Charlie Dobres admits it is “a bit nuts” that Lewes are trying to force Sepp Blatter and FIFA into change.

But the Rooks director believes everyone in football is entitled to have a say in how the game is run and has called on football fans at all levels to support their campaign.

The club this week launched their online petition to make the World Cup bidding process transparent and fair.

They believe a radical overhaul of the way World Cups are awarded is needed as the debate rages on about the choice of Russia to host the 2018 finals and Qater four years later.

Dobres acknowledges some people will be dismissive of the club’s campaign while others will doubt non-league Lewes can have any say whatsoever in the murky world of football politics.

But Dobres comes from the ‘revolution has to start somewhere’ type of thinking and hopes if Lewes can generate enough initial interest from the non-league game then someone with a bigger voice in football may be able to pick up the baton and take the campaign further.

Dobres told The Argus: “The background is that there is a lot of stuff going on about FIFA and Sepp Blatter. It is not very constructive, a lot of defending positions and slagging off.

“Let’s draw a line. Let’s work on something constructive and what needs to happen from now.

“When applications and bids to be the host nation are considered, there is a set of criteria against which those applications and bids are judged. These criteria are not public. This lack of transparency leads to distrust from losing nations and the millions of fans worldwide as to how decisions were reached.

“We acknowledge we are a semi-professional club in step 7 of the English League pyramid and we do not feel qualified to venture into the politics of world football but we feel that our club constitution, based on democracy and transparency, encompasses a remit to help improve the governance of football.

“And we believe that the game of football belongs to a non-league football club just as much as it belongs to an international federation.

“In a way the World Cup and Lewes Football Club are a world apart. On the other hand, the tone they set affects everybody. People thinking they might go down to the Dripping Pan and support their local team are all aware of what is going on at the highest level and that might come into their thinking when they decide whether to go or not.”

Since becoming a community-owned club, Lewes have gained a lot of friends in football with a number of their quirky ideas receiving national coverage.

Among them are the club’s matchday posters and this season the new beach huts at the ground – which is an alternative to hospitality boxes at the highest level of the game.

Dobres hopes to tap into the contacts and friends the club have built up to support their petition on the Change.org website.

He said: “We are encouraging people to sign our online petition. We are emailing everyone on our contacts lists. We are not expecting 100,000 people to sign it by the end of next week but we are looking to build it. We have 1,000 owners, there is Supporters Direct, clubs we are in contact with, the great relationships we have created, which are not just in this country but internationally as well.

“The hope is we can get it to a certain level and then it gets picked up by someone.

“All we are asking for is common sense and for FIFA to have a sense that there are fans who are asking for something to happen.

“We want this to go viral. It is a bit nuts but everything starts somewhere.”

Go go https://www.change.org/p/fifa-make-the-world-cup-bidding-process-transparent-and-fair for more details.