English Football

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support my good friend and fellow Boltonian, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and to congratulate her on having secured this debate—a debate which, as we have already heard in the noble Baroness’s excellent speech, is for us and all our fellow Bolton Wanderers fans timely and poignant. Who would have thought, 15 years ago to the day since Bolton Wanderers, a club rich in football history, secured its first top eight Premier League finish, that this 8 May would see us in the High Court with a request for a statement of intent to put Bolton Wanderers Football Club into administration? We now have two weeks to start the process of unravelling the misery of the last few years, and to hope that somewhere in the system good sense will prevail and we will have a credible and competent owner who cares about the staff, the players, the fans and the wider community in which football operates.

I have had the privilege—not always the pleasure—of being a Bolton Wanderers fan all my life; I declare that I too am a season ticket holder. Technically, I became a fan before I was born, as my mother—herself a staunch fan along with my father—did not let being heavily pregnant stop her attending matches, home and away. As a former trustee of UNICEF and a proud president of Bolton Lads & Girls Club, I have witnessed at first hand the transformative nature of football and the importance it plays at grass-roots and community level.

But as football fans, you live with the ups and downs, as my noble friend Lord Kirkham said, and at times it can seem all-consuming. Last year, in an interview entitled “Football and Society”, Phil Neville, speaking of his family’s love of football, said:

“If we won, it would make our week, if we lost, it would spoil our week—it was that important to my father, to me, to my brother and my whole family”.


That was my family too, and for that privilege of spending your week either elated or miserable, of hours spent mulling over “if onlys” and calculating how many points you need to win promotion, make the play-offs or escape relegation, football fans pay a lot of money. The least they can expect for their financial and emotional investment is that the club they support is well managed, well resourced and shares their values.

Most of the recent debate in football has centred on the governance and restructuring of the institutions that themselves oversee the governance of the game: the Football Association, the Premier League and the English Football League. The reforms were much needed and as far as they have gone are welcome, but I believe that alongside further internal reforms the EFL and ultimately the FA need to look closely at their vetting procedures for ownership, their overview of good governance and stability of a club, and the actions and sanctions taken when things go wrong.

It is imperative when the EFL deems owners and directors of football clubs to be fit and proper that it goes beyond a checklist of who they are and what they have achieved, including in some cases time served for past demeanours. I agree with my noble friend that bankruptcy should not mean disqualification, because lots of entrepreneurs have been bankrupt in their time, but we do need to look at their values. Surely, in assessing suitable ownership, the values and ethos of potential owners and their vision for the club beyond winning everything in sight should be part of the regulator’s decision-making.

I readily acknowledge that some of the hard-and-fast commercial rules of business are difficult to apply in football, especially if clubs are not to price their supporters out of watching or make that special purchase of kit for their children out of reach, and it may be necessary to inject more funds than had been originally envisaged. But where a potential owner shows proof of funds, or if more money is needed, you should at least expect those funds to be invested in the club and not remain in the owner’s pocket, to be dished out whenever they feel like it.

The EFL says clearly that it is in the interest of all clubs and the game that clubs adopt and can demonstrate good governance, so you would also expect that good governance would be the watchword of any club, as it should be in any business. That means a properly constituted board, with not only executive directors but non-executive directors, preferably with nothing to do with the club. Under the ownership of Eddie Davies, who truly cared for Bolton Wanderers, there was such a board. Our current owner Mr Anderson is—hopefully soon to be was—the sole director at Bolton. No one, absolutely no one, was there to question or challenge his decisions and behaviour, and the consequence was the appalling behaviour to staff and players: their wages were unpaid and they were not told what was happening, with all the anxiety that brings. We have already heard from my noble friend that the hotel, which forms part of the complex, closed because it could not guarantee health and safety. The players were striking, the club was not fulfilling our league obligations, and a proud club was brought to its knees. As my noble friend Lady Taylor said, it is a tragic state of affairs.

How can that be allowed to happen? Throughout all this, the EFL said that everything was okay and there was money to see us through to the end of the season. What support did they give us when this did not prove to be the case and everything came tumbling down? It was the potential imposition of sanctions. Sanctions can only handicap a new owner trying to rebuild a wounded football club and leave supporters and the wider local community feeling unfairly punished for what they see as irresponsibility entirely outside their control. It must be the part of the EFL, the FA and the Premier League to have responsibilities to supporters and the wider community of football clubs, responsibilities which now so clearly require greater and more effective oversight from the footballing authorities.