatives.

4.2  Museum of National and International Status

  The National Football Museum is, and will always remain, the world's most significant national football museum, as discussed in 1.6 above. The national status of the Museum is demonstrated by the advice and support, and loan of items, that it regularly gives to other museums and football clubs with regard to the game's heritage. In the past year, for example, the Museum has advised or supported the museums or planned museums at Liverpool FC, Manchester United, Sheffield United, Leicester City, Chelsea, West Ham United, Manchester City and Newcastle United. The Museum has also advised on football exhibitions organised by museums in Norwich, Coventry, Bolton and Stockport. We have also undertaken a survey of the football items held in over 150 museums across the country.

  The international significance of the Museum is demonstrated by the loan of items to Germany and the exhibition in Japan, the advice and support we have given to the planned national football museums in Norway, Germany and Wales, and the advice given to FIFA on the display of items at FIFA House in Zurich.

4.3  The World's Finest Football Collection

  The Museum holds unquestionably the world's finest football collection, as discussed in 1.4 above.

4.4  Unique New Museum Status

  The National Football Museum has a unique status, in that, as discussed in 1.1 above, it was the only major new museum funded by HLF that was not developed as an out-station of a pre-existing national museum or museum service. The exceptional nature of The National Football Museum means that it has exceptional funding needs.

  It could be argued that given the significance off football to the country's heritage, The National Football Museum should have been established as an out-station of one of the existing national museums, in the same way that the National Railway Museum is a branch of the Science Museum. England does not have a national history museum as such, and so this is effectively the role of the national museums collectively. One option therefore for the development of The National Football Museum is for it to receive revenue funding from DCMS, under the aegis of one of the national museums. Arguably the most appropriate of these would be National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside.

4.5  Unique status re public revenue funding

  The National Football Museum is the only one of the nineteen registered national museums that does not receive any public revenue funding.

4.6  The Museum of the People's Game

  The National Football Museum is the museum of the national game, the people's game, rather than a museum of socially elite collections or subjects. It is the Museum of what has spread from England to become the world's most popular sport. It is therefore arguably as worthy of funding as any of the national museums currently funded by DCMS.

4.7  DCMS Funding of Non-National Museums

  DCMS currently provides funding to a number of museums which neither DCMS nor Resource regard as of national status, including: the Museum of London, the Horniman Museum and the Geffrye Museum (all in London); Tyne & Wear Museums; and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. A case can be made that any national museum, but particularly the Museum of the national sport, is more worthy of support than non-national museums.

  DCMS recently produced a review of three of these non-nationals, Review of the Museum of London, the Horniman Museum and Gardens and the Geffrye Museum, Stage One Report (2001). The Review commented that:

    "3.2  In all three cases the sponsorship of these non-national museums by central Government may be considered anomalous, having arisen through accident of history rather than by design.

    4.1  The three London-based museums with which we are concerned here have acquired their present status as government-funded bodies because of changes in the structure of local government in London over the last 40 years and because otherwise they would have closed due to the absence of alternative sources of core funding.

    7.20  We conclude that at present no satisfactory alternative to the existing arrangements for core funding of the three museums is available".

  There are no alternative sources of core funding for The National Football Museum than support from DCMS.

4.8  Value for Money

  The National Football Museum's current annual running costs are £568,000. Expressed as a percentage of the grants planned by DCMS for the financial year 2002-03 to a number of museums (the running costs of these museums are significantly higher), these are 1.5 per cent of that of the British Museum; and 17 per cent, 9 per cent and 17 per cent of the non-national Horniman Museum, Museum of London and Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, respectively.

  As a percentage of DCMS's planned total grants to Museums, Galleries and Libraries in 2002-03, ie £387,677,000, the National Football Museum's running costs are 0.26 per cent of the total.

4.9  Precedent

  There is a powerful precedent for DCMS extending revenue funding to a museum which has achieved national registration status, and which is a museum of national significance, namely the support given to the National Coal Mining Museum of England, Wakefield, from 2001-02 onwards. The planned support by DCMS for this Museum over the next two years is as follows: £2,072,000 in 2002-03, and £2,118,000 in 2003-04.

5 November 2002



 
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