Independent Fan-led Review of Football Governance Commons Urgent
Question The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in
the House of Commons on Thursday 25 November. “First, may I take
this opportunity to thank my honourable friend the Member for
Chatham and Aylesford, Tracey Crouch, the advisory panel of experts
and the thousands of football fans up and down the country who have
contributed to this report? Football clubs are at the heart of our
local...Request free trial
Independent Fan-led
Review of Football Governance
Commons Urgent Question
The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House
of Commons on Thursday 25 November.
“First, may I take this opportunity to thank my honourable friend
the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, , the advisory panel of
experts and the thousands of football fans up and down the
country who have contributed to this report? Football clubs are
at the heart of our local communities, and fans are at the heart
of those clubs, but there were problems in football governance
and the voice of fans was not always being heard. That is why we
committed to the fan-led review of football governance in our
manifesto. The events seen at Bury and at Macclesfield Town, and
with the European super league, made it vital that we looked at
what reform was needed to protect those fans, and we triggered
the review back in April. My honourable friend has today
presented her final report, setting out her recommendations. A
copy has been made available in the Library, and of course the
Government will formally and fully respond to the independent
report in the new year.
The review is a comprehensive examination of English football,
founded on more than 100 hours of engagement across the game and
the views of more than 20,000 fans. I am grateful to all those
who have given evidence, but most importantly to the fans who
have had their voice heard. That voice will remain at the heart
of our thinking in assessing the recommendations. The final
report is a thorough and detailed examination of the challenges
faced by English football. It shows the problems in football and
is clear that reform is needed to solve them. I will not go
through the 10 strategic recommendations and the 47 detailed
recommendations here, Mr Speaker, but they are wide-ranging and
comprehensive, addressing the need for an independent regulator,
improved financial sustainability, better governance and a proper
role for fans.
The report shows that fundamental change is needed in our
national game, and fans deserve that. We are at a turning point
for football in this country. The review is a detailed and worthy
piece of work that will require a substantive response and plan
of action from across government. However, the primary
recommendation of the review—that football requires a strong,
independent regulator—is one that I, and the Government, endorse
in principle today. The Government will now work at pace to
determine the most effective way to deliver an independent
regulator, and any powers that might be needed. That is what the
fans want, and this Government are on the side of fans.”
15:19:00
(Lab)
My Lords, we strongly welcome the independent Crouch review,
whose recommendations, I have to say, look suspiciously like the
sports section of the Labour Party manifesto, going back several
general elections. We have long called for fans to be placed at
the centre of the game that they do so much to sustain and for
stronger protections when they are mistreated or their beloved
clubs mismanaged. The Government say they will respond to the
review in spring 2022 but, let us be clear, there is much that
can be done in the interim. Will they, for example, establish a
shadow regulator ahead of the 2022-23 season? Can the Minister
confirm that any enabling legislation for Tracey Crouch’s reform
package will not only feature in the next Queen’s Speech but be
made a genuine political priority?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport ( of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, this is a matter that transcends party politics.
Football clubs are at the heart of our communities and fans are
at the heart of those clubs, and everybody with an interest wants
to make sure that they are. I am very proud that our manifesto
commitment to set up this review has led to it in swift time;
has done very thorough work
at good speed. We will give her report and the views of all the
fans who contributed to it the respect that they deserve; the
report deserves a substantive response from the Government and it
will get one. But the noble Lord is right that there are things
that can be done now, not least by football clubs themselves,
with regard to heritage, financial flows and governance. They
need not wait for us to go through the report and come forward
with our response to start taking the action that people want to
see.
(Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I declare an interest as one of 8,800 owners of Heart
of Midlothian Football Club, the largest fan-owned club in the
whole of the United Kingdom. I also have the privilege of having
prepared a report on football governance for the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, which will be considered at a
committee on Thursday and then at the plenary session in January.
That report endorses what has said but goes even
further. Can I have the Minister’s assurance that, when the
Committee of Ministers approves my report, as I expect it will,
it will then be considered in detail by Her Majesty’s
Government?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
Yes, I am sure my honourable friend the Sports Minister will be
delighted to receive a copy of the report when it is published
and will of course look at it with the attention and respect it
deserves.
(Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend, in asking for better commitment
towards fans, also recognise that, if fans were much more
involved in the management of their clubs, we might be able to
reduce the scale of racism that has come into football?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend makes a very good point. Fans have been aghast at
some of the appalling things that we have seen in recent years
directed at football players at every level. That is why we want
to ensure that true fans of football have their voices heard at
every level, not least in calling out the abhorrent racism that
we sometimes see.
(LD)
My Lords, can the Minister give an assurance that, if we follow
the lines of the report, the Government will take seriously the
fact that the Premier League has got to pump more money into the
lower professional leagues to keep them viable? Without this, we
will see more and more of the fiascos that have happened with
smaller football clubs such as Northampton, where something that
is part of that town’s heritage is taken away, or threatened to
be taken away, from it.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, yes, the Government were very clear that cash should
flow through the football pyramid more fairly and called on clubs
to do that during the pandemic. I am very glad to say that, in
many cases, it was so, but that is one of the recommendations
followed up by and her review and one that
we will look at carefully.
(Lab)
My Lords, as a member of the north-east fanatical football
supporters’ league—but not a Newcastle United fan—I was
disappointed when the Minister said earlier on that, essentially,
the way the Premier League assesses “fit and proper person” is
none of the Government’s business. It should be. Some of us have
been saying for 20 years—for a lot longer than that,
actually—that too much of our football governance is not fit for
purpose and that the drive of the Premier League for more and
more money has undermined much of what football is meant to be
about. It is tragic that we do not have more fans properly
engaged in governance in this country. The Premier League—I
challenge it on this—does not want that because it believes that
it will put off money and monied people coming into the Premier
League. Therefore, will the Government, in their review of the
report and their thoughts
about future governance, really think about the model that is
spread throughout the UK that would involve fans much more
centrally in direct governance of football?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, as I say, while we are considering the review’s
recommendations, it is clear from Tracey Crouch’s report that
there is a significant opportunity to tighten up and strengthen
the current owners’ and directors’ test. We will look at that
very seriously and come forward with our response to the report
in due course.
(Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend commend the report by our
honourable friend for being so bold? I support
the point made by the noble Lord, ; 62 insolvencies of
lower-league clubs have occurred. Will my noble friend’s
department use every good office to ensure that—while not harming
the Premier League in the long term—more money will filter down
to the lower levels?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I join my noble friend in reiterating my thanks to our
honourable friend for the work that she has
done. Football has had many opportunities to get its house in
order but has not taken them, and that is why this report is such
an important and timely one. In the past, football’s failure to
reform itself has had an injurious impact on many clubs, as we
saw with the proposals to set up the closed shop of a European
super league. That is why we have taken the action of
commissioning this fan-led review and why we will respond to it
thoroughly.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, there are not many things that England leads the world
at, but the Premier League is one of them. One of the reasons for
that is because it has attracted investment from right around the
world. While I am no fan of the Saudi Arabian takeover of
Newcastle, I think we have to be really cautious about anything
which might undermine the Premier League’s success in future.
I want to ask the Minister a couple of specific questions. Can he
explain how he thinks an independent regulator would, for
example, have prevented the collapse of Bury? What happened there
was that a guy came in, bought the club and eventually did not
have the funds to sustain it, and the club went bust. Would an
independent regulator have blocked his purchase of Bury? If it
had done so, the club would have gone bust sooner and the
independent regulator—and by extension the Government—would have
got the blame. I think there is no possibility that an
independent regulator would have done that. People talk about
more money cascading down the pyramid. Is the Minister not aware
that the Premier League gave £250 million to the Championship and
millions more to the leagues below that? One of the reasons it
was able to do that is because the league has been so successful,
so let us be cautious about undermining that.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, Tracey Crouch’s review demonstrates that there are
fundamental issues with our national sport and that there is a
case for significant reform. We do not want to see any more of
our historic clubs vanishing from the football leagues and
football not doing enough to help itself. The scenarios the noble
Lord outlines are the ones we will have in mind as we look at the
recommendations she made and as we formulate our responses to
them.
(Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, though football is
the national game, it cannot in any sense be separate from the
national culture and values? To this end, it has a way to go to
be truly inclusive for all. Would he agree that the Crouch review
makes many excellent recommendations to this effect and is well
worth the Government considering extremely seriously?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
Yes, we are indeed considering it very seriously. My noble friend
is right that the pride we invest in our national sport and
demonstrate when it is watched and enjoyed by people all over the
world is a demonstration of our values as a nation. That is why
the international reach of football and the great interest it
attracts—whether that is from fans or investors overseas—should
be a source of pride as well, and our response to the fan-led
review will aim to strengthen all of that.
|
