Football Clubs (Governance)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram]

It is a difficult issue. I am a supporter of one of the supposedly big four—Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool—and that is how we and some other clubs attract the big footballers. Implementing that idea would be like turkeys voting for Christmas, but I understand the rationale behind the obscenity of somebody earning such huge sums when the people paying his wages are on a fraction of what he earns a year.

I have described the “Why?”, so the next question is “How?”. What can we as politicians do to assist? The social value report that I mentioned concluded with several recommendations on how national Government can do their bit. Time constraints prevent me from listing them, but they are excellent ideas worthy of serious exploration, and I urge interested colleagues to take a look at the document.

Having made a fundamental commitment to encouraging reform, the coalition Government have not yet revealed how they intend to proceed, but the previous Labour Government published a raft of proposals before the 2010 election. They include making Government support—especially financial support—conditional on co-operation, creating the right framework for better regulation from the top down and grassroots up, and working with governing bodies to enshrine supporters’ rights to buy their clubs and/or be represented in the ownership and governance of the club.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

One thing that people have mentioned to me is their concern about admission fees. A well-heeled Chelsea supporter can attend matches on a regular basis; an Arsenal supporter does not have to be as rich, because Arsenal’s system allows admission; a Bradford supporter can probably go to every match. A Leicester City supporter like me unfortunately cannot attend due to distance. In the governance Act that the hon. Gentleman proposes, will supporters’ clubs have input into admission fees?

[Steve Rotheram]

The dichotomy is that in some of the foreign models where football supporters are represented on boards, match ticket prices are much lower than in the premier league. Anyone who goes to Europe—as we will do this year, although on a much lesser basis than in previous seasons—will find out when they buy tickets that European games are always much cheaper than their equivalents in the premier league. One does not always go with the other. Football supporter representation at least gives that concern a voice.

It is more easily said than done. In the current political and economic climate, many difficulties and setbacks lie ahead. Any lack of will or any outright resistance by the parties involved—the Government, the governing authorities and the premiership clubs—will make the task more challenging. In its 2009 report, the all-party parliamentary group on football recommended a straightforward, one-size-fits-all solution: an elected supporters’ representative drawn from the relevant supporters’ trust should sit on the board of all 92 football league and premier league clubs. The group also suggested that a requirement to involve supporters should be a prerequisite for future takeovers—that is interesting to a few of us here—and that the football regulatory authority can evaluate that as part of the reformed “fit and proper person” test.