Football Governance Bill [Lords]

Graham Stringer Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I agree very much with what my hon. Friend has said.

Let me deal with the subject of owners’ and directors’ tests. Football clubs are the pride of our towns and cities. New owners bring important investment, but they are also the guardians, the custodians, of clubs that have stood at the centre of our communities and our lives for more than 100 years. Fans grow up attending matches with parents and grandparents; later, they take their own children and grandchildren. These clubs are handed on from one generation to the next. They are institutions that—as the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) once wrote—help to shape and define us as we help to shape and define them, and they are too important to be used as playthings by people who have no stake or care for the community that owns them.

That is why the Bill introduces a fitness test for owners and directors, a source of wealth test for owners, and a requirement for adequate financial plans and resources, also for owners only. Prospective owners and directors will have to pass those tests before buying or joining a club. Incumbents will not automatically be tested, but the power exists, if there is concern about their suitability, to remove them if they are found unsuitable. This approach reduces the regulatory burden, and is targeted proportionately where there is a risk of harm. It will bring peace of mind to clubs, their staff and their fans, who deserve nothing less.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

I suspect that many in this Chamber will be surprised to hear that when I first supported Manchester United, “United will survive” was on the front of the match programme: the club were bankrupt, because the young men who were killed in the Munich air disaster were not insured, and it took a lot of effort to move on. My right hon. Friend is talking about directors and “right and proper” people. I think I speak for every Manchester United fan when I say that if the Bill does not enable the fans to get rid of the Glazers, who are sucking money out of Manchester United to support shopping centres in Florida, it is defective.

[Lisa Nandy]

We have purposefully set a high bar for incumbents, but it is right that the power exists.

Finally, I turn to the most important people: the fans. I said at the outset that the Bill maintains a tightly defined scope focused on financial sustainability and safeguarding heritage, and it will continue to take a light-touch, targeted and proportionate approach, but it is a new season and there is a new manager. Like all good managers, I could not resist making some well-timed substitutions to improve our odds of delivering on our manifesto commitment to make this country the best place in the world to be a football fan, and to deliver a Bill that is match fit. Too many fans have seen their teams’ owners change club badges and colours without any fan input, or have seen their club sell its stadium and up sticks until it is barely recognisable. Too many fans have watched as their clubs have tried to join closed-shop breakaway leagues against their wishes, and too many have seen their club struggle or even collapse under the weight of mismanagement and poor ownership.