Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Burns Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Imposing that top-down approach is well meant—the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, the noble Lords, Lord Bassam, Lord Blunkett and Lord Mann, were wise, sensible and well meant—but we must remember that these are powers that we are giving in a very permissive Bill to an independent football regulator. They are powers that, I believe, have the potential to be misused. More importantly, there are powers already in place for local clubs to use at the grass-roots level to improve lives in the local community. For that reason, I oppose those particular amendments.

[Lord Burns (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 54 with regard to the governance of clubs. I am sorry that I could not take part at Second Reading, but I have been present for a significant part of Committee. I have been a season ticket holder at either Sunderland or QPR for most of my life, and I now have three season tickets at QPR for myself, my son and grandson—I fear what I have done to both of them, but that is another problem.

In 2005, I undertook a report for the Football Association on its governance. Quite a number of important proposals that I made were carried out, but I am afraid that some were not. I sometimes think that, if they had been, there would have been for the Bill that we are having to spend so much time on now.

As far as experience goes, I was a member of the board of QPR for a few years and I have been the chairman of a bank. For me, there are some interesting similarities between football and banking: both are rather risky activities. The risks in football are about the performance of the team, the loss of value of players, either because of form or injury, and the risks involved in promotion and relegation. From my observation, and experience at the time, the biggest risk to clubs is overreaching; it is about taking too much risk. They are very often funded by owners or directors. Things go downhill and the directors then want their money back, if it was in the form of loans, which forces clubs into selling players at a loss.

The banks have a prudential regulator and I accept that there is a clear need for some body that has oversight for football as well from the point of view of prudential regulation. The point was made earlier that it is no good coming along once problems have emerged. You need systems and processes in place that monitor areas of activities where risks lie.

I am a great supporter of requirements of good governance in all kinds of organisations. I have sat on many boards, and I have seen good boards and not so good boards. There is a great deal of difference. It is significant to me that, when I was involved in banking and dealing with financial regulators, they placed great emphasis on the quality of the board in overseeing what was going on and particularly the risks it was undertaking. It seems to me to follow naturally that there should be the same requirement for the football regulator with respect to clubs.

I add—it is not for today—that I looked at the requirements and some of the governance issues that have been suggested for the regulator, but I am not sure all would pass the standards of good governance. For example, the exclusive role of the chairman in choosing the chief executive seems slightly odd for a body that has non-executive directors as well as a chairman. But I very much support this amendment.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to question Amendment 156 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lady Grey-Thompson. It is a great pleasure to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, because it is a reminder to us of how much experience we have here, from a board director of a Premier League football club to regular supporters and, in the noble Lord’s case, the holder of three season tickets. I pay tribute to him and his long-suffering son and grandson.

The point that I want to make about Amendment 156 is about season tickets. I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would argue against diversity in staff and senior managers. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, made the good point that about 40% of Premier League players are from a BME background, but that that does not continue into senior management. That has been the case for a long time and there is clearly more work to do on that.

However, the first part of Amendment 156 talks about

“the diversity of season ticket holders”.

When I saw that, I was worried about the law of unintended consequences. How on earth do you sort out that issue? For season tickets for my team there is something called supply and demand. There are several options for having a season ticket at Manchester United, as there are at other Premier League clubs, but how do you work it out? There is a waiting list, because of supply and demand. Several thousand people are waiting to become season ticket holders, so can the Minister advise the Committee how this amendment would be looked at?

There are a limited number of seats at a ground: in the case of Old Trafford, there are 75,000 seats and a waiting list of 10,000. I have had a season ticket for many years. Recently, they changed where you could sit at Old Trafford. I was unsure for a while whether I would have a ticket for where I moved to. I was told that there was no guarantee that I would have a ticket, which, as you can imagine, was quite distressing for somebody who had been a season ticket holder for many years. As it turned out, I was lucky enough to have a ticket, in the way that several thousand were not.

There is also the option of a league match ticket book. That enables me to go to Premier League games only. There is the cup option—the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup and the European Cup options. There is also a ticket forwarding membership of £20. I mention that because, if you are looking at diversity, you may not be able to get a season ticket holder, but if you want to go and see a Premier League club, becoming a member gives you access to get a ticket. It might not be your favourite Premier League game against your local opposition or any other club in the Premier League, but anybody could apply, become a member of their local club and should be able to get a ticket for a cup game. It may not be a Saturday or a Sunday; it may be a midweek game. Diversity is in evidence at Premier League clubs. For example, accessibility for disability has been there in many clubs for many years. When I sit there before kick-off at Manchester United, I see significant diversity around me. What surprises me is the people who fly around the world to see their team play, as they do for so many other Premier League clubs.

The Premier League is the best premier league in the world for a good reason. It attracts diversity by that very principle. I would be interested in how the regulator would ensure diversity of ticket holders. I say yes when it comes to staff and senior management—I do not think anybody could disagree with that. However, it is complicated, and so much to do with this Bill is the law of unintended consequences. You cannot tell people who have been on waiting lists for many years that they cannot become a season ticket holder because of some diversity report from a regulator.