THE Daily Echo can today reveal the high penalties paid by grass-roots clubs, players and officials for rising amounts of indiscipline.

TODAY we can reveal that the Southampton-based Hampshire FA banked a staggering £237,367 from fines during the calendar year of 2003.

That was more than £20,000 up on the 2002 figure of £215,68.

In all, the county FA relied on discipline monies for 32 per cent of its total £669,415 income - seven per cent more than they receive from the national FA at Soho Square.

Hampshire dealt with more than 15,500 disciplinary cases in 2003/04 - over three for every one of its 4,500 affiliated clubs, which in itself is one of the highest totals of clubs in the country.

The amount of sendings off was down last season from 1,755 in 2002/03 to 1,688, as were the numbers of cautions, from 12,336 in 2002/03 to 11,963.

One reason for those reductions could be that less matches were refereed by qualified officials. Hampshire are not alone in continuing to operate at well below the amount required to referee every game covered by the county despite having over 1,500 qualified officials.

Hampshire chief executive Laurence Jones has repeatedly told the Echo he is determined to bring down the levels of indiscipline.

And even though the county FA desperately need the income they get from indiscipline, despite a turnover approaching £700,000 the county only made a profit of just under £25,000 and Jones admits they need to rake in cash from alternative sources.

The former Football League linesman - his career was ended when he suffered an injury while running the line at a Brighton v Saints Worthington Cup tie in September 2001 - is well aware that local players and officials might be surprised at the amount of money the county bank from discipline and ask 'Well, where does the money go?'

Jones said: "We are a business and we have staff salaries to pay - 29 per cent of our total income goes on salaries, and we have three full-time people in the discipline department.

"We spend 28 per cent of our income on football development and I can assure everyone that is higher than other counties I know of.

"Though we obviously rely on money from discipline, I am determined to bring the amount of discipline down.

"That will mean we have to find ways to plug the financial gap."

While discipline accounted for 32 per cent of the county's income last year, monies from sponsorship and advertising accounted for just two per cent.

"Sponsorship has been a problem," said Jones. "Ideally we would raise that two per cent figure to ten per cent. That's one of the biggest challenges I'm facing.

"But the market is tight - the private sector obviously prefer to be associated with professional clubs and we can't even really compete with the semi-professional clubs."

"If we could attract a major sponsor over a few years there is so much we could do to benefit the community.

"The last few years have seen a massive change in the way the Hampshire FA operates.

"We have gone from being an administrative body to a full-time provider of football for all social groups.

"Sadly I know some people will still look upon us as someone who just fines them when they have done wrong, and we won't change their perceptions because they're ingrained.

"But we are here to help all our clubs, to support all our clubs, in any way we can.

"We need all our clubs to get behind us."