The Coronavirus pandemic has left football, and The FA, in a very difficult financial position, with The FA having to make cuts of £75m per year for the next four years.

As a result, funding from The FA for County FA’s has been cut for the next four years, and coupled with our own fall in income in areas such as pitch hire, room hire, discipline, cup finals, coaching courses, and commercial revenue, we have also had to make significant cost savings.

In order to make the necessary savings the organisation underwent a Workforce Review and came to the difficult decision of making three positions redundant, and another, soon to be vacant, position not being filled.

Our chairman, Mathew Major, said: “I am sorry to announce that we have said goodbye to Nina Edwards from our Football Services team and Hayley Tunstall and Steve Phythian from our Football Development team who all accepted voluntary redundancies. I am very thankful to them for their service over the years, and there understanding throughout this challenging process.

“We will also very soon be saying farewell to Ollie Powell our Football Services Manager who has accepted a new role with The FA, and we wish him well with the next step in his career.

“The departures have led to operational changes at the County FA, and I would ask you to accept and appreciate that we will do our best to deliver the same high level of service to our Clubs and Leagues, but with fewer staff.”

Going forwards all coaching course delivery will be handled centrally by FA Education rather than County FA’s, therefore our Development team will look a little different. Paul Saunders will move across into a new Projects Manager role and the department will now be headed up by Jade Harker as the Development Lead. Sean Lofting and Paul Ofei-Kwatia continue in their Development Officer roles and are ably supported by Development Administrator, Judy Gunn.

Our Football Services and Refereeing teams will amalgamate to form one Operations team led by Paul Jeffery as Operations Manager. Sienna Howell steps-up into a Senior Operations Officer position, with Dan Bartlett, Abi Knight and Tom Watkins in Operations Officer roles. Ray Welch will continue in his role as Central Appointments Officer.

Elsewhere in the organisation there is a slight tweak in Paul Baston’s title to Finance Manager and Vicki Windslow’s position is now defined as Executive Administrator whilst picking up the Deputy Senior Safeguarding Lead responsibilities from the departing Ollie Powell.

The restructure will see better female representation on the Senior Management Team (SMT) within the organisation, which is something Chief Executive, Ken Benham explains he was keen to implement: “I’d like to thank all staff for their ongoing support throughout this difficult period for the business.

“We have had to make some tough decisions recently, and we say goodbye to four very experienced and well-thought of personnel, who I’d like to wish all the very best for the future and thank them for their professionalism over the past few months.

“Looking ahead this restructure sees an increase in numbers sitting on our SMT, which I’m delighted to say sees us move towards a better male to female split. I hope the changes will allow us to move forwards and develop as an organisation without any reduction in our level of service and support to the grassroots football community.”

For further information about the restructure and our staff please contact:

Sussex County FA
E: Info@SussexFA.com