King’s Speech

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the first thing that I must do is congratulate the two maiden speakers. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle— I do not know how many times I have invented my own title for Bishops in this House—gave the sort of speech you would expect of somebody who could work a pulpit and a crowd every time. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, reminded me exactly how old I was by saying that she was born in 1993. I made my maiden speech quite a long time before she was born, and I can remember every word of it. It is quite clear that she is much better prepared by her life for life in this House than I was at that time. I congratulate them, and I look forward to hearing what they both say in the future, although I make no guarantee to agree with either of them.

The part of the King’s Speech that we have awaited for a very long time, and has a great deal of agreement, is about the regulation of professional football. It is something that the Government were, effectively, forced to do by fan reaction and the stream of embarrassing incidents where local assets—as the Government have quite rightly described them—called football clubs, all of which had an emotional connection to and, indeed, grip on their local communities, got themselves into trouble periodically. Looking back, Leeds United was probably the biggest one. These clubs usually had something in common. They decided that if they spent a lot of money on players or infrastructure, they were bound to get promoted because nobody else is going to spend a lot of money on that, and nobody else can possibly have as good a manager and as good luck. But remember this is sport—you can lose your star striker when he stubs his toe in the changing room. They will go up and go down and get themselves in trouble: that is usually the pattern.

This goes back a long way and often happens to smaller clubs. A new owner comes in and says, “Right, I’ll do a property deal. I’ll get rid of your ground, which is nice and central to all the other amenities of a town. It’s good for housing or other forms of development, so we’ll move you out of town”. That was another disagreement. Nearly 30 years ago, I first heard Supporters Direct, I think, raising how this was happening periodically in the lower leagues of football.

Then we have the other complaints the Government have mentioned about changing kit, extra prices and changing names for marketing purposes. All this should have been addressed a long time ago, but we have finally got around to doing something about it. It is one of the bits of glue in local society; competition and the structure within it provide a common currency. As someone who played a different code of football for most of my life, I am rather envious of that. As someone who plays rugby union, I cannot help thinking that we might need something of this ourselves, because we are haemorrhaging clubs for similar reasons. We have a precedent here. In this very narrow area, the Government are doing something that looks good.

Resilience is really about surviving demotion. Periodically, with the best will in the world, it happens. You do not have to be that bad; others just have to be a little better. In these big competitive leagues, people move up and down. This is why it might be attractive for somebody from the States, for instance, to want a franchising system and not to have to worry about relegation. Here, in effect, we have decided that we approve of it. That is why we are not going for the European super league; we need this structure of going up and down. We take the money and it is great; everybody is happy.

I cannot help but feel that we are missing an opportunity. The Government are going to pump money down, but what about the social potential to improve lives in the communities that support these clubs? I have read through the Government’s response, and in effect we have said that we are not going to do this, but the clubs themselves have award ceremonies that say it is a good thing. I know, because I have been asked to them and rugby union does the same. Why are we not making sure of at least some form of social interaction and support for local communities or other local clubs? Imagining that everybody 10 leagues below is a potential rival is ridiculous; it is just not going to happen. We need to make sure that there is a support structure, so that people are better educated about the game.

I raised this with the EFL, which said that it has a youth policy. I pointed out that this is largely based on talent identification. If a 14 year-old who thinks he might become a professional footballer is told that he does not make the grade—we are predominantly talking about males, which is another flaw in this legislation—he might go through some form of mental crisis. Football has a duty to support those communities.

My starter for 10 would be for every club or voluntary organisation in the country to have a treasurer and a secretary. Maybe the football club could organise mass training, so that people would know how to do the books and fill out the forms. Think how much that would help and how easy it would be for a group like this to do it.

When we go through this Bill, I hope your Lordships consider what else might be done without changing the essence of this. We are not talking about running all local clubs; we are talking about making sure there is public involvement in and support for voluntary structures within the Bill, because we need it. I cannot see why somebody, when we have had to intervene to sort out their mess, should not pay that small price.