Football Governance Bill

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

This debate about a football regulator is quite interesting for me because, in all honesty, when I first heard about it I did not really want one. I did not believe in one from an ideological perspective, or see why we need to regulate sports at all. I always thought the Football Association should be doing that, but I think we have seen—certainly in recent weeks, but really over quite a sustained period of time—that it simply has not done its job, and that also true of the Premier League, the EFL and so on. That is why I think we now have some proposals I can certainly support, and I think they actually strike a very good balance. I pay tribute to the Minister for his work, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch), who did such a fantastic report in the first place.

I am another one of those who are very angry that FA cup replays have been scrapped. Growing up, we always used to dream of lifting the FA cup at Wembley. We would watch the teams in the morning with the buses arriving, and it was a whole-day event. We would have the terrible cup final songs and the story of the non-league clubs in the early rounds, and that is really what it was all about. The diminishing pull of the FA cup for many of the teams at the top has been very sad over the years, but it is still very special for many of our smaller clubs.

We have just heard about Kendal Town, and we have Worksop Town in my constituency, which made the first round of the FA cup this season for the first time in a very long time. We played Stockport County in the first round and did manage to get an equaliser, although we let a few more goals in after that, unfortunately, and never got the replay. That was a special moment, and something many people will remember for the rest of their lives. I will mention the other football clubs in my constituency so that I do not get some stick or a lot of angry emails. We also very proud to have Retford United, Retford FC, Harworth Colliery and SJR Worksop as well.

I am hoping that licensing agreements for clubs are not too onerous and do not place too much of an unfair burden, particularly on smaller clubs, and it is the smaller clubs I am thinking of. They are the ones who maybe cannot afford to employ extra members of staff or will struggle with some of the extra bureaucracy. I think we should give them some time and make sure we do not make any unreasonable demands of them. We do not want mission creep, with the almost public sector-style equality and diversity targets, requirements and endless things that we do not actually need in football. I am very much in favour of light-touch regulation, and I do not want to be putting our teams at a competitive disadvantage to other teams in Europe.

As has been said, the Premier League does do a lot of wonderful things. I have been one of its harshest critics over the years, being a Notts County fan. I cannot see us ever winning the premier league as it stands now. In fairness, we never won the old first division either. In fact, I think we were a founder member of the premier league when it first came to fruition, so we are the only founder club—since Luton Town got back there —that has never been a member of the premier league. So I was heartened to hear what the Secretary of State said today.

We have had the situation with Gateshead this week, which very sadly have not been able to take part in the national league play-offs. If we look at some of the requirements of the EFL—this has been going on for many years—I remember when we had champions of the conference that were told they could not get promoted. Sutton United, which went up not too long ago, had a very sustainable business model, with a 3G pitch, but it was not allowed to go up with that, and I think it spent about £500,000 getting rid of it. It is second from bottom at the moment, and it may go back there. Yet at the same time, we all have teams playing on artificial pitches, and I think there is a bit of a competition issue. Worksop Town has one of these pitches, and it has really helped locally in making the club sustainable. I think where we can actually help here is that we actually talk about that competition issue. We could have better relationships between the Premier League, the EFL and the national league, and that is something to which I think a regulator can really make a good contribution.

This would not be the first time a Government have stepped in. I remember the Taylor report, and what we did with stadiums at the time. There has been a huge improvement in safety, attendances have gone up and people can bring their family without some of the fear that used to be there in the 1980s. As a Notts County fan, I suppose I did have a bit of an interest in the three up, three down from the national league, as we did spend four years there, so I will declare a bit of interest. Likewise, on the fit and proper test, we have also been a victim in the past, where the fit and proper test simply has not been fit and proper itself, and we ended up with owners that have not had the best wishes of the club at heart. Thankfully, we have excellent owners now, and this is the kind of thing we can help them to get right. We do not want mission creep, or to be interfering with VAR or things to do with players, or fiddling with the club. We are not there to be micromanagers, and it would be a terrible shame if that happened.

I am glad the Secretary of State mentioned trying to avoid excessive costs and ensure that we are focused on the mission of the Bill. I think the balance is absolutely right, and I congratulate the Department on its work. Football is not the banking industry. I know there are some things that we could take as lessons, but the Bill is about football. We need to keep it about football and realise the unique position of football in our society. Likewise, we are not Germany. Our leagues are much deeper and we have more of them, and the ownership structures are difficult. It would be wrong to copy another model. On involving fans, I was a member of a supporters trust, and the supporters trust ran Notts County, and Stockport is another great example of a supporters trust. Supporters generally do not have the finances, which can sometimes cause its own problems.

I will finish with one of Ronald Reagan’s most famous quotes when he said that the

“most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.”

In this case we do not need to be terrified. These are sensible proposals. I am looking forward to the Bill progressing and to hearing a bit more about it, but from what I can see, this is positive for the game and I congratulate the Minister on that.

Football Governance Bill (First sitting)

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Rodda]

Q This question is for Rick Parry. Where a potential owner has a track record of being associated with clubs overseas that have got into difficulties, do you believe the Bill has enough powers to prevent that in future?

Rick Parry: I think so. I do not think there is any reason to be doubtful at this moment, and within football we have been refining the tests that we apply over time. A decade ago, I think the tests were probably inadequate and overly simplistic. We have definitely refined them. We take a closer look at people’s track records, and I am not fearful that the regulator will be unable to do the same.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

Q Gentlemen, one thing that has been raised is international investment and creating a level playing field with other leagues. Do you still have any particular concerns there? One of the previous witnesses we interviewed suggested that, at the moment, what we are doing is very light touch. Do you think that is still the case? Richard, perhaps I could ask you that first.

Richard Masters: As you know, professional football exists in a global marketplace, and the Premier League is, by most available metrics, currently the most popular in the world. We want that to continue, but it is a competitive marketplace. You could not say that 20 years ago, but it is true today, and we would like it to be true in 20 years’ time. We have been able to do that by collective effort, and the clubs continue to invest in creating a really exciting football competition.

I think the key difference between the Premier League and its other European competitors is the competitive nature of it. We can talk about full stadiums, home and away fans, fantastic brands, and the history and tradition of the English game—all those things are incredibly important, but the key difference between us and the Germans, the French, the Spanish and the Italians is that you have jeopardy from top to bottom. That goes to the funding of football and the financial mechanics behind it, and the key ingredients that go towards that competitive nature and the jeopardy in English football. We do not want to damage that jeopardy at all.

In order to be able to better fund the pyramid, we have to be successful, and to be successful, we have to be able to continue to find football-led solutions to the problems we have. The regulator has a specific role, which is to step in when individual clubs have problems and to oversee certain aspects of the game, but I still believe that football needs to be football-led. The three bodies—or four, if you include the FA—can do a good job of that in the future, in the same way that they have done a good job of it so far.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q Thank you. Rick, is that also the case for the EFL?

Rick Parry: We think that in a better regulated environment, where there is more clarity and certainty, we will get better-quality owners—there is no reason to believe that we would not. There has been a lot of talk about investment, which is a curious word in football. To me, “investment” means sensible investment in assets that generate returns in football, but it tends to mean excessive spending and then owners moving on. What we are trying to do, in making clubs sustainable, is reduce the dependence on owner funding—as we have heard previously, owner funding is fabulous, until it is not. We have seen it with Mel Morris, we have seen it with Bolton, we have seen it with Reading: owners come in with high ambitions, but either get fed up, run out of money or become ill, and then the clubs fall off a cliff. If we have a better system of redistribution, making club solvent, then we are not dependent on that ownership culture.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q Thank you. Mark, at the moment, the regulator covers only the top five tiers—obviously, it is going to cover the National League, but not National League North or South, or below that. Do you think that is the right way forward? Do you think it should be wider, or do you think it should be narrower?

Mark Ives: I think that, from a National League perspective, we are in a fortunate position. We run a licensing programme, and part of our ethos anyway, without the regulator, is to properly prepare our clubs to go into the EFL, whether they come from step two, National League North or South, into step one, the national division. If you look at the history of our clubs that have been promoted into the EFL, the vast majority of them have succeeded and continue to do so—this year you have only got to look at Wrexham’s story and everything else. That touches on your issue about foreign investments. Our challenge is to make sure that clubs that come up from step two are suitably prepared, through our licensing programme, to step into being regulated.

Equally, when somebody who is being regulated falls out of step one, sometimes because they have challenges, the issue for us is to ensure that they continue to get the support that the regulator may have given. As they go into step two, it is incumbent on us—it is still our competition—to ensure that they get the same checks and balances, to try to turn around whatever issues are there and give them a chance to grow again.

[Ian Byrne]

Q I first put on the record that we thank you, Richard, for your support on tragedy chanting. You have been fantastic. I also put on the record my thanks to you, Rick, for accepting the 13,000 signatures we gave you in 2001, I think, to stop Liverpool moving from Anfield to Speke, which would have been a disaster for our heritage. That was without the Independent Football Regulator, so well done.

My question is about financial sustainability, the profit and sustainability rules, and the lack of authority within the scope of the Independent Football Regulator. All supporters want a predictable, transparent, principled, proportionate, fair and timely system. Richard, from a Premier League perspective, I think that if you speak to the supporters of the clubs—Everton or Forest—they do not feel as though they have had that. There has been lots of confusion about the whole process and how punishment has been meted out. Then there is what happened with Manchester City—115 charges, but nothing as yet. Why would we not want to protect the integrity of the process—and the Premier League and, when it comes to that, the EFL? Why would we not want to give to the Independent Football Regulator the ability to mete out punishment in a fair and transparent manner?

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q What would you say is the biggest concern of those who do not necessarily want to see greater fan engagement? Do you think those are reasonable concerns or are they overstated?

Kevin Miles: To be honest, I think anyone running a club who does not want to engage with their fanbase is making a misjudgment. Even from a business point of view, I cannot imagine any other sector of the economy where a business has a customer base who are this incredibly brand-loyal. They are not going to wander off somewhere else. They want to see the business thrive and succeed, and will volunteer expertise and experience of opinion in how that business could be improved and taken forward. It is a customer base that is aware of the importance of clubs to communities and local areas. In any other sector of the economy, people would bite your hand off for the opportunity to have that sort of ingrained and free-of-charge input from a customer base. I find it partly incredible the idea that football clubs would have any different approach to it.

It is absolutely true that football fans can be fickle, extremely vocal, and very passionate about some of these issues. We must find the mechanisms for constructive engagement to harness that, but I would honestly say to anybody who thinks this will be a problem that they are misjudging their own fanbase. One of the things that came across in the fan-led review was the quality of the input and understanding from supporters’ organisations. They do not have a particular financial vested interest, but they are hugely invested not only in their own clubs, but in the pyramid of the game as a whole. That is a huge asset to the game.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I think it is the same with politicians.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions in this morning’s sitting. On behalf of the Committee, I would like to thank all our witnesses for their evidence. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm this afternoon in the Boothroyd Room to continue taking oral evidence. I ask Members to turn up five to 10 minutes early, just to sort out the lines of questioning.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mike Wood.)

Football Governance Bill (Second sitting)

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Rachel Hopkins]

Q How do you think EDI can be best incorporated into the regulator’s regime without going out of the scope of the Bill?

Niall Couper: When you look at it, there are a couple of things that clearly can be part of the Bill, such as the governance code. When you look at the governance code, that needs to include EDI representation, as you would see in nearly all other sports governance codes that exist. That is an obvious place. The other thing is the state of the game report, and I think we need to look at having proper benchmarking and seeing where we can improve. Fair Game has looked at a lot of this—we have done a lot of stuff on the gender divide and we are doing a lot of research on that—but we need to look at this issue as constantly going forward and improving. We cannot perform just tick-box exercises; it needs to be about developing real outcomes so that women and people from ethnic groups can feel safe within a football ground, and that is not the case.

On a side point, we have been doing some work on the women’s game and there is a significant difference in how that operates compared with the men’s game. The issue we have seen is that women are not feeling safe, and that is an area that we really need to address. Until we get to that position, we will have loads of steps and things we need to improve. Every single element in the Bill needs to address that and ensure that that goes forward and improves what we have. Going back to the Bill, I would say that 90% of it is pretty good, but there are bits that can be improved, and that is definitely one area that can be.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

Q I have been looking at the regulations that UEFA and FIFA have on their involvement generally in the governance of football, and their requirements about what Governments can and cannot do. We have tried to be very careful with setting up the regulator. How do you feel that interacts with some of the changes that you would like to see? Is there a big barrier, or is there anything that you think could be changed on that level that might be useful? How do you feel that affects the scope of what we can achieve? Has that been a big problem for you, would you say?

Simon Orriss: I don’t think it has. I have discussed it with a couple of colleagues—barristers and other people that I know in the profession—and the general consensus is that it is unlikely that some of the FIFA statute articles that prevent Government interference in the governance of the game would be enacted. In particular, we have looked at institutions in France and Spain, which don’t have a completely identical remit to what the IFR is proposed to do, but they have some role in regulating the sport in those countries, and FIFA has largely left them to that. Although it has been noted, as you have just done in your question, it has not been something that has got people terribly agitated.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q I want to ask quickly about grassroots football. My constituency has benefited from the Football Foundation, as I think most people’s around the table have. What positive role do you see this as having in encouraging more partners to work with organisations such as yourself? Is the Independent Football Regulator in a good place to help drive that, or is this again something where we are looking at the overarching security of other organisations that are going to be the ones pushing it? Is there a role for the football regulator to do more with your organisation?

Robert Sullivan: To be honest, I am not sure yet. I would be cautious about passing a judgment on that. If you pull back a level, what does the Football Foundation need? It needs two things really: it needs a very healthy and thriving elite end of the game that generates lots of excessive revenues that can be distributed back into the grassroots; and it needs the grassroots of the game to be excited, growing and wanting to have lots of kids getting out there and playing. To answer in a very broad sense, if the regulator is allowing that ecosystem of English football to continue to thrive—not only at the top end with more sustainability, and all the things that people talked about today, but with the game still generating crazy passion and demand from kids getting out there— that is brilliant for English football and the Football Foundation. There are going to be lots of people needing great pitches, and we are going to get out there and give everyone a great place to play.

[Matt Rodda]

Q Do you think the Bill does enough at the moment to ensure that fans have a meaningful say on what matters most to them? Also, are there areas where you would like to see the Bill go further, with further say for fans?

Niall Couper: I think there are gaps. We heard of one earlier, about the club heritage and the name. To my mind, these are simple amendments. Making sure that there is a proper fan consultation about a proposed name change is, to me, important. You strike on a cause that is close to my heart—I am an AFC Wimbledon fan. Today, 14 May, is a significant day for me: in 2002, the three-man FA commission began its deliberations about moving the club to Milton Keynes. I have had loads of messages about that—they all knew I was coming here—and for me, making sure that a club cannot move from its area is fundamental.

At the moment, that is not clear enough in the Bill, and I think it needs to be made fundamentally clear. It talks about financial considerations still being part of the conversation. As a Wimbledon fan, it was the financial considerations of a three-man commission that allowed us to lose the club. We would describe it as our place in the Football League being given to a town in Buckinghamshire. Effectively, that is what happened. For any other club, that needs to be addressed, and fans need to have their voice heard first in that particular conversation. At the moment—I will use this phrase, although I was trying desperately not to say it—the unintended consequence of the Bill is that it legitimises franchising. That is the bit that needs a red line put through it.

Football Governance Bill (Third sitting)

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Stephanie Peacock]

Q What action has been taken in the last five years by existing governance structures to improve diversity in football? Has it gone far enough?

Sanjay Bhandari: There are lots of really worthy initiatives and lots of good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions are not enough. Intentions do not change outcomes. It is outcomes that we want, and it is actions that change outcomes, not intentions and rules. There have been lots of things: the Premier League equality standard is a really good development; the football leadership diversity code had noble ambitions. But those are all members’ organisations with members’ rules. The rules can be changed by the members. They are not regulators: they are administrators. The leagues are just like your local golf club management committee. If the members of the golf club do not like the rules, they will change them if they think the members of the management committee are overstepping or overreaching, and that is the position we are in.

As an example, when we were creating the football leadership diversity code, one of the weaknesses we saw was that you do not have whole-workforce transparency. All you are doing is looking at the new hires. Say you hire five new people, and one is from an ethnic minority and two or three are women, you look like you have met the football leadership diversity code standard. But you have 500 employees. You have no idea how representative your entire workforce is. We feared at the time that that would be the weakness, and those fears have come to pass. Why could we not get the mandatory workforce transparency that we asked for during that process? The clubs would not agree to it. It is the golf club members agreeing the rules of the committee. That is why you need third-party regulation, to impose that from above.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

Q Good morning. A lot of the Bill talks about financial regulation, and the diversity and inclusion part of it has not played such a big role so far. Things such as quotas have been spoken about in the past. From your perspective, would you be in favour of quotas for people on boards or being interviewed for managers’ jobs? Do you believe they should be part of regulation? Or should it be left to the game?

Sanjay Bhandari: Just before I answer that, I should have said thank you for the opportunity to speak and for inviting me. I thank the Minister and the teams for their support and engagement throughout the last three years.

I think quotas are actually illegal in this country, because positive discrimination is illegal under the Equality Act 2010. You can have positive action, so you can have differential investments in talent, and leadership and talent programmes, but you cannot have quotas. What you can have is representation targets, but in practice, the way people may execute them is to see them as quotas, which can be quite negative. Ultimately, it is down to the regulator. It is down to the current flavour of what is going on in governance.

I was in one organisation where we set targets that actually helped to increase its performance. We were 17,500 in the UK and 300,000 globally, and in the business units that executed best on diversity, we could point to a one-point difference in margin. We could go to our partners and say, “Would you like more profit?” Funnily enough, they quite like that.

It depends on the particular issue. There are still some very stubborn areas of under-representation in English football. Black people make up 40% of players and 14% of the coaches qualified with a UEFA A licence, but only 4% of coaches. There is something going wrong in the recruitment system. South Asians are the single largest ethnic minority in the UK, but they make up only 10% to 15% of players at grassroots level, 0.5% of professional players, and 1% of the academies from age six. That is not acceptable. There is something going wrong in those recruitment processes. Those are the kinds of things that call out for targeting.

[Matt Rodda]

Q Thank you for your evidence this morning. Could you give us some examples of good practice by particular clubs?

Sanjay Bhandari: We see clubs like Brentford, which I worked with when it was recruiting independent non-executive directors. I helped to support that process. Having non-executive directors on the board is something that other people may talk about.

The Premier League is doing some good work trying to develop black coaches. An organisation called BAMREF has been working very effectively with the FA and Professional Game Match Officials Limited on developing the pipeline and pathway for Black and Asian referees and female referees. In many ways, that is one of the best examples of interventions that are connected across football, with a pathway to try to change the way the workforce looks. It is a relatively rare example. Football is a team sport, but not off the pitch. We are really not very good at teaming across, but that was a rare example of good teaming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda]

Q As you said, there have been some serious problems with owners, not least at Reading. Do you feel that the Bill does enough to tackle that, potentially, through the regulator? Also, do you feel that there is enough of a fan’s voice in the process of raising concerns about owners?

Sarah Turner: It is a good start, but there is probably more we can do. I do not know if the owners and directors test is a duplication of the ones that the EFL will do or whether it will hand that over to the independent regulator. We think there needs to be some real-time tracking of what is going on at clubs because they are continuously overspending and risk-taking. We think the regulator should be taking an overview all the time of what is going on, rather than just at the beginning when they purchase.

Alistair Jones: I concur on real-time accountability around accountancy. From looking back at 2016 when we were purchased, it would be—quite simply; I am a simple man—a great case study to look at. If we could look at West Bromwich Albion, when they were purchased in 2016, and use that as a case study, what if the same company came and purchased West Brom now? Would it still be allowed? If that were the case, quite frankly there would be no point in doing it because it has proven that it was a poor opportunity to buy the club.

Tim Payton: In our evidence, we put forward the importance that the independent non-executive director can have. Following up from what you heard from Sanjay, we think that it would be powerful having in the Bill the need to have two INEDS on the board of each club, and the regulator obviously could then set the guidance and framework. Of course, we already have that in the corporate governance code, which is set out in—I think you mentioned—the Companies Act. Where I see it linking across to other areas of the Bill is the INED under the corporate governance code already has a lead responsibility to consider stakeholders, and of course the stakeholders in football are the supporters.

When we look for improved fan engagement, we do not just look at the fan engagement standard, but to the INEDs on the board being there to ensure that effective fan engagement is taking place. Good INEDs are an early warning system to many other things going wrong. The Minister will be aware of the improvements that have come to national governing body governance through the corporate code. He inherited all that from the pioneering work that Tracey pushed through. I really hope we can have the same framework for the football clubs under the IFR.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q Supporters’ trusts vary quite widely; I used to be involved in one at Notts County many years ago. Many of them come to the fore when a club is in crisis or needs to be saved. We have been out with the buckets before. In some cases, supporters’ trusts get involved with the actual ownership of the club, and sometimes they are shareholders. Do you feel that a regulator could have helped with that process in the past? Is there a role in the future for helping supporters’ trusts if they want to get more involved? Might there also be the potential that they have some quite onerous requirements? Obviously, I am looking at some of the financial things that are talked about, and a lot of supporters’ trusts are volunteers, so they do not always come from those sectors. Do you feel that a regulator can help supporters’ trusts when they have that level of involvement with the club?

Sarah Turner: I think they probably can, but the FSA do a fantastic role in that. Your first port of call would always be to go to them, but the independent regulator may go over it on the financial side.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Okay. Alistair?

Alistair Jones: I agree. The FSA does a fantastic job for independent supporters’ trusts. It is more fitting for us to report into an FSA sort of body rather than directly into an independent regulator, if you want my honest opinion.

Tim Payton: The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust used to own shares in Arsenal and used that association to have a role in the governance. Unfortunately, we were squeezed out. Under companies law, somebody reached 95% and compulsorily took the shares off us. I do not see a practical way of going back to us being shareholders in the club any more, so I very much look to the Bill to, in effect, give us shadow ownership and powers going forward. I hope we see this Bill on the statute book and that it will help supporters have a more meaningful say in their clubs.

Alistair Jones: It is very difficult to give you an all-encompassing answer, because we have 12% of shareholders, represented by Shareholders for Albion. If it had not been for them telling people about the issues we have, it might have been a very different story for us at West Brom. So it is a very difficult to give an all-encompassing answer.

[Anna Firth]

Q I would like to ask about the distribution of broadcast revenue, particularly to the National League. Currently, for every £1,000 that a Premier League club gets from broadcast deals, a club like Southend gets just 57p. Given that the Premier League and the upper leagues benefit from the entire football pyramid, not just their member clubs, do you consider that to be a fair distribution? I think Sarah would be my closest ally here.

Sarah Turner: It is not, is it? It cannot be a fair distribution. The whole system and pyramid is not fair. That is one thing we would like the independent regulator to be looking at—how money could be distributed down. At Reading we looked at some of the players that have come forward and are starring in the Premier League, and they were made in the National League and the EFL—so yes, we think so.

Alistair Jones: I could not agree more in terms of the distribution, and it is not just because we are at the top of the Championship or in the Premier League. We believe that it cannot be right. There is no way that the top 20 clubs can have so much power in this country over the 72 below. It has got to change. We can point to the FA Cup replays being scrapped for rounds one and two. That was decided by the Premier League, and they are not even entering it until the third round. How can that possibly be right? It has to change.

Tim Payton: The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust is also your ally, because why did we fight the Super League so hard, together with the supporter groups at all the other big clubs? We wanted to fight the self-interest. What is football if Southend cannot dream of coming up to the Premier League? Football is about us all working together. It strengthens the pyramid, promotion and relegation, and the jeopardy. Everybody must be able to dream in football.