Football Governance Bill

James Daly Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Like many across this Chamber, I thank those from across the political sphere, those within the footballing community and those who led the fan-based review because their work is finally coming to fruition with the Second Reading debate of the Bill. The referee, in the shape of the independent football regulator, will finally be on the pitch. We are beginning that journey. It is particularly fitting that this takes place on St George’s Day, as the English nation gave the world the beautiful game. That nation now needs to put its house in order, for the many and not the few, to ensure that the pyramid effectively works for leagues across the beautiful English game.

As has been echoed across the Chamber, by Members of all political persuasions, we are only in this space because the premier league and those who govern our beautiful game have not got their house in order. That hands-off the pitch and that laissez-faire approach certainly has not worked for our fans, our clubs and, importantly, our communities. That has been mentioned in reference to Bury FC, one of our oldest football clubs in the country, certainly in the north-west of England where I represent. They were expelled from the football league amid rising debts and financial problems. There have been other notable and documented examples at clubs like Bolton Wanderers, Derby County and, recently, Reading football club.

These, and other clubs—we reckoned there were around 60 such clubs—had a number of common factors: unfit owners, greed, asset selling, poor governance and long-standing alienation of the fan base. There was total disregard for history, identity, emotions and communities. This laissez-faire, anything goes approach—the wild west of football—must be brought to a full stop. To drive that, the new, independent football regulator must have teeth, with strong rules to ensure that our great footballing clubs have fit and proper owners. I would certainly like to see more clubs owned and controlled by their fanbase. We have great examples of that in my constituency, including Northwich and Runcorn Linnets, who only this weekend I saw beat our rivals Widnes.

We want to see sustainable financial plans, with fans at the heart and soul of those clubs to protect assets such as stadiums and historical identities. People have referenced that—it is certainly in the Bill—in regard to kits and badges; those things are vital.

I am a long-standing Manchester United fan, so I am familiar with problems of ownership. The Glazers, who have already been referenced, bought the club on the never-never. They were one of the richest football clubs in the world; they are now one of the most indebted, and that really has affected our performance on the pitch, which has been pretty woeful this year, including in the FA cup semi-final. I pay credit to Coventry, who played incredibly well, while we played incredibly badly. But the problems on the pitch come down to some problems with the ownership.

I gave up my Manchester United season ticket long ago—it was a difficult decision to make—because of the Glazers. I echo the clarion call—I did so at the time with my protest scarf and all the rest of it—that the Glazers really must go. Perhaps we are on the start of that journey, with some new ownership.

I am a Cheshire and Merseyside MP, and quite a number of my constituents are Everton fans, who have been aggrieved by recent point deductions. Some of those have been on financial issues—the purchasing of a stadium, and certainly players—but fairness is a real bone of contention. Everton have been deducted 10 points —a high number. That has gone to appeal and so forth, yet they look at other clubs across Britain, such as the Manchester Cities and Chelseas of this world—by the way, Manchester City have had 115 breaches—and see that those who have incredibly deep pockets, financed by sovereign wealth funds, seem to get away with it because they can afford the litigation. Of course, Manchester City are not the only ones—I have referenced Chelsea, and there are certainly others.

We have mentioned fit and proper ownership for our clubs. How can it be right that sovereign wealth funds of foreign states with woeful human rights records own Great British—English—football clubs such as Newcastle United? It has been fairly well documented that one such nation state had managed to execute more of its citizens than a striker for Newcastle United had put balls in the back of the net. That is horrendous.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

The hon. Member—as he knows, I am from the same part of the world as him—is making some excellent points. He touched on Bury FC in my constituency. I am interested in fairness in football. In the FA cup semi-final at the weekend, we saw Manchester United—the winners as a result of about 1 mm in a video call—get £1 million, while Coventry City got £500,000. For all that we in the Chamber talk about fairness in a general way, does he believe that that is a fair share of the moneys in the circumstances?

[Mike Amesbury]

Clearly not, and I think that there is space for the regulator to intervene. As has been referenced, the FA cup can be a lifesaver for grassroots clubs. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who is no longer in his place, mentioned Gillingham, and I think that Bristol Rovers were also mentioned. Again, the issue is financial sustainability. The regulator should intervene to ensure that the FA makes the right decisions for all our clubs, right across the pyramid.

Like many Members across the Chamber, I think the Bill is great for the football community, and I credit all those who have been involved. It is very important that we have the fans at the heart of this. There are some issues, which hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned, to do with competition and the parachute payments, which are distorting the footballing community, but overall I very much welcome and support this Bill.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who touched on the important issues in this debate. I particularly appreciate the way he very gently touched on the cost of the kit and of the badge, which I think follows on from his campaign to make school uniforms affordable. That is such an important issue.

I also appreciate how the hon. Member for Rochdale (George Galloway) captured that sense that football fans are not just customers who can go to one supermarket or another. There is so much more about football. It is not just about a strong fan base, the acquisition of the right players, having good management and other things that we would associate perhaps with a corporation; it is about the family, the next generation, that sense of community and wellbeing, and people going to the stadium, walking together in solidarity to see their club. That is what football is about for so many communities up and down the country.

When Bolton fell into very difficult times recently, and—looking not too far away—when Bury went into administration in 2020, it was a traumatic experience for many football fans, even those watching an opposing team. Bolton came very close to being in that position, but since then we have regained our strength and improved our position. At the moment we are third in league one. We are in the play-offs—and if Peterborough and Derby do the right thing and lose very badly with a huge goal difference, we might be in the automatic play-off position.

[James Daly]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible point, which not many people will know: Bury and Bolton were in essentially the same financial situation. Both had gone into administration at the same time. The regulator decided to expel Bury from the EFL and keep Bolton in the league. The suspicion was that, with Bolton being a bigger club than Bury, the regulator did not want to get rid of them, but poor little Bury could be used as an example. I think that is an example of why regulation is needed in this sphere.

[Chris Green]

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns. The idea of one club of the status of Bury tumbling out of the English football league was pretty grim, but to have two clubs do so would have been catastrophic for the EFL.

I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to fans and clubs and brought forward this Bill to secure the game’s future in England. The game’s fractured governance model and the inequitable distribution of finances are increasingly putting the future of the sport in England at risk. In the coming debates on the passage of this Bill, Parliament has the opportunity to give the new independent football regulator the right powers to ensure the game’s sustainability for the good of the football pyramid, from the grassroots to the heights of the premiership.

Any attempt to weaken the IFR’s powers or to make it a passive and ineffective entity should be strongly resisted. A particular concern, brought to my attention by Ian Bridge of Bolton Wanderers Supporters Trust, relates to part 6 of the Bill on financial distribution, where questions over parachute payments have not been ruled out, and to whether the Bill in its current form can deliver on its objective of protecting the financial sustainability of English football.

I look forward to supporting this Bill throughout all its stages. I think the debate has been incredibly constructive. The Bill may need a little further refinement, but I welcome the work and efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch) and of the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) .

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

First of all, we are here today because football has failed to regulate itself over many years. It is our job as parliamentarians to ensure that, in the end, we regulate on the behalf of football fans for now and for the future, and for the communities where our football clubs are based. That is our job. I will just begin by thanking those who have got us to this position: the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch), certainly; the Minister for sticking with it and bringing the Bill before the House today; and the EFL, the PFA, the Football Supporters’ Association and Fair Game for their advice. I even had a conversation with the Premier League, but let us say that that conversation did not lead to as much agreement as other conversations I have had with other football organisations.

This is not a Bill to destroy the Premier League, as some have tried to present it, including the Premier League itself. The Premier League has been a massively successful organisation. It has brought unimaginable wealth into football and into this country. The legislation is not here to destroy the Premier League, but to ensure that its great strength, its financial resources, can be used as a basis on which to strengthen the whole of the football pyramid. It is just a pity that the Premier League itself does not see it like that. It does not see its responsibility to the wider football game, but instead so often seems intent on narrowly focusing its attention on supporting the handful of clubs that are within the Premier League.

We just have to look at the other successful brand in English football: the pyramid. There is no other football pyramid like it in the world. The championship has the fifth-highest attendances of any league in Europe. Where else could you go on a Sunday afternoon to a second-tier relegation game and get 7,500 fans not in the home end but in the away end? Sheffield Wednesday did that at Blackburn on Sunday—and won, I hasten to add, giving ourselves hope of salvation. That is the strength there, but the incredible power of the Premier League’s resources is slowly beginning to corrode and erode the basis of the whole football pyramid. That is what we have to stop and what we have to act on.

In very simple figures, 25 clubs—not just the 20 clubs in the premier league, but the other five that are in and out of it on a regular basis—get 92% of the distributed resources within football. The other clubs in the EFL get 8%. That simply is not sustainable, and we have seen that gap grow and grow over the years. It is not just a static problem; it is an increasing problem that undermines the whole of the football pyramid.

Does the Bill, as it stands, deal with that fundamental challenge? The process for a review of football finance is far too bureaucratic. Why not give the regulator the up-front power to come to a decision about the distribution of football’s resources that makes individual clubs sustainable, and competition within and between the leagues sustainable? That is a simple remit. Let them get on with it, rather than going through this process right the way through to a backstop, knowing that the leagues have already had a chance to reach an agreement which they have signally failed to do. The Premier League never made a single offer right through the process from the very beginning.

With the parachute payments excluded from the backstop, the Minister risks destroying his own Bill. If the Bill remains as it stands, we will not achieve a sensible and appropriate redistribution of revenue. I think that has been said right across the House and we simply have to change it. I am happy to table an amendment in Committee. I hope the Minister might think about how the Government might accept such an amendment, because it will be needed to strengthen the Bill.

Is the distribution of resources simply a matter for the EFL and the Premier League, or do the fans, players and grassroots not have a view? Should there not be a wider process, at least a consultation, so that the regulator has the up-front power and also consults those groups in reaching a final conclusion? It is just strange that something that began with a fan-led review does not mention fans in that very important part.

I welcome the general approach of the licensing system. As has been pointed out, we have had too many bad owners and directors in football, and we still have some around.

[James Daly]

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman says. There are some very important points regarding redistribution, but there is also a very important point about the competent management of football clubs. The Derby County situation is an example, because the owner had £400 million in cleared funds when the club was bought. What happened to Derby was a result of how badly it was managed after the initial test. That is a real challenge for this Bill.

[Mr Betts]

My understanding is that it will be a test of the licensing system. It is about ensuring sustainability, and not just when an owner comes along and says they want to buy a club. They need to show that they can actually sustain that ownership going forward. That is the difference between the current rules and the rules that are being proposed, which we can test further in Committee.

Can the regulator really regulate sovereign wealth funds that own clubs? I have asked the Minister about that before, and it is something else that we have to look at, because it is a challenge to the system. I welcome the fact that fans will have a veto over their club changing its colours or name, but there is nothing in the Bill that says that fans have to be consulted about a change of grounds. The regulator has to approve it, but there is no right for fans to be consulted. We need to have a look at that.

I come back to my own club, Sheffield Wednesday—I have mentioned them once, and I will mention them again. They welcome the proposals and the EFL’s approach to the review, and they recognise the need for a change in the distribution of resources. I am not sure that the owner will be that enthusiastic about the change to require him to consult the fans properly. Many owners are like that—they want to go through the motions. Are they really going to engage in a meaningful way? That will be a real challenge for the regulator at a number of clubs. I understand why the form of consultation is not specified, but it will still be a challenge going forward and we need to keep an eye on it.

Finally, I come back to the FA cup. The Minister said it is not our job to get involved in football competitions, but the fan-led review was triggered by some clubs wanting to change the competition they play in by going to the European super league. That involved a handful of rich clubs deciding that they could be better off there. We now have a handful of rich clubs deciding that European games are more important than FA cup replays—that is what is happening.

When Arsenal won the FA cup in 1979, they had five replays, four of which were against Sheffield Wednesday in one round. I remember it all these years later, because it was a great achievement. Three of those replays were at the old Filbert Street ground. We remember those things as football fans, and we should not take them away from the game. I say to the Minister that one of the requirements of the regulator is to ensure that the heritage of English football is safeguarded. Will the regulator have the power to do that under the Bill’s rules, and is the FA cup and its replays not part of the heritage?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

This is a unique regulatory Bill, in that it regulates the preservation of football clubs—in my view, it is regulation to save something, rather than regulation regarding competition. It is illogical to suggest that anything could level the competition between Bury football club and Manchester City, in terms of their assets or in terms of anything else.

When Bury FC were rejected from the EFL, at the heart of the matter were the serious concerns that Jonathan Taylor KC raised in his review: the owner and director roles that were being enforced by the football league, especially in relation to leagues one and two. In that report, he said that

“There is no doubt that the EFL applied the OAD”—

owners and directors—

“test properly in relation to Mr Day and Mr Dale”,

the two owners of Bury football club.

“The question is whether the test as currently written is fit for purpose. In particular, it only looks at a narrow list of objective criteria, and does not take into account various other factors that speak to whether a new owner or director is a fit and proper person to own/run a member Club.”

When Mr Dale bought the club for £1, the fact that he had numerous previous failed businesses was not taken into account. The owners and directors test did not require that Mr Dale provide proof of funds—proof that he was able to sustainably run the football club—prior to purchase. That is utterly ludicrous and something that has to change, so I hope the Minister will touch on how the Bill will ensure that the regulation and the fit and proper person test are robust enough to keep people such as Steve Dale out of the ownership of clubs.

I find myself asking time and again how a regulator will be able to intervene in the running of football clubs, unless they have a huge amount of support staff. I accept fully that a business plan is put in place, but business plans can change. The situation at Bury was virtually criminal. On the car park at Gigg Lane, which was built in 1885, the previous owner sold 250 car parking spaces in a Ponzi scheme, some of them to poor Bury fans. These were essentially sold as a financial product that people would get a return from. He was selling these things to people around the world, and when the money ran out, the whole thing went boom. Nobody did anything about that. That was a unique situation, but would the regulator have the powers, the understanding and the knowledge to be able to intervene in acts of complete criminality such as that? I hope that it will, and I would very much welcome the Minister’s response to that.

Speaking of my experience of Bury Football Club, I was at Ramsbottom United on Saturday and 2,000 people were there. It was a North West Counties Premier League match between Ramsbottom and Bury. Bury bringing the best part of 2,000 people with them gave Ramsbottom United 25% of their total annual income. When we look at what it is about clubs that matter—the history, the heritage and everything else that we have talked about—we have to get to the heart of how clubs are run. After somebody gets through the fit and proper person test, after the first business plan fails and after the ambition comes in, how is the regulator going to be able to control that unless they have a massive amount of staff?

In my view, football clubs throughout the pyramid system are incredibly badly run. Most of them are subsidised by multimillionaires, and in any other way, shape or form they would not be businesses; they would be insolvent. They exist off largesse. We have seen some really great examples of clubs coming through the football pyramid that are completely and utterly reliant on one person’s millions. If that one person’s millions disappear, there is no football club. How do we regulate that in a way that allows for sustainability? Bury was badly run. It was badly let down by the EFL. I think and hope that if this legislation had been in place when the club was expelled from the league in 2019, it would have put the club in a better place. I will put a question mark after that, and I look forward to hearing my right hon. Friend the Minister’s comments.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Daly Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman is right: libraries fulfil a vital role in our local communities. The partnership between central Government, DCMS through various funds and, of course, the huge amount of money—about £600 million—that local authorities put into library services, is really important. If there are particular issues and councils are closing down libraries inappropriately, the Secretary of State could possibly get involved. If the hon. Gentleman faces that situation, he should please let us know.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Bury Transport Museum, which is part of the east Lancashire heritage railway in my constituency, not only preserves our regional automotive and steam engine heritage, but is a centre for education and skills training. I thank my hon. Friend for the hundreds of thousands of pounds that have been invested in the institution from the culture recovery fund. Will he agree to visit that brilliant museum and view its proposed £10 million project at Buckley Wells to preserve the world’s oldest continuously in-use steam engine locomotive shed?

English Football League Governance: Derby County FC

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I do not accept the allegation that the Government have been dragging their feet. It was the Government who commissioned the fan-led review in the first place, and we have accepted its recommendations in principle. Detailed work is now taking place to get it implemented. As I said in response to a previous question, we need to make sure the details are right. Although we are acting with urgency, we do not want to act so fast that we make a mistake in the legislation. On putting fans at the centre, the clue is in the name: it is a fan-led review.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said in her excellent contribution that if this could happen to Derby, it could happen to anybody. Well, it did: it happened to Bury football club. When it happened to Bury football club, the fans paid the price. It was the fault of the owners, not the fault of the fans. When that process happened—Ministers on the Front Bench know I was intimately involved in it—the English Football League did not care. It did not care about any of the thousands of fans of Bury football club who were impacted by its decision to expel the club from the league. We are not talking about the local branch of Tesco. Football clubs are engines for social and economic good. They are the history and heartbeat of communities. I do not have the words to describe the impact on thousands of people in my constituency of Bury football club disappearing.

It is time for the English Football League to show that it cares, and not do what it did with Bury. It destroyed a club and nearly destroyed a town. I am not underscoring that; that is how much of an impact it had. I urge the Minister to do whatever is necessary to protect the fans of Derby. I have seen on a daily basis in my constituency what such a situation does to the fans of a football club who care about and love their club, and care about and love their town. That is bigger than all the rules in the world. The situation has got to be sorted out. Please do everything possible to protect Derby fans and please do not make the mistakes that happened with Bury.

[Chris Philp]

I think there is agreement across the House that what happened to Bury football club was a catastrophe for the local community. We must make sure the same does not happen to Derby County. All of us, on both sides of the House, will understand how devastating it is when a local football club disappears, as Bury did. Let us hope and take action to ensure that that never happens again. I am very sorry to hear my hon. Friend’s assessment of the EFL’s conduct in the Bury football club situation. I can only repeat my plea, or demand, to the EFL to acts rapidly and pragmatically. Once again, to make sure these things do not happen again, the independent fan-led review and the Government response to it is vital. Just to be clear and to clarify, the Government accept the principle of an independent regulator and are studying very carefully the other recommendations. We will respond as soon as we can.

Independent Fan-led Review of Football Governance

James Daly Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman. We have had many discussions about football and I know of his interest. In fact, most people in the House today have shown great passion and enthusiasm for football over many, many years and have all contributed to the review. He is right to point out that the regulator needs adequate powers. That is exactly the kind of thing that we are looking at and he will be well aware as well that, in the report, there are recommendations about flow of finance. I do not believe that we can completely divorce governance from financial flows, so, in our response—and I cannot pre-empt the response today—those will be exactly the kind of things we will be considering.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I welcome this report and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). As the review states, Bury FC was founded in 1885,

“existed through countless economic cycles, several wars and 26 different Prime Ministers”—

but—

“ceased to exist in 2018-19 with a devastating impact on the local economy and… a devastated fan base”.

So although I fully support the recommendations—they are our vision for the sport going forward—the town of Bury should not be left behind. Does the Minister agree that, as Bury FC is mentioned 15 times in the review, one thing that should come out of this is that all stakeholders should work together to ensure that the community buys Gigg Lane for the people of Bury, allowing football to continue in our historic stadium?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. We have had many conversations about the situation in Bury. Indeed, I support the goals of trying to get Bury back again in some form, as it is so important. One of the underlying principles and thrusts of this very review is to make sure that another Bury situation never happens again. I agree with what he is saying and I would be happy to provide what support I can to him directly.

Football Governance

James Daly Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis]

In advance of the debate, I spoke to members of the Foxes Trust, who were very complimentary about the dialogue they have with Leicester City’s owners. I know the hon. Gentleman was buzzing from Leicester City’s recent FA cup victory, and I am sure he will be cheering on Blighty in the upcoming game against Scotland; I will not put him on the spot with that one, but I am sure he will, secretly.

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. Football clubs are massively important to the history and identity of their communities. In fact, communities were built around such clubs, as we saw in Bury. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) has banged on relentlessly about that; I do not think there is any doughtier a champion for Bury football club’s return to its proper ways. In Burslem, the mother town of Stoke-on-Trent, is Port Vale, surrounded by the terraced houses of the old potbank workers. It very much is the beating heart of the community, as the Minister saw at first hand when he recently came to visit.

As Angus says about the 50+1 model, having fans in charge of key voting rights around the club would help to stop the clear greed of some owners and would allow clubs to be run in a way that benefits the fans, local communities and the good of the game. Clearly, there are some good owners who run their clubs sustainably and allow fans a good level of access to the behind-the-scenes running of the club. My bias will be obvious, but I will mention the Wembley of the north, Port Vale football club’s Vale Park, and Stoke-on-Trent’s second team, Stoke City; obviously I was being sarcastic there, before I get a deluge of abuse on Facebook. I am very lucky to have Port Vale in my constituency and Stoke City FC within the community. Both are run in a truly sustainable and fan-friendly way. To give just a few examples, Stoke City offer free travel for their fans and have frozen their season ticket prices for 14 successive years. Port Vale recently became the English football league community club of the year, having distributed more than 300,000 meals to local people in need during the pandemic. It also has the Port Vale Foundation; with the Hubb Foundation, it was one of the early pioneers in the holiday activities programme, which started in 2017 with the Ay Up Duck programme.

A small club, Milton United football club, raised £1,000 for a local lad, Ashton Hulme, who is getting a top-quality prosthetic leg. Sadly, due to a rare type of bone cancer, he lost his leg, and the academy at Crewe Alexandra have been doing fantastic work to support Ashton and his family at this difficult time, with more than £110,000 raised by local givers. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, there are great clubs in the Premier League, such as Leicester City football club. The Foxes Trust tell me that it is broadly happy with how the club’s owners operate and the access it gets to the inner running of its club.

There are many more examples of owners who do not operate in this way, so I agree that there needs to be some reform, giving fans greater input into their clubs. There must surely be a way to protect key aspects of clubs, which are so much more than just businesses, so that their identities are not changed unrecognisably and they are run sustainably. However, the 50+1 model is not realistic for English football. It is hard to see how this kind of ownership structure could be brought in. I also have concerns about the impact it could have on our game. A range of voices, unsurprisingly including club owners but also fan groups, have said that the 50+1 model could seriously discourage investment.

In Germany, which made the 50+1 model famous, Bayern Munich has now won the Bundesliga nine years in a row. There is no significant investment into other clubs in the German league—unless we look at RB Leipzig, for example, where the fans and supporters are all Red Bull employees. One could say that that brings the beautiful game in Germany into disrepute. I do not think that anyone wants to see such things in our country. The 50+1 model is not the only reason, but it does seem to prevent ambitious owners coming forward. Frankly, owners will not want to invest in a club without being able to control its direction. If the 50+1 model is not the answer, what is?

One way to safeguard clubs for fans was suggested by Gary Neville. We could look at the 50+1 model as a veto or a voting structure rather than an ownership structure. Something along the lines of a golden vote on key decisions could be viable. To make changes to the club on heritage issues such as the name and location of the stadium, owners would need to seek the approval of supporters. Another option, as suggested by the Football Supporters’ Association, would be to let supporters buy equity in their club up to a certain percentage—10% or 15%, say—to give them a real say in how the club is run.

As well as giving fans more say in how their clubs are run, wider issues in football need addressing. That is really the crux of the debate and brings me to the second petition, which calls for the introduction of a new, independent football regulator. The petition, which was started by Alex Rolfe, calls for the Government to use the fan-led review of football’s governance to establish an independent regulator. Alex says:

“Like a referee, an independent regulator would safeguard our beautiful game impartially.”

He says that a regulator

“could protect the game against another attempt at a super league or other efforts to put money ahead of fans.”

Gary Neville and Alex agree that, like water companies, energy providers, financial services and the media:

“Football matters to millions and should also have a regulator of its own.”

It does seem that without an independent regulator, the glaring issues in English football will not be resolved. There is no overall leadership, so vested interests continue to prevail. The financial disparity between rich and poor has become obscene, frankly. The game is devoid of agreed priorities. The high-ups in football all know what the problems are, but to date there has been no collective will or incentive for the decision makers to get on with sorting it out.

As many of the people I have spoken to before today have spelled out, the issues are financial disparity and unsustainability, owner suitability rules, a power structure that is fundamentally out of balance, societal issues such as racism and homophobia in the game, and the exploitation of clubs and fans. Gary Neville put it well when he said that the banking crisis was the moment an independent regulator was needed. The European super league is the equivalent crisis in football, and if we are to ensure that the game remains something that we can enjoy as fans, as well as export around the world, the crunch time has arrived.

I will give a few examples to illustrate the scale of the problems. The team placed 20th in the premier league—thankfully, it is not my team, Fulham, which my grandmother indoctrinated me into supporting at the age of five—gets £100 million, whereas the winner of the championship gets just £6 million. Financial sustainability is in real danger, with clubs in the championship spending £837 million on wages despite receiving only £785 million of income in 2018-19.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has just made the key point. The fixed costs and wage structure of 99% of teams involved in English football are completely unsustainable. The wages paid out currently are simply unaffordable. My team, Bury, had 3,000 or 4,000 people watching every two weeks, and players were paid thousands upon thousands. How do we address that problem?

[Jonathan Gullis]

I know that Gary Neville is actually working on the salary cap committee that the EFL has set up to have a look at that very thing. My hon. Friend is right. Although Gary Neville used the term “redistribution of wealth”—as a Conservative, that made me shudder at the idea of socialism coming down the line—he meant that, at the end of the day, the Premier League holds all the wealth.

The Minister spent what probably felt like a long 10 months locked in a room with the head of the Premier League and the head of the EFL to come to some sort of consensus on bailing out clubs such as my beloved Port Vale in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. It should not have taken 10 months to come to that conclusion. Ultimately, football is for the fans, and in that moment, the fans were almost forgotten. I am very grateful to the Minister, who spoke regularly with me and other Members from across the House to keep us informed about what was going on in the negotiations. I am very grateful that he was able to bang heads together and get that important deal over the line.

Stoke City football club is owned by those who run Bet365, and although it would openly submit that it is not in need of financial support, it is very aware of clubs around it and below it that are, including Port Vale, which gets similar crowds to Bury. We need to see a fair share of the money in football trickling down, particularly to the grassroots, where the future generations will be coming through.

Those in the premier league have so much power that they can set their own punishment. The big six premier league clubs have been able to decide their own punishment for trying to break away and join the ESL, paying just £3.6 million each as a gesture of good will. Let us put that into context. These clubs spent more than £150 million over the last year on agents’ fees alone, and they seem to think that offering £3.6 million each is a suitable punishment for trying to destroy our beautiful game. Football has proven itself incapable of sorting itself out, and there is now a widespread consensus that an independent regulator is needed.

What would that independent regulator look like? We all agree that for a regulator to have real bite, it must be independent of current structures such as the premier league clubs and the FA. It must sit above the existing bodies and be able to enforce targets and judgments without the game structures. As voices such as the former Governor of the Bank of England Lord King have emphasised, the regulator will need an emphasis on financial as well as legal knowledge, to enable it to decide on new ways of distributing funds to the wider game, based on a funding formula to spread funding more fairly throughout the English football pyramid. This will also be important in introducing a new, proper, robust process to check owners before they take on a club. Indeed, it is not just the fans I spoke to who agreed on the need for a proper test of an owner’s suitability; that opinion was also shared by the owners I spoke to.

Supporters’ groups and those with experience of the game at the highest level agree that the regulator must not have any role in how the game is played. For example, it must not have a role in deciding on the place of VAR—the video assistant referee—in football, but must be limited to governance issues. There is also the question of how long a regulator would need to operate for. There seems to be a consensus among a cross-section of people involved in football that the FA should really be the regulator. However, it is a commercial organisation, as well as having some regulatory functions, so it does not really work. It is also reliant on the Premier League for its income, so is not independent in any meaningful way. An independent regulator could be set up, lead change in the game for a few years and then hand over to the FA once it has been made fit for purpose.

On the societal problems in football such as racism and homophobia, as well as representation of different groups, there are already targets in place. However, a regulator could enforce those targets and punish those who continue to pay only lip service to them. As David Davies—former executive director of the FA and member of the Our Beautiful Game campaign group—has said, football has the power to be a fantastic force for good. How to enable it to be a power for good is the question.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott, and, as ever, to take part in any debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) is involved in. What we have just heard is what football is about. I am fed up to the back teeth of football being talked about through the prism of only five or six clubs in the premier league who think that they have a God-given right to dominate football and to decide what happens to other clubs in their vicinity. I would not have believed the lack of care within English football from those major clubs, the EFL and the FA regarding Bury until I became an MP and found out the complete negligence of the history, hope and passion that has just been displayed.

Every single person in Bury was let down and nobody cared, and still nobody cares. I support the call for an independent regulatory body. Bury football club is not very important to the football pyramid—two times FA cup winners. Gigg Lane was built in 1885, and is one of the oldest football stadiums in the world. Along with Ashington and Greenwich in London, we produce more English footballers than any other town. Stewart Day took over the club in 2013. Four years later, wages had jumped threefold to £4.5 million. This was the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. During the same period, the club’s revenues grew by less than 50% to £3.2 million. That meant that Bury was spending 140% of its entire turnover on wages. The club was persistently late paying other clubs and making loan payments. The EFL and the football regulatory bodies did nothing. When Mr Day’s property business collapsed, the club was effectively insolvent. The EFL and the FA knew that and did nothing. What they did was allow the club to be taken over by a man called Steve Dale.

I would need hours to talk about Steve Dale. He took over the club for £1 with no way of funding it. That situation was a scandal, and it led to my town’s club being kicked out of the league. This does not just involve Parliament; it involves passion. I have seen personally how people in Bury have been affected by the loss of something that for 70 or 80 years people have been going to watch. It is part of their lives, their heritage, and what makes them proud of the town of Bury. The big premier league clubs around us did nothing. Manchester United and Manchester City did not come knocking on the door, saying, “What can we do to help?” There was nothing, and no local authority. The fans of Bury have been left to themselves.

The recent debate regarding the EFL super league was very nice. It suited certain people on TV to be outraged by that, but those same people never defended Bury or AFC Wimbledon because they do not care. Once we have, hopefully, a regulator that can at least give some responsibility to the football league pyramid that we have, perhaps that care will be back in the system.

European Football Proposal

James Daly Excerpts

Finance (No. 2) Bill: (Freeports (Stamp Duty Land Tax)) (Ways and Means) & Ways and Means resolution
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

May I begin by sharing in the hon. Gentleman’s congratulations to the Northern Ireland women’s football team? That was a fantastic result and I was very cheered to see it.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is not confined to the UK. The premier league and English football are loved globally, and we can see the reactions in France, Spain and Italy: it is not just here in the United Kingdom that we feel dismayed at the proposals that have been put forward—that feeling is near-universal.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this proposal is motivated by greed and shows contempt for fans and the footballing pyramid? Does he also find it sad that while the boards at Manchester United and Manchester City were negotiating this proposal to make millions of pounds for their owners, they and others did nothing to save their local neighbour Bury FC, whose fans were also betrayed by an owner who had attempted to profit from its heritage and history?

[Oliver Dowden]

I am sympathetic to the concerns raised by my hon. Friend, and I would also note that many clubs, including some that are seeking to break away with the announcement last night, have benefited enormously from Government and taxpayer support, and they should think carefully about the duty they owe to taxpayers in return and whether they are discharging it with these proposals.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

The spending of DCMS has provided vital financial support to cultural and sporting facilities throughout the pandemic, and the Chancellor’s recent Budget announcements will continue to support the sector in recovery and offer new opportunities and hope to communities such as mine in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington. The Met theatre, the East Lancs railway and the Lancashire Fusiliers museum have all received Government support, allowing them to continue their fantastic work, improving the social and economic life of Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington.

The announcement of a further £300 million to extend the culture recovery fund is most welcome and will allow cultural assets to be at the centre of the recovery from covid-19. This is the crucial point: sport, culture and heritage must be at the centre of our social and economic recovery. I speak as chair of the northern culture all-party group, and every city and town in my region has its own unique cultural offer. To take advantage of that, we need further national, regional and local investment.

I was therefore delighted with the Chancellor’s announcement of the £150 million community ownership fund. In Ramsbottom, the Co-op theatre has recently been listed by the Secretary of State. Built in the 1870s, it is one of only five in the country and still has its original interior fittings. That heritage asset has sat dormant for decades, but now, hopefully, through the efforts of local campaigners, a potential source of funding could safeguard the theatre for everyone. This Government investment would add a further layer to the deep cultural offer within Ramsbottom, which could help transform the town as we come out of restrictions, creating jobs, bringing visitors and investment to the area and improving life chances and opportunities. I hope that this type of national funding model in important community assets will be at the heart of DCMS funding going forward.

The DCMS should also take every opportunity to invest and harness the power of sport, both at grassroots and professional levels, so I welcome the sports recovery package announced in the Budget. The people of Bury, through no fault of their own, lost their professional football club, and its historic home Gigg Lane is currently dormant. Gigg Lane has, for more than 100 years, provided jobs, supported economic activity in the town and been central to Bury’s identity, and its sporting and cultural offer.

I am delighted that the Government have announced, through the community ownership fund, a means by which the site can be potentially bought for everyone in Bury. DCMS spending going forward must continue to support cultural assets, but be innovative in providing moneys for projects that unite communities. It should never be underestimated how central to the cultural, social and economic recovery of my town a thriving community-owned Gigg Lane would be. This would be the definition of building back better and levelling up.

DCMS has provided funding to enable the UK and Ireland to bid for the 2030 World cup. If successful, I truly hope that Gigg Lane will be in a position to host a match. What a cultural and sporting success story that would be both nationally and locally, and it would be testament to the moneys that this Government are investing now in the cultural and sporting sectors.

Covid-19: Cultural and Entertainment Sectors

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

In Greater Manchester, the importance to our area of the cultural sector cannot be overstated. The visitor economy in GM is worth £2.6 billion per annum and supports 105,000 jobs. The digital and creative industries are worth £4.4 billion gross value added each year and support 78,500 jobs. Music alone contributes £169 million to the regional economy every year. However, we must not see culture and the arts as the preserve of cities and established cultural centres. In Bury, The Met theatre is a creative hub, hosting everything from Shakespeare to live comedy and its fantastic annual beer festival. Just as importantly, the pandemic has shone a light on the incredible work it does in the wider community, working with children from all backgrounds. I am delighted that it received Government support during lockdown.

In my constituency, the East Lancashire Railway is an iconic heritage asset. It is crucial to the visitor economy and supports jobs and skills, and is a direct working link to our past. Steam engines, as I am sure everyone will agree, are things of beauty. Culture takes many different forms throughout the country. ELR has received Government funding during lockdown, which has ensured its survival.

The Fusilier Museum is central to my town’s sense of identity as the proud home of the Lancashire Fusiliers. Again, I am thankful for the Government funding it received to continue its important cultural and heritage role within Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington.

Culture, however, means different things to different people. I would argue strongly that Gigg Lane, the historical home of Bury FC, is both a cultural and heritage asset. It is central to the identity of thousands of my constituents. Away from sport, Bury currently has no relatively large-scale outdoor stadium venue where concerts and other live events can be held. Sport, community, history and culture are intimately entwined.

The opportunities to use culture as a means of increasing opportunity and life chances, and supporting the local economy, must be supported nationally and locally. The Co-op theatre in Ramsbottom is a rare surviving example of a music hall from the 1870s. It is of national significance because of the original interior features still in situ. Most of the building has not been used for years, but its rebirth will be transformational for everyone who lives and works in the town. The building inspires and is loved by locals. If the community, together with the public and private sector, can work in partnership to deliver a unique cultural asset for everyone to enjoy, the residents of Bury North will see the power of culture to transform lives on their very doorstep.

Football Governance

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of football governance.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. There is nothing new about a debate in this place calling for change in the governance of football; too many of us have been here before. Times have changed, however, and there are many now joining the call for change. Covid has turned a spotlight on the weaknesses in the game’s governance and the inequity of the distribution of the game’s wealth.

Football is our national game: 14.5 million people attended premier league matches in the 2018-19 season, and 18.4 million attended matches in the championship. Premier league clubs generated £3.3 billion in tax revenue to the Government and contributed £7.6 billion to the economy in 2016-17. Throughout the country, football trusts play a role in supporting our communities. They lead in tackling racism, deprivation, sexual discrimination and many other social issues, and I pay tribute to every single community trust for the work they have done to support people in need during the covid epidemic.

The English leagues have a huge international following. Their popularity is the envy of many other countries and of the UEFA. I want to go on record as congratulating the premier league on its success, not just here in the UK, but by becoming a global brand of which we should all be proud. Football is so important to the nation, from local communities to being a major contributor to our national economy, that it is important on so many levels that we do not stand by and watch the pyramid that sustains it crumble.

Despite there being such enormous wealth in the game, that money is not distributed fairly—too much is absorbed at the top in players’ wages. The wage bill for the 14 premier league clubs, aside from the big six, is bigger than that of all the Bundesliga clubs put together. The salary arms war waged is entirely contained within the premier league and those championship clubs that overstretch themselves to try to get to the top division. It is unacceptable that premier league clubs can spend £1.2 billion on transfer fees while English Football League clubs are dangling over the abyss during this crisis. We cannot go on with this casino attitude to football’s success, and the time for regulation has come.

Although the Bury debacle showed that the professional game needs saving from itself, we also need to recognise that the money in football attracts some bad actors. Bury also showed that we must strengthen the rules to empower the authorities to keep corruption out of the game. Corrupt individuals circle around football looking for opportunities to make fast money. These people move in on vulnerable clubs and wait for their moment; when a genuine owner comes along, they tie the club up in knots, become an impediment to progress and then offer the would-be owner a deal to get them out of the way.

The football authorities and the Government must work together to change the rules and to legislate, if necessary, to protect football clubs and other sports clubs from this kind of criminality. The manner in which they operate might be within the law, but let us be clear that this is a fraud to extort money, and it must be stopped before more clubs fall foul of these crooks.

These problems existed before covid, but the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in the governance of the game. The solutions extend far beyond what is needed to respond to the immediate crisis. There is no going back to business as usual, and the Football Association must become the regulator that it is meant to be. I commend the Football Supporters Association and Our Beautiful Game for the work that they have done in this area.

We need an independent review of the governance of the game, in which fans and all other stakeholders can participate. The Premier League has initiated a review on the back of the controversy surrounding Project Big Picture. The Government were wrong to dismiss Project Big Picture out of hand; it raised many issues that we will have to take on board and that are worthy of further consideration. Any future review will have to address issues such as future funding for women’s football, football for people with disabilities and football for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

The Premier League has chosen to reject Project Big Picture and conduct a strategic review that will have implications for the whole of football—for the FA, the English Football League, fans and players. Richard Masters, the chief exec of the Premier League, told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 10 November that the 20 clubs on the PL board have agreed the terms of reference for the review. I wonder whether the Minister has seen the terms of reference, because I cannot find them anywhere. We are told that the review will involve fans, the English Football League and the FA. Have they seen the terms of reference? Can the Minister confirm that the Premier League’s review will be voted on by the 20 premier league clubs alone?

The current 20 shareholders of the Premier League find themselves in their respective positions of power by an accident of history, and it does not qualify them to make important decisions on behalf of the future of the game. By the time that the Premier League strategic review is voted on, three of them might have been replaced through relegation. Only five of the original 12 clubs that started the Football League are currently in the premier league. Should they have a say? Should the other seven that started the Football League have a say in the future of the game? Some 49 clubs have been in the premier league, which shows the extent to which the English Football League clubs have a stake in the premier league. Should they have a say in the strategic review?

The short-termism and self-interest that club owners have shown over the years excludes them from making decisions on behalf of the wider football family. I understand that premier league clubs will vote on the recommendations of the Premier League exec. I have nothing against the people in the Premier League exec, but I think they genuinely believe that they know best for the rest of us. They are unable to see the bigger picture, however, because they are blinkered by the business that they have to defend. They see the premier league, but we see football and its entire family. They believe that football is best run by the richest and most powerful clubs in the land, which have demands that go far beyond the domestic game—we would be foolish to ignore that fact.

The financial gains to be had from playing matches across Europe against similar clubs, packed with more of the biggest names in the game, are irresistible. The Champions League will grow in 2024, when the pressure on domestic fixtures will increase. We have already seen youth teams used in domestic cup competitions. We need to plan for that, not bury our heads in the sand and pretend business as usual will work.

In the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing on 10 November, we were told by Greg Clarke, who was still the chair of the FA, that for the big six clubs to break away from the premier league, they would need the approval of not only the FA, but FIFA and UEFA. The threat that comes from the big clubs moving away to some super league is not as great as some people would make it out to be, because they cannot dictate the terms of any future review of the game.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Both MPs for Bury are here, who have very strong views in respect of the Bury situation. When we are talking about governance, we have to decide who the footballing authorities are governing on behalf of. The problem with the Bury situation was that the EFL had no interest in protecting the interests of thousands of Bury fans. It had no interest in the social and economic impact that simply abandoning Bury to the wolves was going to have. We have to think very hard about what the fiduciary or first interest of the regulator is if we are going to have a new regulatory system.

[Clive Efford]

I do not entirely agree with the hon. Member’s version of the events around Bury. I think the Football League would have taken action against individuals involved in Bury if it had the power to do so. I had long discussions with the Football League about a similar situation that arose at Charlton Athletic, which could have quite seriously gone down the same route as Bury. What the Taylor review really demonstrates—I have a copy of it—is that the rules need changing, so that the EFL has the powers to deal with those individuals. Some of the problems that arose with Bury arose before the individuals that we might have concerns about became involved, so it was a complex situation. This is the sort of thing that needs a fundamental review, so that we can ensure that the regulators of the game have the right powers to be able to deal with these situations.

We also need to consider whether clubs should have to register their accounts, with a projection showing how they will finance themselves for not just the current season, but the future season, including any contracts they have in place, such as players’ wages, during that period. There is a lot that can be done to improve the amount of information that clubs must provide to the regulator so that it has a racing chance of being able to oversee the game, and see where problems might arise.

The situation in the championship, where they spend 107% of their turnover on players’ wages, is ridiculous. That clearly needs regulating. It is driven, to some degree, by clubs that come from the premier league and have the solidarity money. However, the fact remains that to get into the premier league, some clubs are running huge risks, and we do not have the power in the regulations at the moment to prevent that from happening.

These changes have been highlighted by the Taylor review into Bury and things that have happened to other clubs, which shows that this is an area of regulation that needs serious looking into and needs change. I know how the EFL struggled to deal with the situation at Charlton Athletic, and it was on the side of the club all throughout that process, in my opinion.

The Football Supporters Association manifesto for change, “Saving the Beautiful Game”, the Premier League’s strategic review, the Taylor review into Bury and Project Big Picture—albeit that some people oppose some of the ideas in it—all highlighted one undeniable truth: that reform is necessary. Given all the competing interests that there are in this subject, the suggestion of an independent panel to take on the task of resetting the governance of the game is very attractive. The FA clearly needs fundamental reform, and the FA Council itself has passed a motion that commends the work of the Football Supporters Association and its manifesto for change.

The opportunity is there to bring about change in the governance of the game in this country. If the Government do not act, I suspect there is a Back Bencher in this room who will bring a Bill before Parliament to bring about that change. The Government can either be dragged along on the coat-tails of a private Member’s Bill, or they can lead the charge for change.

It is no longer acceptable to allow the Premier League to dominate the game in the way that it currently does. The Premier League has consistently and throughout this covid crisis shown that it is incapable of looking at the bigger picture, without looking first to protect its own interests. The time for change has come, and I hope the Government will support that call, get on board and help lead that change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for bringing this debate. As he said, football is our national game. We invented the modern sport of football, and it is popular around the globe with millions of people watching.

Despite covid-19, the Premier League remains in a strong position. Those running the Premier League have managed to generate previously unthinkable levels of income through commercial deals. Yet much of that money leaks out of the game, to agents or, more pertinently for this debate, to owners. Much of the money washing through the game does not get reinvested in it. Although we have had some £600 million invested in grassroots football over the past couple of decades, thanks to the Football Association and the Premier League, that is less than premier league clubs spend in one transfer window. While my constituency has benefited, with great new facilities at Neston High School and the Vauxhall Sports Club, which, for the record, I occasionally play on when circumstances allow, there is still a long way to go. Beyond that investment, we have too many second-rate pitches, which are rendered unusable by a day or two of heavy rain. Our grassroots facilities still compare unfavourably with those in top footballing nations. Only one in three of our grass pitches are of adequate quality. We only have half the number of 3G pitches that Germany has.

We know the pressures local authorities are under to balance the books. There is little left for discretionary spending on improving sporting facilities, which means that pitches are often left with poor drainage, resulting in some areas of the pitch having more mud than grass, and little or nothing in the way of changing facilities. In many ways, the pitches of today are worse than the ones I played on as a child. More of the money in the game needs to reach the grassroots level.

The money does not reach the fans either. It does not manifest in cheaper entrance tickets or support for other clubs. One only needs to look at my team, Manchester United, to see where a lot of the money goes. Since they took over in 2005, using money to buy the club that they subsequently attached to it as a debt, the Glazers have taken over £1 billion out of that club in dividend interest and finance costs. If ownership models are to be reformed, I would like to see that model of ownership banished for ever. That £1 billion did not have to leave the game. Perhaps some of the struggling clubs we have discussed would have survived if the money had been more equitably distributed.

We need to think about the wider health of the game. A few clubs at the top are getting richer and richer, or, as in the case of my club, the owners are getting richer and richer, but at the other end we hear of clubs that are struggling just to survive day to day.

[James Daly]

Does the hon. Gentleman think there is a strong case for financially powerful and sustainable clubs, such as Manchester United, taking a charitable view with neighbouring clubs that are struggling financially and need direct help? Bury is approximately half an hour from Old Trafford. Does he think we should put in place mechanisms for premier league clubs to help clubs in financial difficulties lower down the pyramid, especially if they are geographically close and have other links?

[Justin Madders]

There is nothing to prevent that from happening now. Manchester United’s reserve games used to be played at Gigg Lane, providing a financial benefit for the club. I have been persuaded that we need to formalise this help, because I am concerned about some of the strings attached to the recent discussions on support for league clubs. I think the inequality of distribution of money has highlighted clearly why the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said earlier this year that the current business model for football is unsustainable.

As the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) highlighted, the governance of football in this country is unlike any other. The financial muscle of the Premier League, which has an income 12 times that of the FA, distorts everything else. The financial power it has must be used more widely for the greater good. Recent developments suggest that the Premier League understands that and recognises it has a financial responsibility to the rest of the game. However, I hope I will be forgiven for being a little cynical about Project Big Picture and what it really meant.

The extra cash for Project Big Picture would have been welcome in the short to medium term, but the strings attached to it and the further concentration of power that were part of the deal could only, I think, come with a huge health warning. What was being proposed would have baked in an uneven playing field, because the price of that extra cash was preferential votes for longer serving clubs, thereby ensuring that the interests of football as a whole would forever be dictated to by the biggest clubs. The proposals would have meant a reduction in the size of the Premier League, and so naturally less opportunity for promotion to it. The league cup and community shield would also have been cancelled. Premier League clubs would have been playing fewer games overall—except that they probably would not have been.

The reduction in the number of fixtures might have been designed not to ensure that elite athletes in the Premier League got extra rest between games, but to pave the way for a European super-league that, in the long run, would hoover up all the power, all the attention and all the money. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham said that it would not be easy to establish such a super-league, but in the last 25 years we have seen enough in football to know that, in the end, money talks. The Premier League clubs would have got their way.

I fear that the proposed change in voting rights would ultimately have meant that the domestic game would have become subservient to the interests of the 20 or so clubs that would have been part of the European super-league. Entry to that super-league would, of course, be by invitation only. The massive financial imbalance that already ensures that the biggest clubs tend to participate in the champions league each year would also have had an additional lock on it to make sure that the biggest clubs could never fall out of it. I could, of course, be wrong about that. The Premier League could offer the support without any strings attached. Discussions are ongoing so let us see what happens.

There is no doubt that a new strategic review is under way, and that may result in some of the benefits without some of the downsides. The concern highlighted in the debate demonstrates the reason we need an independent body to regulate football and ensure that all decisions made are in the interests of the game as a whole. We have all expressed that concern. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) said, every team is a big part of the community. The owners are transient, but fans and supporters are there through thick and thin, in good times and bad, whoever is the owner. Football clubs need to be treated much more as a community asset and less as a business as they have been for far too long.

My final point, Ms Fovargue, relates to agency reform and control. A study of agency fees paid by Premier League clubs between October 2015 and January 2016 revealed that £46.5 million was paid to agency intermediaries. That is money that is leaving the game altogether. Frankly, I would like to outlaw agency fees altogether, but I am sure that will not happen. Those figures demonstrate there are huge sums in the game that do not benefit even the highly paid players; the money certainly does not benefit the clubs or the wider community. Let us do something about that as well when we reform football governance, which I hope we are going to do.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue, I congratulate my friend, if I can call him that, the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) on securing the debate. I have had the opportunity to speak to him about Charlton Athletic before, so I know he is a very learned and experienced man in these matters.

It goes without saying that this is a raw subject for us in Bury. It is genuinely hard to put into words what the loss of Bury football club has meant to the community. It has had a detrimental impact on thousands of people’s lives, and very few things can do that. Very few things link people, regardless of their age, sex or background, and people came together each week in a collective, positive atmosphere to support Bury. That has been taken away from them.

This is a debate about football governance. We have a system in place, but if we as MPs are going to look at what should be there or what we would recommend, we have to ask, “What is the purpose of governance?” Other points have been well made about how we see football clubs: are they just individual businesses like WH Smith or Barclays bank? Are they simply businesses to be regulated on that basis? I am a supporter of Bury football club but not a fan—there is a difference. They are entities that survive because of that loyalty and an emotional connection between them and their supporters. One can hardly argue that we go to WHSmith because of an emotional connection.

I am only using that as an example, but it is an important example. Earlier I asked the hon. Member for Eltham—and it was a genuine question—who any governance would be on behalf of. He said it would be on behalf of the game, but the game is a very wide thing and lots of people have very different interests in it. One person could be involved in supporting Manchester United, which plays in the premier league and all the other things it competes in, whereas Bury’s major ambition is essentially to stay afloat—to simply survive in the league it is in and have a sustainable business model to support its local community. If we as MPs were to recommend statutory regulation, we would say that the first duty of the regulator must be to the fans: the people at each and every club in the country who pay their money every week to go and watch their team. This is about what is in their interest. Bury is the example, right or wrong, of the monumentally detrimental effect of the loss of a football club.

As with everything else, the pandemic has had a huge effect on EFL and non-league clubs—I will leave the premier league to one side for a second. I agree with everything my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said. Although I am tempted to read out his comments about Bury football club from when he was Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I will restrain myself from doing that, because I think we all know what they are. However, football clubs in the lower leagues have been run in an incredibly bad manner. There were players at Bury football club earning £10,000 a week when the crowds were 3,000 or 4,000, which simply is not sustainable.

We have a badly run model that has not been regulated. Indeed, I wonder why the EFL exists if it cannot step in and question these business models, which it knows are unsustainable, including before the pandemic. Half the clubs are running at monumental losses. I mention Rochdale football club only because prior to the pandemic, or certainly at the start of it, it had to have a £1 million loan from its local council, while issues with the ownership of Wigan, Ms Fovargue, have clearly come to the fore in recent months. These are ongoing issues.

We therefore have to be clear that the EFL, or whoever the regulator is, needs to take a strident and stringent approach and must have access to the financial records of a football club and also the financial background of the owner. Cursory examination of the business history of Steve Dale, the current owner of Bury football club, may well have rung some alarm bells with any regulator. In a normal, functioning system, Mr Dale would clearly not have been allowed to take over Bury football club.

[Damian Collins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem with the Football League system is that it is run by people like Mr Dale? It is run by the chairs of the clubs, regulating each other. They do not want people sticking their noses into the way they are running their clubs because if it is done for one club, it will be done for another.

[James Daly]

Absolutely, and that is why I would very much support statutory regulation, if that is a possibility, because I see it as the only way of protecting the interests of fans such as those of Bury.

My last point is that, while the pandemic has also shone a light on that business model, the question is how we can work within the system to create football clubs that are not merely the businesses that predatory owners and others have viewed them as, but become community assets that sit within their communities and have direct links to other important facilities. I have had the opportunity since I became an MP to speak with my hon. Friend the Minister on a regular basis. My view, which might not be a palatable suggestion for many owners, is that we have to look at a partnership model whereby football clubs work hand in hand with, for example, the local college or statutory services of some kind so as to bring as many things as possible into the club, because of its unique position at the centre of the community, and allow as wide a group of people as possible to benefit from being able to see their local football club, with the loyalty and pride in their area that that gives them, while also using it as a force for social change.

I was in a meeting yesterday where we talked about youth hubs, armed forces hubs and mental health hubs, so why do we as politicians not work with local people to get facilities set up and ensure that the models are financially stable? I hope that that is a sensible suggestion that people will consider. For someone from a Conservative background, the idea of going in and imposing rules and restrictions on what are private enterprises is not something that comes easily to me, but I know that it is necessary based on my experience of the impact that Bury’s closure has had on its poor fans.

My final comment is that getting Bury AFC, the phoenix club, to where it is has been a wonderful achievement, and I give due credit to those involved, but the Bury Football Club Company Ltd still exists. The club that has been there for 130 years and won the FA cup still exists. We and the EFL, as the regulator, should do everything to help Bury get back to Gigg Lane at the earliest opportunity. Thank you, Ms Fovargue, for allowing me to speak for this length of time.

Kidsgrove Sports Centre

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis]

I thank my hon. Friend, and even though he may not be a neighbour, his tireless work in getting Chester zoo protected has pleased many a constituent of mine. I want to pass on my big thanks to him for that.

I absolutely agree that what happens at these sports centres is not just on the physical side; it is also about the mental health aspects. As someone who has spoken openly in my local paper about my own struggles with my mental health, I know that socialisation is absolutely vital. These sporting facilities in Warrington and in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are important in that regard.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech. From my personal experience in Bury, I know that the retention of sporting facilities can have a massive impact on the wider community. Following the loss of Bury football club, the impact on the camaraderie in the community and on the economy that has flowed from that has been a disaster for my area. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have had many a wonderful conversation with him regarding Bury football club, and if there is a lesson to be learned about what has happened there, it is that it is now even more important that we protect these facilities, especially because covid-19 has affected many league 1 and league 2 clubs. I am proud to have Port Vale football club in my constituency, for which the fabulous Carol and Kevin Shanahan have done amazing community work. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I commend him for all the work he is doing for the people of Bury.

Among the constituents who have written in to me, Jayne, who is diabetic, used the early bird swim programme to keep her health in check. She has said:

“The removal of the facility removes much of my own means to self-help to manage my condition. I can’t wait for it to reopen.”

Karen, who has been a regular at the centre since 1995 —this is not my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley)—has described the impact of the closure:

“It has just left a hole in the community, and once it is up and running again we shall be returning as at the moment we have to travel. Sadly, there is nothing to do in Kidsgrove now.”

Claire has described how the closure has directly affected her family:

“My four children have no access to swimming and sports now as I do not drive, and travel costs can add up for five of us. The community feels let down and forgotten and there’s nothing for kids to do. Many adults use the centre too, and now they feel more isolated.”

As the negative implications of this closure have affected so many lives, it would be impossible for me to utilise every testimony. The impact of this closure has affected the people I represent in three distinct ways. First, the severe lack of recreational activities in the area has created a void in community cohesion and interaction. Secondly, the impact on public health, especially of those with pre-existing conditions, has been drastic, with 63% of Kidsgrove and Talke now deemed inactive. Finally, the closure has penalised those who cannot afford the money or the time to make concessions and travel further afield to exercise.

The issue faced by the sports centre is not the stickiness of party politics, though it has certainly seen its fair share of that. The sports centre needs the Government to commit to help fund its renovation and to unlock funds from Sport England so that in summer 2021 the people of Kidsgrove will once again have access to exercise facilities. Having spoken to Sport England this morning, I know that £100,000 has already been allocated in principle, but only £150,000 at most can be given from its asset fund. Although it may have other pots, such as the social investment and strategic facilities funds, they have been repurposed due to the damage that covid-19 has done to the leisure sector. Any of the £195 million that Sport England announced in April would be absolutely welcome, but Kidsgrove sports centre requires a cocktail of funding. Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council has stood up, as has Sport England. Now, I need the Government to do the same.