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    Where is This Football Regulator?

    Full On Fella Posted on

    It will hardly come as a surprise to football fans to read that the sport is riddled with parties obsessed with self-interest. Anyone who has ever been to a football match and been treated like cattle rather than a paying customer, as would be the case with virtually every sport, will know that supporters are at the bottom of the list of priorities for those at the top of the game.

    Add in the fact that matches can be changed with very little notice, screwing over those travelling to watch, and you can see why some might think a football regulator could be important. The question is, what’s happened to it and what would it do anyway?

    The Initial Regulator Plans

    In 2022, a fan-led review took place that looked at how football could be improved for supporters. The former Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch, was appointed as the Chair of the review, which said that an independent regulator would be necessary in order to protect the long-term financial stability of the men’s game.

    The initial plan was that such an independent system would stop the game from lurching from ‘crisis to crisis’ and also ensure that ‘vested interests’ could be removed from the sport, allowing it to become ‘sustainable for the long-term future’. One of the suggestions from the fan-led review was that clubs should have a ‘shadow board’, which would need to be consulted on any key decisions that club was looking to make.

    @tobygavellejourno What is the football White Paper? The football White Paper is a proposal for new legislation to monitor and protect English football. Read here to find out why it needs it: https://uosjournalism.shorthandstories.com/64888b9d-e74d-4eaa-862c-4a9451661690/index.html #footballtiktok #premierleague #EFL ♬ original sound – TobyGavelleJourno

    Never likely to turn down the opportunity to jump on a bandwagon if one presented itself, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government then introduced the Football Governance Bill to Parliament in the March of 2024, only for it to run out of time to become law when Sunak decided to call a General Election.

    Labour, who won said election, had put the idea of introducing a regulator for the sport into its manifesto, but Keir Starmer hasn’t exactly shown himself to be a reliable person in terms of what he will or won’t do. After becoming the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy said that creating a new football regulator was a ‘top priority’.

    What Will a Regulator Do?

    The key question around any sort of football regulator is what, exactly, they would be tasked with doing, should one be appointed. For Nandy, the main aim of any sort of Football Governance Bill would be to put fans ‘at the centre of the game again’. That is, of course, a lovely buzz phrase, but what actual plans would be put in place to mean that that happens?

    The Tory government’s initial Fact Sheet around an Independent Football Regulator looked to lay out precisely what the independent body would be focused on. There were three main objectives, which were as follows:

    • -Ensuring the financial soundness of football clubs up and down the English Football League pyramid
    • -Securing the financial resilience of the game as a whole
    • -Safeguarding the heritage of football clubs that matters most to supporters

    Whilst the idea of a football regulator sounds great in principle, the initial plan put forward by the Tories was that the IFR was not going to be allowed to act outside of the objectives, with every action taken having to advance at least one of the three objectives written above. The regulator would also be given a duty to consider some ‘secondary outcomes’ that are important to football as a sport, but aren’t the direct responsibility of the Independent Football Regulator. They included the likes of sporting competition, investment into the English game and the ability of clubs to compete against ‘international rivals’.

    There were also seven ‘regulatory principles’ that the IFR needed to have regard for, which were as follows:

    • -Using its resources in the most efficient and expedient manner
    • -Being proactive in its participation with clubs and organisations
    • -Ensuring any restrictions imposed were proportionate
    • -Knowing the context of association football as a sport
    • -Tailoring any regulation whilst also keeping it consistent
    • -Keeping senior management at football clubs responsible for any actions
    • -Acting in a transparent manner where possible

    What Will it Look Like Now?

    Ultimately, the Independent Football Regulator’s job, first and foremost, should be to keep clubs financially solvent. That means having the ability to check that clubs have the money to continue operating and to work with leagues to fix any problems as they arise. Theoretically, the IFR would have the ability to stop dodgy owners from taking over football clubs. The problem on a practical level is that different people will have varying opinions on what makes an owner ‘dodgy’. Many were unhappy with nation states owning Manchester City and Newcastle United, but they would likely pass any sort of tests on an ownership’s ‘dodginess’.

    With clubs at the top of the pyramid looking to earn extra money by joining a European Super League whilst the likes of Bury and Macclesfield went out of business at the bottom, there is little question that a regulator of some sort is necessary. The problem for the new Labour government will be coming up with a system that pleases as many parties as possible without necessarily being a vague and useless mess. It cannot be a camel, which, as the saying goes, is a horse designed by a committee. The fact that the Premier League failed to reach an agreement on new funding for the English Football League shows how important a regulator will be.

    When Will it Happen?

    The main question that is still to be answered is when, exactly, the new Football Governance Bill will be introduced and whether an Independent Football Regulator will be a part of it when it is. There is certainly a road map that could see the regulator up and in business by the summer of 2025, but that will require any Bill to be put before Parliament and voted on as soon as possible. Whilst it had cross-party support when the Conservatives put it together, there is no sense of what might happen in the future as the Tories look to put early pressure on a Labour government keen to make its mark on Parliament early on in its tenure.

    When Lisa Nandy spoke about it not long after the election, she did so at the home of Bury FC five years after the club was expelled from the Football League in the wake of a takeover bid collapsing. She said that it was ‘personal’ for her, not only because the club that she supports, Wigan Athletic, nearly went out of business twice but because her step-father was a Bury season ticket holder. Speaking of the Bill, she said, “So it’s going to be a top priority for us. I don’t want to pre-empt the King’s Speech, but it was a central part of our manifesto and it will be an essential part of my job to deliver on that and to deliver on it without delay.”

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