Independent Fan-led Review of Football Governance

David Johnston Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

I absolutely appreciate the sense of urgency, because one basis of the report was to ensure that some of the crises that we have seen in the sport do not happen again, so there is an urgent need for action. On the process, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is an independent report that the Government need to respond to formally. I do not want to pre-empt those conclusions today; we need to do some work. I can tell him, however, that my first meeting to discuss the response to the report happened this morning. I will then need to have some conversations with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is sitting next to me, about the process and where we go forward as well—I am sure that he also heard the comments of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore).

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for all her work on this excellent report. In my constituency, I have a series of very small clubs, such as Didcot Town, Wantage Town and Wallingford Town, which are often run on a shoestring by volunteers who put in their own money to keep them going. Can my hon. Friend the Minister assure me that, when he considers the report’s recommendations, he will think about how we can protect clubs such as those, not just clubs in the top two divisions? If they go, the community loses something important.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the pivotal role that clubs such as his play in their communities, as we have seen particularly in the last two years. It is vital that we put them on a sustainable and sound footing, so financial flows within the football ecosystem were part of the review. There is a lot of money in football, but it is not always in the right place.