Exeter City Supporters’ Trust, the majority owner of Exeter City FC, welcomes the Independent Football Regulator’s State of the Game report.

The report, which you can read by clicking here, gives overdue attention to the problems that many of the clubs at the heart of football have lived with for years: costs keep rising, the pressure to financially compete never eases, and all too often clubs depend on money arriving just in time. With this in mind, we wholeheartedly support the IFR’s ambition to put football on a more secure footing.

At Exeter City, we know these pressures as well as anyone. Our supporters saved our club from disastrous ownership in 2003, remaining in control ever since. We are immensely proud of what our staff, players and volunteers have achieved over more than 20 years of Trust ownership. 

Our renowned academy is critical to our model: Exeter City has developed Ollie Watkins, Matt Grimes and Ethan Ampadu among others, giving local youngsters a pathway to professional football and supporters plenty to celebrate. Exeter City Community Trust has served our City, from helping young people enjoy sport to tackling rough sleeping. We have achieved all of this in “Our Way”, without wealthy owners underwriting the bills. But keeping pace has become harder: over the past five years the average League One players’ salary has increased by 71%, the annual loss of League 1 clubs in 2025/26 £7.5m, and 94% of clubs across the top five divisions was loss making. As a fan-owned Club we haven’t been sheltered from this, with the period of financial difficulties in 2025 exposing shortcomings in our own oversight and planning, which we are learning from and have made changes to address.

Several findings particularly resonate with us, and we want to emphasise the significance of them:

• Academy pathways. The IFR highlights the danger to academies when clubs leave the EFL. Developing local talent is both Exeter’s footballing identity and a source of future income. A viable pathway built over years should not be dismantled after one poor season; transitional support and sensible academy protections deserve serious consideration. 
• Supporter influence. The report recognises the gap between consulting supporters and acting on what they say. As a supporter-owned club, our new vision puts ‘Supporter First’ at its heart. That means asking people before major decisions are settled and showing them how their views shaped the result, including when those views are difficult to hear.
• Governance and transparency. The IFR is right to press for clearer accountability. At Exeter, insufficient financial information and insufficient challenge contributed to the problems of 2025. We support robust governance standards, with requirements proportionate enough to work for smaller clubs and volunteer-led owners.
• Infrastructure and community. St James Park, our training facilities and Exeter City Community Trust contribute far beyond a matchday. We agree that mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that more of the money flowing down the pyramid will be directed to help clubs invest in facilities and programmes with a lasting return, rather than disappear into short-term wage inflation. Over the past decade, Exeter City has demonstrated this approach by reinvesting significant sums, including transfer receipts, into infrastructure, community impact and sustainable growth.
• Long-term value. We welcome recognition that an accounting loss is not the whole investment story. Better facilities, stronger commercial income and youth development can increase underlying club value. The test is whether that value is genuine and helps the club become more resilient.

While there is much that resonates in the IFR findings, questions do remain for the Trust on how these findings will become practical rules:

• Owner wealth and funding. Private investment can do enormous good; Wrexham is one example. Equity can improve net assets even when annual accounts show a loss. Yet wealth in an owner’s hands is not money that is reliably available to the club. Financial tests should look at committed resources, underlying value creation and a credible future operating model, regardless of who owns the shares.
• Cash requirements. Low cash balances are a warning, but a universal minimum reserve would be a blunt instrument, providing false confidence, in view of football’s uneven receipts and payments. It could force supporter-owned clubs to restrict spending while wealthy owners inject cash. Exeter is developing rolling 13-week cashflow and 18-month sustainability assessments to test whether obligations can be met under stress, which we believe could be a more tailored, and appropriate, way of monitoring future financial resilience.
• Distributions and incentives. It is essential that there are fairer Premier League and EFL distributions, but more money alone will not fix the spending pressures described in the report. Alongside proper enforcement, part of the system should reward financial discipline, academy development and investment in long-term resilience.

Exeter City Supporters Trust and Exeter City Football Club have recently released a new shared vision, “Supporter First” being one of three core principles. Seeing this ethos reflected within the State of the Game report is a hugely positive first step towards restoring the balance of influence in English football.

Responsible for the ownership of one of English football’s longest-established and most prominent supporter-owned clubs we bring a unique perspective on the financial challenges facing the game and our experience demonstrates both the opportunities and challenges of delivering financial sustainability through supporter ownership.

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with the IFR to share more about the successes of supporter ownership and the difficult lessons we have learned and what needs to be done to ensure that supporter-owned clubs can continue to operate and compete in English football.