Independent Fan-led Review of Football Governance

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the pivotal role that our football clubs, and indeed many sports clubs, play in their community on an ongoing basis—and boy, did we see during the covid crisis how pivotal they were to their communities. I thank them for all the work they have done up and down the country in that regard. He is right that there are many elements in the report, some of which will require legislation. However, I repeat the appeal to the football authorities and football clubs: there are many recommendations in the report that make a lot of common sense, and they do not need to wait for legislation in order to move forward with changes on, for example, heritage, financial flows, aspects of governance and other things. In fact, I encourage them to start working and moving now.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I welcome the report from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). She and I share a passion in that we are both season ticket holders at Tottenham—and you have to be passionate about football if you are a season ticket holder at Tottenham at the moment. Yes, absolutely, the part about the regulator and all the other bits and pieces in the report are important. I agree a little bit with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) with regard to the money. One of the areas that is really critical is that a successful league attracts money. As co-chair of the all-party Magnitsky sanctions group, I want to make sure that in the end, when the Government implement those, at the heart of it is an ability to stop people bringing money into our sport that actually degrades it and comes in very dangerous and dodgy circumstances.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments; he is absolutely right. There are, understandably, recommendations in the report on the owners and directors test, which is also right. There is an inherent instinct for not really liking too much regulation, but in this case, with football being so unique and so special, because it has shown itself to be incapable of reforming itself, we have to move, albeit reluctantly. Ideally we would not have had to take these measures. He is also right about the huge success and the important economic value of football to this country. A report recently came out that said, for example, that inbound tourism of people going to football matches was worth £1.4 billion alone to the UK economy, with 1.5 million people coming to the country just to watch our football matches. We really do appreciate that value and want to make sure that football is even more successful in the future because it is so pivotal to our communities but also our economy.