Football Governance Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to add my name to this amendment. I am not going to venture into the world of football, coming from the nation from which I do. But I want to draw on my experience of dispute resolution, where I have spent most of my life.

I do not need to add to what has been said about two of the essentials of dispute resolution criteria: principles and evidence. That has been done by the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Birt. I will make five points, drawn from my experience and that of many others, about a dispute resolution process.

First, and most important, is the examination of the subject matter of the dispute that will arise if there is no settlement. If one looks at what is in the Bill and the process that has been selected, I accept that it is seen to work in the context in which it is used for settling a baseball player’s salary, a tariff rate or some kind of price or rate, but it is not fit for the purpose of what this is designed to deal with, which is a careful, calibrated and, above all, fair evaluation of the distribution of substantial sums of money. Everyone has said so far that this has to be fair and careful; the final offer resolution system used in the context I described does not do that.

Secondly, experience has shown that the best panel for dispute resolution is where one party chooses one arbitrator, another party chooses the other arbitrator or member of the panel, and the experienced lawyer chairs it. There are two reasons for that. First, the ability of a party to appoint gives that party confidence in the tribunal—it is constituted by that party’s assent. Secondly, I fear that there may be a misapprehension as to the role of a lawyer. The point of having a lawyer as chair is that he is experienced in guiding a dispute resolution process; it is not legalistic, though some may think so. I can assure noble Lords that if you have a highly contested dispute overseen by someone without experience—as I regret is likely to be the case if one gets to dispute resolution in this—disaster ensues.

Thirdly, it is important to bear in mind one other point. Even if after expert mediation you cannot reach a resolution that is acceptable to both, you must recall that there will be a loser and a winner; and the loser has to live, in this particular context, in a good long-term relationship with the victor. That is particularly important where the dispute is not the price of something, or who is right and who is wrong, but what is a fair distribution. For a decision to be seen as fair by the loser, which is particularly important if you are a decision-maker because you want the loser to feel he has had a fair process, the panel must be able to reach its own independent judgment and not be bound by one or other of the offers that are on the table; and ex hypothesi, it will be the offer of the winner that has triumphed, and that will not be seen as fair.

Fourthly, experience of businesses where there is outside investment shows how important it is for a dispute resolution process that affects the business to be seen—and it is perception here that matters—to be based on a fair process and the independent judgment of the panel that resolves the dispute, and not the kind of Russian roulette process, as I think it has been described, in the Bill. Applying that experience, it seems to me that the procedure for dispute resolution, in the context we are talking about, will encourage investment.

Finally, there must be a safeguard. The Bill has a safeguard in one sense: there are the procedures in Clause 81 and 82 and Schedule 10 for a review. However, what this amendment has is a fine-tuned procedure, which is must more precise and very limited.

It seems to me that, if you look at those five highlighted points, the only conclusion you can come to is that the procedure in the Bill as a matter of dispute resolution is not fit for purpose, whereas that which is in the amendment is.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Birt. As I said in Committee, I believe that the binding arbitration model that his amendments set out is unquestionably better than the proposed backstop mechanism in the Bill currently. In particular, Amendment 72 fills a glaring hole in the current process: that is a transparent and clear set of criteria against which the expert panel in this process will make its decision.

It is clear that the noble Lord and his colleagues have thought very deeply about their proposals and have tabled a comprehensive package of amendments. Indeed, their contributions have shown a breadth of experience and expertise that they have brought in developing them. Therefore, I very much hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister will accept these amendments, and her colleagues in the other place can use the passage of the Bill to finesse and improve them if the Government are concerned, for instance, about certain elements of drafting. I commend these amendments to the Minister and hope she will look on them favourably.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I offer support for the broad approach of the noble Lords led by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who have tabled the amendments in this group. I do not agree with every element of the proposed new process, but I appreciate that this idea, to replace the current mechanism with a structured commercial arbitration process, would be a substantial improvement on the current flawed and high-risk process —a process designed largely by the previous Government and not a mechanism recommended by the fan-led review. I believe these amendments would deliver a better process for the EFL as well as for the Premier League—better for all of football—because they would make the backstop process more transparent, more predictable and therefore lower risk.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made an incisive and compelling case for change, as did the noble Lord, Lord Burns. He has done so again today, demonstrating the virtues of balance, nuance and good sense—all qualities that are excluded from the operation of the existing backstop process. The current backstop mechanism is fundamentally flawed. For example, the 28-day mediation process amounts to little more than mandating a conversation between parties, and of course then the parties have to go back and discuss those conversations with their clubs, which takes a lot longer than 28 days. It also creates no structure to identify areas of compromise, nor does it establish proper incentives for genuine negotiation. It does not even require both parties actually to make a proposal, so neither party’s position is flushed out. In practical terms, it means we might as well jut skip directly to the final decision.

The current process will leave the expert panel examining two highly divergent proposals, which will come out of the blue, with no arguments properly aired ahead of that decision. By contrast, the amendment before us introduces significant advantages. First, the three-person panel, with two representatives selected by both the Premier League and the EFL alongside an independent chair, mirrors successful approaches used throughout football arbitration. Crucially, the same panel would make the final decision, having heard all the arguments throughout. Secondly, an extended 90-day arbitration period would allow for proper engagement rather than the perfunctory approach currently proposed. Thirdly, and crucially in my view, the requirement for structured offers to be put forward, scrutinised and then defined, introduces a dynamic entirely absent from the current model.