Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Goodman of Wycombe Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, as a member of the Delegated Powers Committee, I look forward to exploring in detail what powers Ministers seek to arrogate to themselves under the terms of the Bill, following the splendid series of points made by my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I point out to noble Lords in passing that if they look at Section 92(3)(b), they will find that Ministers propose by regulation to redefine what is and is not “serious criminal conduct”, which is a proposal I find startling.

None the less, rather than risk being lost in this forest of detail, I wish instead to pan the camera back, look at this Bill as a whole and ask a question that I think has haunted this debate, namely: who owns a football club—Wycombe Wanderers, say, where I have been a season ticket holder for the best part of 10 years? Noble Lords might think the natural answer is that a football club is owned by its owners. Not so fast if you read this Bill, whatever Part 1 or Schedule 1 may say. According to the Bill, an owner is really more like a custodian than an owner and the fans are more like shareholders or co-owners than consumers, because football is judged under the Bill’s terms to be simply too important to fail. There is a heritage objective written into the Bill because it is held, I think quite rightly, that a football club is part of the very life of its community—particularly, say, in an old former industrial town where some of that industry has gone. It is essential to the coherence and well-being of the place.

As a Tory, I have no objection at all to the argument that institutions trump markets, but I cannot help following the arguments of my noble friend Lord Maude—from not quite the Front Bench but the Bench where former Ministers sit—and wondering whether this end might be better and more naturally achieved in a more evolutionary way were football to devise its rules and regulations itself, backed up, if necessary, by statute in a system of co-regulation. But we all know that this is not to be.

The Bill proposes a state licensed regulator, so in addition to Ofwat, Ofgas and the Care Quality Commission we are to have Ofball, Ofgoal, Ofside or whatever the new regulator will be called. But those regulators that I named and all the rest of them are not uncontroversial. They are sometimes accused of mission creep, of regulatory overreach, or sometimes of simply getting it wrong, often in reports composed by distinguished committees of this House. I cannot help looking at this Bill and thinking: on the one hand, a new state regulator, on the other, millions of engaged football fans; what could possibly go wrong?

In fairness and in balance, I have to acknowledge, as someone who is sceptical about the Bill, that it has the Premier League, the Football League and other interested parties more or less lined up in the same place. It is the product of years of work, and aspects of it have been widely welcomed—for example, Part 4, which seeks to deal with rogue owners. Who could possibly quarrel with that?

I must say, however, that the attentions of the Premier League and the Football League are more engaged with Part 6 on the distribution of revenue. If you want to find out what really engages most of those who take an interest in this Bill, follow the old rule of follow the money. I have to say myself, as the fan of a League One team that is currently top of the table, I have no objection whatever to money flowing down the pyramid and I can see why the Bill is widely welcomed. There you have it.

None the less, I have to say to the Government Front Bench that it is of course widely said, and it is true, that fans are angry when the market fails, and I warn the Government that, if the fans are angry when the market fails, they will also be angry if the state regulator fails or is seen to fail. What will fans say if they support an ambitious Championship club and the regulator reproves it for running up debt? What will the fans say if they believe that the fee that the regulator is charging the clubs for its services is too high? What will the fans say if they do not like where the club has got to on ticket prices? And there are myriad similar examples. I will be told that these fears are exaggerated or mistaken. I would reply, “Let’s put that to the test”. Let’s have a review of this regulator after it comes into existence in, say, five years. Let’s even consider writing a sunset clause into the Bill whereby we can review where this Bill is going”.

In conclusion, we are told that the football pyramid is the envy of the world, one of Britain’s great sporting successes—and so it is. But we are simultaneously told that the whole system is so fragile that it needs a state regulator to support it. I find these claims very difficult to reconcile—or, if they can be reconciled, could it be that it is the very fragility of the system, the sense of risk, adventure, innovation and dynamism, that has made the pyramid the success that it is? And could it be that the regulator is putting all that at risk? Let us find that out, have a review and consider putting a sunset clause in the Bill so we can find out in due course whether the fears I have expressed are mistaken and whether the hopes that the supporters of the Bill vest in it have come to pass.