Football Governance

Debate between Graham P Jones and Tom Greatrex

Thursday 9th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument on behalf of supporters. It can be seen in its purest form with FC United of Manchester, a club that started from nothing. It is building a multi-million pound stadium and gets regular decent attendances.

[Tom Greatrex]

My hon. Friend mentions another good example, of which there are many. FC United formed a club on the basis of issues around ownership of Manchester United and the takeover by the Glazer family. It would be much better if supporters were involved not at the point of crisis—not when everyone else walks away —but on a sustained basis. We have seen such examples. The Chair of the Select Committee mentioned Manchester City. In Scotland, the owner of Heart of Midlothian effectively persuaded fans to give up their shareholding and give it all over to him, because he had a great plan that was going to be the salvation of the club. Now look at the position they are in. That has happened on more than one occasion. The sustained involvement of fans will be much more valuable to the interest of clubs in the medium and long term, despite the difficulties and the misjudgments that different owners may make.

The other point that I want to make—again, it was in the Supporters Direct proposal, which is important—is about grounds. In many cases, football grounds and stadiums have strong links with the communities that the clubs serve and with the clubs themselves. Too often in the past we have seen situations in which teams end up, through different ownership structures, being separated from the grounds or moving out of their grounds for other reasons, and that creates all sorts of problems. As a Fulham supporter, I know about that. At various times we have come close to losing our ground, largely because the potential value of the ground’s real estate is higher than the value of running the club. That is due to an accident of geography—where the ground is.

There was a period in the mid-1980s when Fulham, Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea were owned by a property development company whose interest was not anything to do with the three football clubs, but to do with the potential value for development on those sites. At one point we were going to merge with QPR, but that got stopped. In 2001, the current owners of the club that was referred to earlier thought it would be a great idea for Fulham to move out and have a new ground near White City. In the end, that did not happen, partly because of the views of supporters who were able to persuade the club that its judgment was wrong. However, I am pleased to say that that position has changed and we are now on the same side as the club. Supporters are back at Craven Cottage and will hopefully be there for many years to come.

We need protection in the football licensing set-up that stipulates a club cannot leave a ground unless it has somewhere else to go.