A football club has been accused of “pulling up the drawbridge” after it banned media outlets from attending press conferences. Instead, Swindon Town FC will put out interviews conducted by its own press officer on its website and a social media app.



The decision follows a ban handed to the local paper – the Swindon Advertiser – last year; one of many such restrictions placed on newspapers by various football clubs in recent years.

Two local websites, Total Swindon and FLIC Wiltshire, have now been put on the same footing as the Advertiser after the club struck a deal with Fanzai, a social media app dedicated to football. Fans using the app – and Swindon Town’s website – will have access to regular updates direct from the club’s press officer, who will conduct interviews with its players and manager.

The Guardian understands that, while all other outlets will be locked out of the press conferences, Swindon Town is contractually obliged to invite the BBC as part of its deal to provide matchday commentary.

“The fans are going to lose out because there will be no interrogation on their behalf,” said the Advertiser’s editor, Gary Lawrence. “So, if they don’t want to talk about a player who is injured or out of form, they won’t. There will be no explanation to the fans. The chairman’s view of the local paper is that it has got to be a cheerleader or nothing. So, at the moment, we are nothing. That is not to say we have an agenda against the club – we just want to cover it from the fan’s point of view.”

Michael Brunskill of the Football Supporters’ Federation said there was nothing wrong with clubs communicating directly with fans, but he said: “Banning the media does nothing but send the message that you have something to hide and don’t want to engage with the local community. Traditional media still plays an important role. This is especially true when holding owners and executives to account for off-field dealings. It’s hard to see how an app can replicate that.”

Swindon Town insisted that the move did not constitute a blanket ban, saying that requests from any media outlet would be considered. The club’s owner, Lee Power, said he understood that the move would “put noses out of joint” at the two websites now covered by the ban. But he said he wanted to “try something new”.



“We got approached by Fanzai to come in and they sat down and explained the app. It just made sense to me. We decided as a football club that it would be something we would launch our media through. We decided to move away from the traditional press conference, where the same person comes and asks questions.”



The app is marketed as a moderated platform that bans abusive behaviour, which he said made it something he wanted to be associated with. Power said no money had changed hands between the app and the club yet, but that a commercial deal holding “financial benefits” for Swindon Town was a possibility for the future.

“We are the first club, and we thought it was something we wanted to align ourselves with and distribute our media from. We thought it would engage the supporters a lot more and be more use to them than the Thursday press conference.”

He said he understood the independent media organisations’ argument that they were the voices of the fans and acknowledged that it was not up to him to control them. But he claimed: “Their stance all the time is negative. We are charged by the league for an illegal approach to a non-league player, that is top of the list; we sign a player from Liverpool, that is three down.”

Power faced criticism over the ban imposed on the Advertiser. It was reported that the paper had never been given an explanation, but Power revealed that he was angered by its treatment of stories and said it “chose the wrong horse” during his high court battle for ownership of the club.

He added: “It is not about [saying] how good-looking we are and how well we are playing – they are to the detriment of the football club.”

He is just one of many owners to ban local media outlets, a practice that has been criticised by MPs. Newcastle United has banned a number of individual local and national newspaper journalists, while Port Vale, Rotherham United, Nottingham Forest and Crawley Town have also issued bans.





