Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr French]

I beg to move amendment 131, in schedule 5, page 103, line 16, at end insert—

“Agents fees

11A (1) An agents fees condition is a condition requiring a club employing an agent to cap their fees.

(2) The agents fee cap will be set by Regulations subject to approval by both Houses.”

My amendment proposes that clubs regulated by the Government’s new regulator should be required to cap the fees paid to agents, because, as many fans know, an ever-increasing amount of money is leaving the football pyramid to agents. The level of the proposed cap would be set through regulations, subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, and determined following consultation with clubs and leagues.

Let me set out why we believe the measure is necessary—not as an attack on agents or their role in the game, but as a proportionate, reasonable step towards a more sustainable, transparent and responsible football ecosystem. If we are serious about football reform and safeguarding the long-term financial health of clubs up and down the pyramid, we must be prepared to tackle the excesses and distortions that have taken root in the sport.

Few are more obvious or pressing than the spiralling sums paid to agents. According to the Football Association, in the year from February 2024 to February 2025, Premier League clubs alone paid more than £409 million in agent fees and intermediaries. That is more than the total broadcast revenue of a number of Championship clubs in 2022-23; or more than double the commercial revenue of several clubs for that season; or almost three times the matchday revenue of a number of Championship clubs in the same season.

This is not wages or transfer fees, nor is it investment in the matchday experience for fans—it is money paid out purely for representation costs, often for work done on both sides of a deal. To put that into context, it is more than the entire annual income of many Championship clubs combined, and this is not just a Premier League problem. Although the sums are relatively smaller further down the pyramid, the pressures are arguably even more acute for clubs with less budget.

My amendment seeks to introduce a straightforward principle—that there should be a fair and proportionate limit on the fees that clubs can pay to agents, and that the limit should be set by regulations made by the Secretary of State subject to affirmative procedure. This would help to ensure full parliamentary oversight and allow future Governments to adjust the cap based on changing market conditions, evidence from the Government’s regulator and broader economic factors in football.

There is already a strong precedent for this kind of intervention. For example, FIFA’s agent regulations now attempt to impose limits on the commissions payable to clubs and players alike, but those rules remain subject to legal challenge and uneven enforcement across jurisdictions. In the absence of effective international enforcement, there is an opportunity for this to be included in the scope of the Government’s regulator as a core part of the financial sustainability of English football.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I have sympathy with what the amendment is trying to achieve, but can the shadow Minister reflect on what it could do to transfers coming into the country? An agent working with Ronaldo could sell him either to an English club, where the fees are capped, or to an Italian, French or Spanish club, where the fees are not capped. Is there a concern that this would limit good players coming into the country?

[Mr French]

I discussed that consideration with a number of people in the game before we tabled the amendment. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the French, who already cap agents’ fees at 10%. With this amendment, we are not seeking to say what the level should be—that should be determined by the game in consultation—but we are looking for the game to help to set the cap at a level that does not have the impact that he talks about. But it is a fair challenge.

We must remember that the Bill is fundamentally about sustainability. Financial discipline is not just a boardroom concern, but a matter of public trust. Football clubs are more than private enterprises, as we have discussed. They are community institutions. They are the social glue in towns such as Bury, Scunthorpe and Southend, all of which have suffered financial distress in recent years. The idea that hundreds of millions of pounds can leave the game each year in opaque payments to third-party agents while clubs struggle to pay wages, maintain facilities or invest in their academies is becoming increasingly indefensible.

Let us be clear: no one is saying that agents do not have a role. Many provide important professional services, such as legal advice, contract negotiation and logistical support, but the current system lacks transparency, consistency and limits. There are countless examples of agents receiving commissions from both buying and selling clubs on the same deal—a structure that would raise red flags in other regulated industries as a clear conflict of interest. Without a cap, there is little to stop the agents’ arms race escalating even further.

Clubs are forced to pay inflated fees just to stay competitive in the transfer market. In some cases, they are backed into a corner by players who will not sign unless their representative is paid what they demand. That imbalance needs to be addressed, not with heavy-handed bans, but with clear, enforceable limits that ensure agent fees are grounded in reality and tied to the financial position of the English football pyramid. My amendment would allow for the cap to adapt over time, either up or down, depending on the financial context of the day.

This debate also has a clear moral dimension. Football fans—the lifeblood of the game—see money flooding out of the system into offshore accounts while ticket prices rise, lower-league clubs fall into administration, as we have heard, and local facilities are left to deteriorate without needed investment. What message are we sending to those communities if we continue to turn a blind eye to this major issue?

The problem is not new. Lord Sugar famously described agents as “ten percenters” during his time as chairman of Tottenham Hotspur. However, in recent years, that 10% has crept up; we now see cases in which agents walk away with fees amounting to 15% or even 20% of a transfer value, and in some instances with fixed payments that are totally unrelated to the value or complexity of the deal. That is not healthy, efficient or sustainable, and it is not a good use of fans’ hard-earned money.

This amendment is about putting the interests of clubs, fans and the wider game first. In fact, we believe that clubs in the lower leagues would stand to benefit the most. Although some clubs in the top flight can absorb these costs through commercial revenues or broadcast income, those further down the pyramid often spend a disproportionate amount of their limited budgets on agents. That creates a vicious cycle: less money for youth development, community outreach and infrastructure, and more dependence on short-term deals brokered by intermediaries. By capping agent fees, we would take a meaningful step towards ending that cycle. We could help clubs plan more prudently, negotiate more confidently and operate on a fairer playing field. In doing so, we would strengthen the whole system, from the grassroots to the elite.

Let us not forget that the purpose of the Government’s regulator is not to micro-manage football, but to restore public confidence and ensure long-term stability. Agent fees are a glaring blind spot in the current model. If we are willing to regulate ownership tests, financial reporting and fan engagement, surely we must also be willing to act on a financial outflow that directly threatens the viability of many clubs.

This is a proportionate, sensible and timely amendment. It allows the Government to tackle one of the most visible and controversial financial issues in football; it helps preserve flexibility; it respects Parliament; and, most importantly, it places the interests of our clubs, fans and communities above those of unregulated market actors. We have an opportunity to help reshape the financial culture of English football for the better. Introducing a cap on agents’ fees is not only a necessary reform, but the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephanie Peacock]

We have seen too many instances of unsuitable custodians mismanaging clubs, taking risks that jeopardise a club’s long-term future, and disregarding the interests of fans and communities. It is evident that the industry’s existing tests have not been effective enough at screening and rooting out bad actors. Existing tests are conducted on a self-declaration basis, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham just mentioned. Consequently, those tests have allowed in owners who have long histories of business bankruptcies, and owners have later been imprisoned for crimes including money laundering.

That is why part 4 of the Bill establishes strong, new statutory owners and directors tests, including by giving the regulator the power to test the suitability of prospective new owners and officers before they can enter regulated clubs, as well as the power to test incumbent owners and officers in certain circumstances. The clause provides an overview of part 4 and signposts to the rest of the clauses in this part of the Bill. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Mr Dillon]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for tabling new clause 15. It is the result of close co-operation between local parliamentarians and the Supporters Trust at Reading, which I have mentioned previously. I thank it for its constructive approach to the Bill.

The new clause mandates that individuals must notify the IFR if they are aware of any evidence that indicates a change in circumstances that could affect the ability of club owners or key personnel who are essential to the management and survival of football clubs to meet the statutory fitness criteria set forth in clause 26. It is widely recognised that whistleblowing is a vital tool for public scrutiny and accountability of individuals, and that wrongdoing and bad practice need to be called out. It is therefore essential that there are protections to encourage people to speak out. The new clause seeks to flesh out formal whistleblowing routes with regard to football ownership. Although I welcome and recognise the detail already included in the Bill on that, we need to go much further.

We need to expand the list of groups and stakeholders who would be required to report any concerns that they have about the suitability of owners or officers, including the governing body for the relevant league, the football supporters’ trust and the Football Supporters’ Association. It is often the case that those stakeholders have more knowledge about the day-to-day operations inside a club than fans, due to their proximity to the club’s inner workings. As many fans do not have the same connection or influence as such organisations, it is vital to provide a strong and accessible voice for them when issues arise, particularly when evidence concerning the survival of a club comes to light.

It is essential that the individuals listed in new clause 15 have the opportunity and route to escalate their concerns when necessary. If we take as an example my local EFL club, Reading, there may have been some people in the EFL and in the club itself who had suspicions about the deteriorating situation at the club long before those problems came to the surface and to the attention of the fanbase. If this new clause had been in place, it would have given stakeholders a formal route to raise such concerns and ensure that Dai Yongge was scrutinised properly. That could have gone some way to resolving the situation before the club ended up teetering on the brink; it is only recently that it has been sold and been able to recover.

To conclude, new clause 15 would enable accountability and monitoring of owners during their time in charge. Football club owners are temporary custodians of heritage assets that are vital to our communities; at the very least they should face regular scrutiny. It is for those reasons that I hope new clause 15 is accepted.

[Joe Robertson]

Once again, I have some sympathy with the aims of the new clause and I see where the hon. Member is trying to go with it. However, as it is currently drafted, it has a lot of breadth and contains vagaries that could throw up all sorts of issues. I will just deal with those issues briefly.

By the way, I like the idea of identifying “material change” to the extent that someone who may once have been considered fit and proper is no longer considered fit and proper, because of something that has happened or something that has been identified.

I have a problem with imposing a duty, particularly on some of the groups set out in paragraphs (a) to (f) of subsection (2). For example, there would be a positive duty on “club employees”, which would include some very junior members of staff. In English law, imposing a duty on someone to do something is fairly exceptional. Although I could probably tolerate imposing a duty on “officers and board members”—if people have attained that level within an organisation, they should expect duties to come with it—I could not tolerate imposing a duty on all “club employees”. That is a difficulty I have. Also, that list is not exhaustive. Subsection (1) refers to:

“ Individuals or organisations associated with a regulated club”.

That could capture a lot more people than those listed in subsection (2).

I am also slightly concerned that the duty for notification applies:

“when they”—

that is, the person—

“have evidence or information that a material change in circumstances has occurred”.

I suspect that that could open the floodgates and be misused as a means to try and potentially smear someone, or raise questions about whether they are fit and proper, based on some pretty spurious “evidence”. Such evidence could be pretty much anything—even a trivial matter. I would have hoped that there would be some sort of threshold, such as evidence that points to a strong or compelling case. “Evidence” on its own is a very, very low bar and could encourage all sorts of minor allegations that could make the job of the football regulator far bigger than it is intended to be.

Otherwise, I broadly support what the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephanie Peacock]

Yes, absolutely. We very much want that confidence to be established. We simply do not think that regulating junior employees, supporters trusts or the FSA is appropriate or proportionate. On that basis, I would be grateful if the hon. Member for Newbury did not press the new clause to a vote.

[Mr Dillon]

Given the assurances of the Minister, I am happy not to move new clause 15. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe for seeking clarification about the atmosphere that will be created.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 27

Duties to notify IFR of prospective new owner or officer

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.