Fans should beware of the Football Governance Bill
The beautiful game in England is in danger. Supporters need to make their voices heard against an Independent Football regulator and the licensing of clubs.
Next week, the Football Governance Bill will go to Report Stage in the House of Lords. While it will then go to the House of Commons, the debates in the House of Lords are a chance to amend a piece of legislation that threatens to damage English football in ways that. as yet, are not getting enough attention. The introduction of an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has become a controversial subject as the realities are becoming clearer, and unintended consequences are dawning on more and more football owners, managers and fans. But we need to get the word out even louder and ensure a public debate accompanies deliberation in Westminster.
So, to help you to see what all the fuss is about, Liverpool fan Alastair Donald brought together our own Geoff Kidder and QPR season-ticket holder Simon McKeon alongside – hot from the Lords front line debating the legislation – myself, and two of the most vocal speakers on the topic: Baroness (Natalie) Evans of Bowes Park and Lord (Nick) Markham. You can listen to their conversation on Podbean, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Government needs to listen
Arguments in the House of Lords about this Bill have become more and more fractious. Legitimate probing amendments, attempting to hold the government to account, have been met by accusations of filibustering; thorough scrutiny is dismissed as cynical delaying tactics. Because Baroness Karren Brady is the current vice-chairman of West Ham United, her articulate, detailed, evidenced speeches have been used to unfairly dismiss all those of us who have raised questions and opposition as being ‘vested in self-interest’.
Indeed, sports minister Stephanie Peacock went so far as to write an opinion piece for the Daily Mail, in which she criticised ‘a loud minority seeking to derail the debate, promote untruths and preserve the status quo’ who were proposing amendments that were ‘cynically designed to dither, delay and block its progress’. Since then, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been forced to issue an apology from Ms Peacock to Baroness Brady, Arsenal’s vice-chair Tim Lewis and Brighton and Hove Albion’s CEO Paul Barber ‘for any distress caused’, denying she intended to ‘impugn their integrity’. How on earth did this proposed law become so toxic?
It’s not about ‘fan power’
It sounds appealing to have a law that will tackle rogue owners and directors and improve fan engagement throughout the football pyramid, from the English Premier League all the way down to the National League. The introduction of an Independent Football Regulator was originally proposed by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project and some headline-grabbing club insolvencies and near misses (like Bury, Macclesfield Town, Bolton Wanderers, Port Vale, Reading and Derby County). This led to a ‘fan-led review’ which proposed a regulator, and this was re-branded as a flagship Labour Bill in the King’s speech.
So yes, there are undoubted problems in fickle owners gambling with the futures of historic, community-centred football clubs. And football has always been more than a business, more than a game, and often a key part of national and local social cohesion. Only in the past few weeks, a fans’ petition dubbed Sell Before We Dai, urging the owners of Reading FC to sell up, has gained thousands of signatures, meaning that a call for an inquiry into the severe financial mismanagement of their club and an overwhelming lack of transparency from absent owner Dai Yongge, will be discussed in parliament.
Meanwhile, Labour MP Douglas McAllister raised the financial woes of Dumbarton FC. Founded in 1872, the Scottish first division club was plunged into administration in November. But if the headline promises the new legislation will save such clubs, fans need to both look at the small print and the bigger picture. This is the use of a huge regulatory hammer to crack very particular nuts.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it
We need some perspective. Football is one of England’s most popular, successful and international creations. The Premier League is watched by an incredible two billion people all over the world and creates £8bn for the Treasury, while supporting 90,000 jobs. By and large, the pyramid system works well, even for the smallest clubs (who all aspire – however far-fetched the dream – to climb the pyramid and reach the Premier League).
And football is hardly the Wild West. It is already a heavily governed industry. There are myriad rules emanating from the Premier League, the English Football League, the FA, UEFA and FIFA. And now the state wants to butt in, too. But giving the government increased and ever-wider powers to interfere in football (and competition law in general) is creating deep unease in sporting circles. Last week, Steve Parish, the chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a sports industry conference organised by the Financial Times that the watchdog ‘wants to interfere in all of the things we don't need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with’.
Some specific concerns:
· The proposed regulator will operate a licensing regime for clubs, imposing certain conditions to play in core competitions. It will have the ability to suspend or revoke the licence and impose financial sanctions of up to 10 per cent of a club’s revenue for certain breaches.
· The regulator will have powers to disqualify or order the removal of officers (and owners) and to exclude their involvement in key business decision-making activities.
· Clubs will be required to submit and follow a prescriptive and bureaucratic financial plan which, as a minimum, will include the amount and sources of funding, expected revenues and expenses, financial risk assessments and plans for managing financial risks. Yuk.
Such interventionist measures threaten to make it more expensive to invest in ANY club, in any league and could easily deter potential buyers. But also, this whole regulatory project threatens to make clubs play safe, in ways that will damage competitiveness from top to bottom.
Baroness Brady explains why she has been so vocal about aspects of the legislation that could undermine the competitive nature of the Premier League, which she argues is the ‘best league in the world because it is competitive’:
On any given day, any club can beat any other club. If you change that competitive nature and it becomes more predictable, broadcast revenues reduce [and] if you affect the broadcast value of the Premier League - the only funder of the entire pyramid, nobody else funds it - you affect the whole pyramid and to do that would be reckless and wrong…
So, while supporters of the Bill may be keen that it addresses the vast financial disparity between the top 20 clubs and the rest, one problem with targeting, even demonising the Premier League – whatever its faults - is the danger of killing a highly successful and commercial ‘golden goose’. In truth, the Premier League generates a lot of revenue for the sector as a whole.
A burden for small clubs, too
What’s more, this legislation is not confined to the big clubs. It will cover 116 football clubs. Those National League clubs, which operate with very few staff and volunteers, will also have to comply with (and pay for) this new super-regulator, with its 250 staff, which the government’s own report says is going to cost £140m.
Beyond the costs and bureaucracy for all these clubs, and despite all the rhetoric about this being all about empowering fans, this regulation challenges clubs’ autonomy.
It will give a Regulator the power to restrict YOUR club’s spending. Even if you’re not a fan of those controversial Premier League parachute payments for relegated clubs, which critics argue make it difficult for other clubs to compete for promotion, do you want a government regulator to have the power to commandeer some of YOUR club’s assets to give to other clubs?
Ever more regulation
We also need to note that regulators never offer to reduce their powers. The opposite. In this case, what started as a limited role of stopping the financial collapse of smaller clubs has ended up entering into every nook and cranny of football governance. And that includes attempting to shape the political and cultural ethos of clubs.
For example, when clubs are compelled to submit corporate governance statements, under the Labour government’s version of the Bill, they will need explain what action the club is taking to improve equality, diversity and inclusion. EDI not only paralyses a wide range of public-sector organisations, but now threatens to smother the smallest clubs in regressive political targets. Sanctions for non-compliance include the publication of a ‘censure statement’, requiring the appointment of a skilled person to overcome the issue, a financial penalty and, in particularly serious cases, the suspension or revocation of the operating licence.
As I have argued previously, it’s bad enough that the FA and the Premier League have already embraced this most divisive politicised ideology. This has created problems for young female footballers and fans like Newcastle United’s Linzi Smith, who won’t go along with, for example, trans ideology. The punitive approach of NGOs such as Kick It Out, with its social-engineering re-education courses, and the proliferation of match bans and even criminal sanctions for speech crimes on the terraces for allegedly offensive chants are bad enough. To note, rumour has it that the Kick It Out inaugural chair has been shortlisted to head the new independent regulator on a £130,000-a-year salary.
‘Something must be done’ is a plague on politics. So often laws are passed and regulators given enormous powers that not only fail to tackle the original problem but create a whole swathe of unintended consequences. The government may think this Bill will endear them to working-class football fans, with all their talk of grass-roots fan power. But one of the threats that lurks over the legislation is an unpublished UEFA letter sent to the government expressing concerns about ‘government interference’ in football. There’s a real dread that English football clubs could be excluded from European competitions. And if MPs and peers think that fans are angry about the occasional dodgy owner, or the dominance of the Premier League, just wait until the fans become rightly angry if English football is damaged by an interfering government regulator.
Time to act
So, if YOU are a football fan, or know any fans to pass this Substack on to, please share it. And keep your eye on the forthcoming report stage in the House of Lords and a series of sensible amendments to rein in the regulator’s power, with debates on March 11 and March 17 – and then lobby your MPs before it gets to the Commons.