Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Maude of Horsham

Report stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in case everyone thought a bout of consensus had broken out, I beg to differ. I have some reservations about this group. I find myself at odds with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, which neither of us will be surprised by, but I also find myself at odds with the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, which is perhaps more surprising having been through Committee.

Let me raise some of my reservations. We have been consistently told that this legislation is necessary to protect football clubs precisely because they are such intrinsic parts of our community and interwoven into our society. It is those authentic, organic relationships with local areas and generations of fans I am worried this Bill could undermine. I am not convinced that the clubs need a regulator to add something that could become a performative and unnecessary corporate governance duty. That is one of my reservations.

I was also somewhat surprised to see the Government’s Amendment 32, making a club’s contribution to the economic and social well-being of its local community part of its corporate governance. That was somehow quite insulting, as though clubs need officialdom to tell them to be socially responsible. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, indicated, that is very much the ecosystem of connectedness that is in clubs’ DNA. There is a danger of overregulation here.

In a later group on regulatory principles, the Government’s Amendment 18—which I do welcome—states as a regulatory principle that the independent football regulator should have regard to whether any requirement or restriction is necessary before it imposes it and asks the IFR to consider

“whether a similar outcome could be achieved by less burdensome means”.

Amendment 32 seems to fail that test. I am worried about putting in the Bill a regulation that could be interpreted as asking football to take on responsibilities far removed from football in a regulatory fashion that makes them behave somewhere between social engineering and social work. I would like some reassurance that this will not contradict or add a burden of regulation on clubs in what they already are doing. Why do we need to have it written down in the Bill?

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I think there is a severe danger of there being a consensus around the sentiments, at any rate, reflected in this group of amendments. The point has been made by a number of your Lordships that this is what good clubs do. Successful clubs are deeply rooted in, and serve, their communities, act as a focal point for social action and social activity, and can do enormous good.

On Thursday evening, I shall go, in hope, to watch Tottenham play in the Europa League. The following morning, I shall attend the governors’ meeting of the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham, which is a brilliant sixth-form academy that serves disadvantaged young people with academic promise from across the community. Its principal business sponsor is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Its premises are in the Lilywhite House, which is the office headquarters of the club. It is brilliantly successful. Tottenham, like most successful clubs, is deeply entrenched and embedded in the local community.

I therefore have some sympathy when the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, asks about whether this is necessary. The clubs that take their social and community responsibilities seriously because that is what they need to do as part of their success and their obligations—it is part of the debt they owe to the communities they are part of—will not find it a regulatory burden, because they are, as the noble Baroness said, doing it already. While I am generally allergic to new regulatory powers when the case for them is not overwhelmingly proven, I am willing to make an exception in this case.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Maude of Horsham

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am a bit of a Brighton supporter myself. Tottenham is my first love; Horsham is my second; Brighton comes a very close third. I hope the letter from UEFA will be published so that we can see in exact detail what is said and therefore satisfy ourselves that the concerns will be dealt with comprehensively and finally so that there is no lingering anxiety.

I totally understand the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I wish I could be as happy as he is that there is no risk of subsequent mission creep, which is exactly the concern that UEFA raised. Some of us have raised that, in the Bill as currently drafted, there is scope for precisely the kind of mission and scope creep that UEFA seems to have identified. That is why it is so important at this stage that it should be dealt with and for it to be finally laid to rest that this concern need not be a concern.

My noble friend Lord Goodman spoke about the political risk for the Government if they come to be the people who have enacted a Bill which inflicts savage damage on English people’s expectations that their clubs will be able to participate in the Champions League, the Europa League and even the Europa Conference League, which West Ham so spectacularly won. It has to be dealt with quickly, cleanly and effectively, so that we no longer need to have sleepless nights over this.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this group as a point of clarification and reassurance, as has been asked for. I would expect the Minister to accept this, because she has been at great pains to stress that this is intended—I do not doubt her good faith—as light-touch regulation motivated by the best of intentions. But I think that there is a real problem with this Bill that could potentially destroy football, so I want that worry at least to be taken seriously.

The examples given by the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude, were in relation to UEFA and FIFA and what damage could be done. I understand that, but I think this is a point of principle. It is really important that the Government state at this point that they believe that the Bill is not to be used as a vehicle for government interference in football. That is what they agree with, so why not put it in the Bill?

Should I just be having a moment of paranoid delusions? I spent as much time reading the amendments last night as noble Lords spent on the first group, possibly longer—i.e. it took me a long time. They are, in many instances, the vehicle for what can be described only as a wide range of political hobby-horses for people who believe that this Bill and the regulator should be asked to do things that are extraordinarily contentious, political and have absolutely nothing to do with football. The fact that they are deemed in scope of the discussion on this Bill is nerve-wracking. Consequently, this group seeks—very importantly—to state as a matter of principle that the Government should not interfere in the autonomy and independence of football in England and Wales, and English football particularly.

I want to stress, and I said it at Second Reading, that this not just because of any technical matter; it is because football came from and remains at its heart a grass-roots part of civil society. The last thing it needs is an overbearing political hand that will try to shape it into the image of the particular Government of the day. The particular Government of the day might be one that the Government trust; it might be one that many football fans trust, but imagine if it was not? We do not want the political fashions of the day to dominate football—to destroy football. I think the Minister will agree and therefore accept these amendments willingly, because it will reassure us that we are not all being paranoid about it. It will reassure football fans that the Government are doing it in their best interests rather than trying to use football as a hobby-horse to push a particular political agenda.