Football Governance

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady will be aware that I fought Luton South in the 2010 election, and Luton South fought back, as they say. I still have a great passion for Luton, which has gone up and down the leagues over many years. She is making an important point that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) highlighted in her report and that I referenced in my statement. This is one of the areas that is primarily the responsibility of football to sort out, but we are keeping a very close eye on it. The welfare of players is paramount, and we have seen too many failures in the past.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

In the heart of the mother town sits Port Vale FC, which is situated within Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. This review is so important, because we had a former owner, Norman Smurthwaite, who was a complete disaster and almost brought down this fantastic asset. It is thanks to Kevin and Carol Shanahan, who came in and bought the club, that we are now sitting in fourth place, one point off the automatic promotion spots in league two. As Carol says, we are simply a championship club that happens to be in league two at this moment. What is important, and what Carol wanted me to reiterate, is that we surely should be looking at the TV rights. Rather than having the EFL and the Premier League competing against each other, we should get them to join up and have a 70:30 split.

[Nigel Huddleston]

It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and the club. He is making an important point, and as I have said repeatedly, financial distribution is something we are looking at. We want and require the Premier League to work with others on this, and if it does not act, we will look at alternative measures.