Football Governance Bill (Third sitting)

Clive Betts Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

There is time for one more question.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Q To follow up on that, are you trying to achieve not a very detailed description in the Bill of what the regulator can and cannot do, but an acceptance that the regulator has an oversight of what football is doing to address the equality, diversity and discrimination issues, and the ability to comment—and step in if necessary—if football fails to address the problem?

Sanjay Bhandari: Our view is that the regulator should have the ability to have oversight in the way that any other regulator does, as a matter of governance, and that what should go in the governance code is what reflects contemporary best practice. In our experience, to drive change it is probably a couple of different things. There is the base standard and mandatory stuff, and we think the key to that is transparency reporting. Again, transparency is disinfectant. What there might then be is good and/or best practice guidelines, reflecting what is going on in other industries and in this industry. It would say, “Here are some examples of good or best practice that the good or the best institutions are doing,” and try to encourage change through that.

[The Chair]

Thank you for coming and for giving your evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Alistair Jones, Sarah Turner and Tim Payton gave evidence.