The Northern League’s Secret Shopper scheme is going to come back stronger than ever, according to chairman Mike Amos.

The league temporarily suspended the scheme at Christmas after the FA instructed them to stop offering financial rewards, but they are going to recommence their award winning idea next week and tweak it for next season.

The 18 secret shoppers are going to become match delegates as the league perseveres with its stance against foul and abusive language.

“We’ve been told by the FA that there should be no financial incentives,” said Amos. “There was a school of thought that we should ignore the FA, but we can’t argue with those guys. We’ll carry on with the scheme in the way it was before, save for the financial incentives – which is a great shame – for the rest of the season.

“Next season it’s to be hoped, whilst still keeping the core of the secret shopper, that those who were acting on the league’s behalf will be known as match delegates.

“There won’t be any secrecy any more, they’ll make themselves known to the two clubs in advance, and they’ll be given extra responsibility for basic things, such as making sure that team sheets are available.

“The management committee felt that to help the scheme move on, that we could try to address the doubts about secrecy from some clubs.”

There has been plenty of debate about some aspects of the Secret Shopper in the past, so there will be a meeting with the clubs in March to discuss the latest developments.

“There was a lot of support for the Secret Shopper to continue,” said Amos. “Many clubs bought in to what we’re trying to do, but there are some still some things we need to address. There have been marked improvements in technical area discipline and language, as well as crowd behaviour.

“We want to improve the communication between the league and its clubs. If there are issues, then let’s talk about them.

“But we still have the problem of bad language from players. The FA won’t instruct match officials to send players off for swearing, even when the language used is quite loud. I was at a game recently in which a player yelled abuse at both the match referee and his assistant from over 60 yards away, and neither of them took any action. To many people that’s unacceptable.

“We’ll continue without the support of the referees, and I suppose that’s an indictment of the way the game is. But we as a league are more determined than ever to do something, for the good name of the league.

“There is one club in the league which is near the bottom of the Secret Shopper marks, and near the top of the Fair Play award, and the difference is down to foul and abusive language and referees not taking action.

“The FA has a much-publicised Respect campaign, but it’s just a cosmetic exercise. We thought that we were running the scheme when it had financial incentives within the guidelines of the Respect campaign, and when we spoke to the FA about it and explained the whole initiative, nothing was said. It was only nine months later that they came down on us and said that there was an abuse of process.

“But it’s very heartening to know that that the majority of clubs and people want the scheme to continue.”