Football Governance Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mann. I was born into a family of avid Bolton Wanderers supporters, married into another and am a long-standing season ticket holder. I see that, sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has just left, but my husband and my son both drive me mad every weekend with their fantasy football teams. So, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill and thank the Minister for her clear explanation, despite her reference to the Bolton v Oxford result in the League One play-off final. I also thank her for her warm tribute to Dame Tracey Crouch, who through her work on the fan-led review of football laid the foundations of this Bill.

Like at Leicester, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, we are incredibly lucky at Bolton Wanderers that since August 2019 we have had owners in Football Ventures and a chairman in Sharon Brittan who instinctively understand the right way to run a football club. From the inclusion of and communication with fans and the community, to the obvious care and support of staff and players, they have been a breath of fresh air. It has not been easy, and finances are still tight, yet their visibility at events and matches, turning up, showing up and embracing and understanding the highs and lows, have endeared Sharon, in particular, to fans and the wider Bolton family. If all clubs had been run this way, there would be no need for the Bill.

But it has not always been like this. As one of the 12 founding clubs of the Football League—as we have already heard—Bolton has a rich and proud history, but it has never been easy being a Bolton Wanderers fan. We have watched them play in all divisions from the old Division One down to Division Four, go back to the Premiership and play in Europe, and then fall all the way down again through the divisions of the EFL to our current place in League One. But through all these highs and lows we retained hope, and the next season was always going to be the season where things came right.

That was until 2015-16—as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton—when things began to go financially wrong and we came under new ownership. We reeled from winding-up orders from HMRC to unpaid wages, player strikes, Marc Iles, a much-respected local journalist, having his credentials withdrawn for asking questions about how the club was being run, threat of expulsion from the EFL and an owner who saw himself as a secured lender rather than a custodian of a much-loved club. So incensed were we that my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and I wrote a joint statement addressing the then ownership of the club, fearful as we were that our families and future generations of Wanderers’ fans would be denied the pleasures and the pain we had enjoyed.

The long journey back from going into administration to being bought by responsible owners in Football Ventures was plagued by chancers, dreamers and time-wasters, all of whom placed the club in further jeopardy. We were not alone. Many other clubs have been through the same nightmare including, as we have heard, Bury, our next-door neighbour. I know there is a view that if a club is failing it should be allowed to fail, that fans will simply transfer their allegiance somewhere else. But the fortunes of a club have ramifications far beyond the football pitch.

In January last year, John Tribe, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Liverpool, published an article in The Conversation entitled “Football Club Collapses in Lower Leagues: How to Avoid Them for the Good of the Community” in which he said:

“Behind every collapse is a story of people losing their jobs and investors losing money, but the community uniquely suffers too”.


Supporters and wider communities are the lifeblood of football clubs and, correctly, have an interest, even a sense of ownership. Owners of football clubs have a clear responsibility to those supporters and to those communities. Too many failures to meet that responsibility bring us here today.

By instinct, I believe, wherever possible, in self-regulation; nevertheless, I believe a degree of regulation is now necessary. But football clubs are independent businesses, as we have already heard, and the delicate balance between precautionary oversight and stifling over-regulation must be protected.

How we regulate will be as important as what we regulate. Despite the reassurance of the Minister, we must ensure, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson said, that there is not mission creep. It would be tragic if the beautiful game went from being buffeted by the inconsistency and uncertainty caused by some owners and bad league decisions to reeling from the storms of a regulator whose actions smothered the ingenuity and brilliance that makes British football the great game it is.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her answer and I thank my noble friends and others for an excellent debate on my amendment. I hesitate to single anyone out, but the contributions of my noble friends Lord Maude, Lord Moynihan and Lady Brady showed their great expertise in different aspects of football, sport and regulation over the years. I make particular reference to the granular and forensic demolition of the impact assessment by my noble friend Lord Hayward, and the issue of the impact on small clubs that was alluded to by my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe.

To come back to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, I see this amendment as complementary to good governance, because it is a pretty light-touch amendment. It is really a permissive oversight power—we will come back to it, of course, on Report—with timely regulatory audit and a sense check. The Minister may need to think about whether accepting this amendment, perhaps on Report, would detract from the substance of the Bill.

Football is full of amazing stories. I want to finish with a story about my own local team, which goes to the heart of the debate on this amendment, which is the nature of entrepreneurial endeavour in football—risk and reward. Darragh MacAnthony, a property entrepreneur, bought Posh, Peterborough United, at the age of 30, the youngest owner in the league, in 2006. In August 2007, he put a note in the programme at a football match which said, “I will deliver back-to-back promotions from League Two to the Championship by 2009”. He did it, with the help of my friend Barry Fry, who, of course, noble Lords know. The point is that I have to ask, looking at the Bill and at all its onerous implications in terms of regulatory impact, would Darragh MacAnthony have put his business on the line to buy Posh, to keep Peterborough United afloat and make it flourish as it has done for the last 18 years, had the Bill been in place? I very much doubt that he would.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw his amendment?

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Thank you; I appreciate being kept on my toes by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. With that in mind, and notwithstanding anything I have said, we will ventilate these issues on Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 18 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

I call Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am not willing to not move Amendment 19 yet. Given that the House is about to resume and be adjourned, it might be more helpful to degroup it and leave it as the first amendment that we return to when the Committee resumes. I appreciate that this is unusual, but I do it to try to be helpful. If the Minister can write on the points about hybridity, which she has kindly undertaken to do, then this is the point at which the Committee will resume when next it meets, so that we can return to this fundamental point. So I am not willing to not move Amendment 19 and I suggest we resume the House now.