A JUNIOR football club’s annual festival may be in doubt, with the club saying they are ‘significantly disappointed’ with the ground's owner Workington Town Council over 'administration demands'.

Workington Juniors Football Club are set to hold their annual festival on the first weekend in June. 

The club now say the festival may not go ahead due to documents they say have been requested from the council. 

In a statement, Workington Juniors Football Club said: “It is with significant disappointment that we must let out membership and football community know that our annual football festival is this year unlikely to go ahead.

“Our landowner, Workington Town Council has in the past 24 hours requested numerous assessments, procedures and management strategies to be completed and subsequently taken to Safety Advisory Groups for confirmation that this event can go ahead.

“The short timescale they have given us alongside the sheer amount of expectation that have been placed on us as a small group of volunteers means it is unlikely that this is achievable.

“We have always undertaken our annual festival in line with FA guidelines and in conjunction with Cumberland FA protocol. 

"As a voluntarily organization, who pay for use of the land and maintain the land without any expectation for the landowner to do anything, we never anticipated the amount of extra expectations that have last night been placed upon us.”

The sports club said that the festival was initially circulated to the public on January 24 and has been advertised a number of times, with the club saying they have informed the Town council of all the activities, they said: “It is therefore deeply disappointing that due diligence has only commenced now, a matter of weeks before the event.

“Having spoken to numerous football clubs in the local area and in the county, no other Club has had such significant expectations placed upon them in order to run an event for the benefit of young children.

“To the children of this area. We can only apologize. We acknowledge that many local tournaments are not taking place this year and therefore there was a lot of anticipation to take part in WJFC's festival.

“We work so hard in the background to do everything we can to engage young children in football, we can only apologize that our attempts to engage with key Councillors to this point have not been successful and hope we can make some progress on your behalf soon.”

The Committee have said they will be meeting over the next few days to decide whether they can run the event.

A spokesman for Workington Town Council said: “During our most recent correspondence with Workington Juniors Football Club Limited we requested additional information on the arrangements made for the scheduled tournament due to take place in June at the Council's public playing field (The Ranch) to ensure the event is safe.

“At no point have we made any suggestion or requested that the tournament should be cancelled and that we do not wish for it to be held.

“We gave a deadline of Friday May 10 for the additional information to be returned and WTC Officers are more than happy to assist Workington Juniors Football Club Limited with these documents.”