UK to Set Up Football Regulator to Stop Clubs Going Bust
Regulator will prevent teams from joining breakaway leagues
Plan for club oversight to start in 2024 may be pushed back
The UK will establish an independent football regulator for England’s Premier League and lower divisions, to protect the financial health of smaller clubs and prevent the biggest teams from joining breakaway tournaments.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak included a Football Governance Bill in his government’s legislative agenda, announced by King Charles III on Tuesday. Bloomberg first reported in July that legislation to set up the football regulator would feature in the King’s Speech.
The collapse of historic clubs such as Bury FC and Macclesfield Town in recent years prompted a government-backed review of English football.
Each team in the top five tiers of men’s English football will now need a license to operate as a professional club, according to an overview of the bill. The regulator will have powers to monitor and enforce compliance with financial regulation requirements, corporate governance and club ownership. Clubs will need to seek the regulator’s approval for the sale or relocation of its stadium.
The King’s Speech marks an attempt by Sunak to set-out his priorities for the run-up to a general election expected next year. Appearing to be on the side of football fans, after a number of local clubs collapsed in recent years, forms part of his pitch to voters as he continues to trail Keir Starmer’s Labour Party by about 20 points in opinion polls.
Still, plans for the regulator to start its work in 2024 may be pushed back, Bloomberg previously reported. A recent job advert for the interim Chief Operating Officer for the regulator, reported by The Athletic, showed the government will pay a maximum salary of £128,900 per year.
The new regulator has also faced opposition from football executives, with Leeds United Chief Executive Angus Kinnear comparing it to Maoism.
Sunak’s administration will also establish a compulsory governance code and prevent clubs from joining breakaway leagues, after an attempt to set up a European Super League in 2021 threatened the success of the English Premier League. It will also create a new test for owners and directors to guard against mismanagement and require clubs to seek fan support for changes to the club’s badge, name and home shirt colors.
The historical dominance of England’s most financially powerful teams, such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal, has disguised the underlying fragility of the English football pyramid, the government argues. Poor governance and industry self-regulation has increased the risk of financial failure of clubs, with Championship teams making collective pre-tax losses of over £3 billion ($3.7 billion) between 2010 and 2022, with levels of borrowing and debt increasing.
The regulator will also be able to intervene to redistribute broadcast revenue between clubs if leagues do not reach voluntary agreements, to ensure smaller teams remain financially sustainable.
Hmm.
Well, from that, sounds like it’s either a crowd-pleaser for people worried about their favorite team going under or protectionism against international leagues. Maybe both.
The European Super League (ESL), officially The Super League, was a proposed seasonal football competition for club teams in Europe. Initially, the league was supposed to include 20 teams, with 12 of them being founding members of the competition.
The formation of the ESL led to widespread condemnation from UEFA, The Football Association and Premier League of England, the Italian Football Federation and Lega Serie A of Italy, and the Royal Spanish Football Federation and La Liga of Spain. All governing bodies issued a joint statement declaring their intention to prevent the new competition proceeding any further, with UEFA warning that any clubs involved in the Super League would be banned from all other domestic, European and world football competitions,[62] and that players from the clubs involved would also be banned from representing their national teams in international matches.[62][63] In addition, the French Football Federation and Ligue de Football Professionnel of France, the German Football Association and Deutsche Fußball Liga of Germany, as well as the Russian Premier League and Russian Football Union released similar statements opposing the proposal.[64][65][66][67]
UEFA began immediately looking into making further reforms to the Champions League in a €6 billion effort to prevent the proposal moving forward.[68] The Premier League and the Football Association released a statement “unanimously and vigorously” opposing the breakaway league but ruled out barring the six breakaway clubs from domestic competitions and preferred to not take legal action against them.[69]
Numerous politicians expressed their opposition to the proposals across Europe, the most prominent coming from the British government, with the objections to the ESL uniting political parties completely behind its prevention. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the proposals “very damaging for football” and vowed to ensure that it “doesn’t go ahead in the way that it’s currently being proposed”,[93] a position which was supported by Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer.[94] In addition, the Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said in a statement to the House of Commons that “this move goes against the very spirit of the game”, and pledged to do “whatever it takes” to stop English clubs from joining.[95]
I’m not worried about what it will start out as, I’m worried about what it might become.
Football already has independent regulatory bodies, it doesn’t need a government regulatory body - it needs legislation to stop all the fraud and bribery that the current bodies commit, not a new body that funnels bribes to politicians.
Why should the government be regulating football?
That does sound strange.
googles
This has more.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-07/uk-to-set-up-football-regulator-to-stop-clubs-going-bust
Hmm.
Well, from that, sounds like it’s either a crowd-pleaser for people worried about their favorite team going under or protectionism against international leagues. Maybe both.
So that says that it’s a response to the European Super League.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Super_League
I’m not worried about what it will start out as, I’m worried about what it might become.
Football already has independent regulatory bodies, it doesn’t need a government regulatory body - it needs legislation to stop all the fraud and bribery that the current bodies commit, not a new body that funnels bribes to politicians.