Viscount Younger of Leckie
Main Page: Viscount Younger of Leckie (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)English Football
Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I should start by saying that my noble friend Lord Ashton has absented himself from the pitch, so I suppose I must be the sub. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for securing this short debate, and all Peers for their informed contributions. It is a debate on football, which is rather remarkable. It is not lost on me that if we had more debates on football every day here it would encourage more young people to engage with politics. That is just a thought before I begin.
As my noble friend Lord Kirkham said, football is often referred to as the beautiful game, but it is more than that. It is our national game and there is much to celebrate. If I may highlight a few things, the Premier League remains a formidable domestic and international success. Economically, we benefit from the 100,000 jobs it creates, £3.3 billion in tax contributions each year and a figure of £7.6 billion GVA impact overall. One billion homes globally have access to Premier League coverage. Some 686,000 international tourists attended matches, bringing additional benefits.
Our stadiums are full each week. This includes the English Football League, which is one of the best-supported leagues in Europe. Our England teams, male and female at all age levels, are excelling on the world stage. With government support, this country looks forward to hosting the European Championships in 2020 for men and 2021 for women.
As the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, the women’s game continues to grow apace, and the Government are firmly behind helping the FA’s ambition to double female participation numbers over the next few years. Over 50,000 fans, a record, attended the women’s FA Cup final at Wembley last weekend, won, of course, by Manchester City. Speaking of Manchester City, how about that fabulous goal, which I happened to see, from Vincent Kompany on Monday night? It sets up this Sunday well for a fantastic last day shoot-out between Man City and Liverpool for the championship crown. I see a few heads shaking.
It is no wonder that, in a nation that consumes football so avidly, in this Chamber we often find ourselves debating all aspects of the game—and sometimes that includes disappointing aspects. Many noble Lords will have been present last month, when my noble friend Lord Ashton spoke about the game’s problems in dealing with racism and other forms of discrimination that have blighted the sport in recent times. The noble Lords, Lord Pendry and Lord Griffiths, raised this important issue. May I reassure the House that the Government are working closely with football to address this important matter?
Issues of governance or ownership are other matters of concern. Perilous financial difficulties, failing to bring fans on board as custodians of their chosen club and securing long-term home grounds are of relevance, and we have heard them repeated today by several noble Lords. On governance, the Government have been active in pushing the FA to reform its structure and give the game the overall leadership it requires. The sports governance code that came into force on 1 April 2017 applies to all sporting bodies in receipt of public funding from Sport England and UK Sport. It challenged the FA and all other governing bodies to demonstrate that they meet the highest standards of governance and regulation. The code applies best corporate practice.
We welcomed the reforms the FA has now made to comply with the code by ensuring that its decision-making bodies are more transparent, more independent, more diverse and therefore more representative of the participants in the sport. The FA needed to reform so that it could continue to pursue the long-term potential of football in this country, from grass roots up to the national teams, with government support. In partnership with football, the Government are currently investing more money than ever before in community football programmes and facilities.
Concerning the financial stability of the game, the increased checks and balances brought in by the football leagues and the FA, in the highest echelons of the national league, have done a great deal of good in ensuring that their member clubs’ finances are managed in a fiscally responsible way—despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said. Requiring regular financial returns of member clubs has had an extremely welcome effect in greatly reducing the number of insolvencies in the professional game. However, this has not been sufficient to safeguard the financial situation of Bolton Wanderers. I listened very carefully to the heartfelt comments of the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lady Morris in respect of Bolton Wanderers. Good governance is not foolproof in predicting and preventing failure in any sector. It is easy to forget that of the 92 professional clubs, in spite of the large sums of money involved and club competition lending itself to rewarding success over everything else, financial failures are in the minority. Unlike 10 to 15 years ago, very few clubs fall into administration because of financial mismanagement.
The owners’ and directors’ test—formerly the fit and proper person test, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, alluded—stands up to what we would expect to see in the private sector, and is stringently applied to its full extent. The English Football League and Premier League work closely together to ensure the best diligence possible in this respect. The test is based on a set of objective criteria, such as whether an individual is banned from being a company director or has been involved in more than one administration at a club since 2004. These points were made by my noble friend Lord Kirkham. It is not a subjective assessment of anybody’s fundamental ability to run a football club, or their motivations. As well as the owners’ and directors’ test process, the football authorities carry out additional background checks on individuals and their financial standing as part of the overall due diligence process. We would expect those to be applied to Bolton and any prospective buyer. However, while tests can protect against legally inappropriate owners, they cannot, as in any other line of business, predict success or aptitude.
Let us be clear that a professional club is a business like many others. What sets apart the business of football from other commercial endeavours is the place of the club at the heart of its community—a point made today—and the fan base of supporters, which has a brand loyalty beyond compare, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said.
To pick up a theme from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, the fans are extremely important to the success of our football leagues. We welcome the fact that there is now much greater dialogue between clubs and their supporters. They discuss the matters of most importance in running their club, which include its financial state and transparency over its ownership. These meetings are a mandatory requirement on football clubs, in accordance with football’s rule books, and were introduced as a result of the Government’s expert working group on supporter ownership and engagement, which reported in 2016. I am pleased that this has gained traction across the league. It could lead to fans being placed on the board, if that is by mutual agreement between the fans and clubs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, asked whether we would press for a greater role for football fans. The Government will continue to engage regularly with supporter organisations, such as Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters’ Federation, which do excellent work in representing supporter interests.
Club successes, however, can be frustrated further by their lack of ownership of a home stadium, as demonstrated in markedly different ways at Dulwich Hamlet FC and Coventry City FC. The reliance of community clubs on local authority-owned facilities was well understood, but less is known about the degree of risk that this may pose across the professional and semi-pro game. With this in mind, the Government asked the FA to conduct a review of stadium ownership to inform what guidance and advice is needed to secure better protection of club assets and give greater clarity to supporters, local residents and everyone interested in the protection and development of football clubs and their assets. We are working over the course of this year with the FA to ensure that the review provides as much support as possible for clubs, knowing how important they remain to local communities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked whether the Government will encourage listing stadia as assets of community value, which is an interesting point. We would absolutely encourage the listing of stadia as assets of community value, as suggested, and will consider how this should be reflected in the work of the review.
Ensuring the long-term sustainability of clubs must remain the primary responsibility of all club owners. I feel that I should reflect for a moment on the large number of current and past owners, throughout all tiers of the football pyramid, who have done just that. They invest, often with their own sums, to keep the clubs healthy; they recruit the best possible players and staff; they invest in our stadiums, so that we have a safe and enjoyable experience when we watch football; and their clubs are vibrant hubs in their local community.
Responsibility also lies with the football authorities which govern the sport and set the rules and regulations with which clubs and their owners must comply. I have mentioned the financial reporting and ownership rules that are in place to try to ensure that clubs remain on a sustainable footing. Where they do not, the football authorities have a range of sanctions that they can apply which act as a deterrent. Our football authorities must continue to keep under review the ways in which their member clubs can be protected in the long term. Long-term business plans, proof of sufficient funds and concrete assurances should be provided by owners around the protection of the club. This would provide clarity and reassurance to fans and ensure that support for football thrives at all levels.
I would like to give some reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, my noble friend Lady Morris and the noble Lords, Lord Pendry and Lord Addington, about the future. As Mims Davies, the Minister for Sport, has said, if football’s current rules are not sufficient then new rules may be required. If the football authorities believe that to be the case, and football needed the help of government above the scope of powers the game has to govern itself, then of course government would welcome that discussion.
I want to move to the interesting comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who asked whether there was progress towards having an ombudsman and what the latest was on the Ministry of Justice’s work on positions of trust in sport. We recognise that dispute and grievance processes in sport need appropriate levels of independence, so the Minister for Sport is considering the issue of a potential ombudsman. On trust, it is vital that sports youth groups and charities are safe places, and I welcome the MoJ’s recent commitment to review the effectiveness of laws protecting people from abuses of power. The review will look at the existing law in this area to ensure that it is working effectively and is clearly understood. If it appears that there are gaps in current provision or practice, government will consider carefully how to address them. DCMS is supporting the MoJ with this review and ensuring that the views of its sectors, including sport, are heard clearly.
The picture that I have tried to portray is that football is in a pretty healthy state. It is a fantastic homegrown product and a most valuable export. We should be proud of it. But it still has its challenges, about which we have heard much this evening. There are always areas where it needs to consider what more can be done. This includes around governance and the regulation of the professional game. It includes its support to the grass roots to ensure that the game does not lose its community roots and the legacy of generations that follow their clubs. It must continue to find ways to provide the environment whereby every player, volunteer and spectator feels safe and included in its success.
The Government will continue to challenge football in the areas where we think it is necessary and we will ensure the health of the sport and our collective custodianship of it. It is always at the heart of those agendas. Finally, I wish Bolton Wanderers a fair wind in seeing through its current challenges.