Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord asks a very reasonable question. I actually pray in aid the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, because, for all his frustration with this debate, his Amendment 26 has at least tried to answer the question of what a fan is and what “local” means, and therefore I am quite predisposed toward that amendment. My only problem is that it absolves this House and Ministers from solving the problem, by kicking it into the long grass, so to speak, of the independent football regulator. So I agree with that amendment, but the noble Lord’s amendment is too restrictive.

When I was a child, I used to go to Charlton Athletic, the Valley, which in the good old days had a 66,000 capacity. Because I was a Charlton fan, vicariously, through my father, does that mean I could not be a fan of Millwall, which is in almost the next borough, the London Borough of Southwark? Could I not have been a fan of Crystal Palace, in the London Borough of Croydon? Could I not have been a fan of Leyton Orient, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest? You get into a rabbit hole of really difficult decisions if you do not properly talk about what is “local”.

I will finally finish by reminding your Lordships that, at Second Reading, I mentioned the importance of supply chains, because although fans are important, so is the wider football community. That includes businesses, commerce, supply chains, the people who sell the hot dogs and the prawn sandwiches, the people who provide the footballs, and the people who do the advertising, etcetera. We are dancing on the head of a pin, because—with all due respect to the people in the Box—the Bill is not well drafted. We have a responsibility to point that out. For that reason, I implore the Minister specifically to support my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s Amendment 9.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a point on Amendment 17A of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the complexity of what we mean by “fan” and indeed “season ticket holder”, because there are so many options to be a season ticket holder. You can be a season ticket holder for Premier League clubs, just for those Premier League games. You also have cup games, like the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. There are also Champions League tickets. If you cannot get a season ticket, as an individual you can apply for those individual cup games. If you wish to become a forwarding member for £20, you are in the position to receive a ticket from a season ticket holder. It spreads up; the number of season tickets available is very complicated indeed for cup games.

Not only that, but you also have corporate tickets. Corporations can buy a whole suite of tickets for their employees and also for their clients. To establish somebody who would go as a guest of a corporate individual or who had been forwarded a ticket further complicates it. The point I am making is that it is not straightforward. It is very complicated—there is not just one season ticket holder at any club.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a lively debate. Even before I moved the lead amendment in it, a lively debate had been engendered. It is an important one, because fans are sown throughout the Bill. There are various points at which the regulator, the Government and others have to consult fans, so it is important that, as we proceed through Committee and look at the Bill line by line, we are clear about and understand who the fans are that the regulator, the clubs and the Government need to consult, where they reside and where they do not, and how their views will be ascertained.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, for the clarity with which he put this in speaking to his Amendment 17A in this group. There has to be something in the Bill, and it has to be something tight; otherwise we will continue having this sort of nightmarish debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, foresaw, and which has been borne out a bit this afternoon. Each time fans are mentioned, we have to decide—as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, put it—what is relevant to them in this instance, and whether this is something that affects them. The fan-led review that led to the Bill would mean that fans take a view on all of the matters that the Bill sets out in each of its clauses.

I am not along—and your Lordships in this Committee are not alone—in confronting the inherent difficulties involved in trying to attempt to define a fan. My noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough previously mentioned the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House, which has pointed out the importance of trying to put this definition in the Bill. It is so central to what the Bill tries to achieve that its omission is really very striking.

The European Club Association, in its Fan of the Future report, has also pointed out that

“The anatomy of a football fan has evolved significantly”.


Its research highlights the role of social media, the decline in linear television viewing and the diversification of football content distribution, to give just a few examples. Those factors have fundamentally altered the way that people access information about football and watch their favourite team play. Indeed, 70% of respondents to the association’s survey said they consumed some form of football content online. All of that points to a trend of an increasingly international fan base for English football—a point that noble Lords have borne out repeatedly in the debate on this group. We, the clubs and the regulator will have to grapple with that trend, which I am sure is only growing, if we are all to meet the fan engagement requirements set out in the Bill.

There was a lively debate on consultation and the limits thereof, geographical and otherwise. I should probably state for the record that I do not necessarily believe that fan consultation should include fans from South Korea and all over the world or, as the noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, put it, Liverpool fans in San Diego. There are obviously practical and burdensome difficulties here. I also acknowledge the point made by various noble Lords that fans who are more directly affected by their club, either from living in its vicinity or through its work, have an especially special bond.

I was struck by the comments the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made about the gradation that clubs already make between types of fans. However, as we refer to fans again and again throughout this Bill, it is important that we try and specify what constitutes a fan, and not leave it so vague. This issue requires clarity for our future deliberations in this Committee, and I would be grateful if the Minister could provide it when she responds. Before she does, I want to say a few words about Amendment 17, tabled by my noble friend Lord Markham. This amendment attempts to provide that clarity and specificity by seeking to define what constitutes a fan. If the Minister does not like Amendment 17’s definition, then it is important she provides an alternative.

I am also interested in the solution the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed with his Amendment 26. In essence, his amendment requires the regulator to tell us what it counts as a fan when it conducts its duties under the Bill. It is important for fans, for clubs and for everyone that this is clarified. The noble Lord’s nightmares were well spent if during those night-time hours he formulated the ideas that led to Amendment 26, which has been helpful.

I also want to touch on Amendment 17A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. This amendment, again in the spirit of helpfulness, tries to define a fan as somebody who holds a season ticket for a regulated club. I do not doubt the noble Lord’s intent here; season ticket holders are some of a club’s most stalwart supporters. However, as the debate on this group has shown, that definition is restrictive, limited and problematic. Thousands of club fans may not be fortunate enough to hold a season ticket: it may be too expensive; they may live at the other end of the country; they may find themselves on a waiting list—as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, noted; and they may find themselves behind corporate interests, as my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow has set out. All of those things could prevent fans from becoming season ticket holders. It would not be right to say that those people are not fans, or that they are not the sort of fan who needs to be consulted on the future of their club or who would have an interest in it. Therefore, although Amendment 17A’s definition is a helpful attempt, it is not quite the answer.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mann, for his tentative and cautious interest in my amendment on current and prospective fans. I hope that he agrees that it is important that we have a definition of a fan in the Bill to avoid this sort of confusion as we go through the debates on later clauses. I know that he chairs a fan group for Leeds United. Would every Leeds fan feel that they were represented by the group that he chairs? Would they all agree with what he says? I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. Fans come in different shapes and sizes, and they have many views, but we need some clarity as we go through our debates to understand in each instance where and whom the regulator, the Government and the clubs themselves must consult.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I rise to strongly oppose the idea of adding environmental sustainability to the regulator’s remit, as this group of amendments seeks to do. I do so not because this issue is unimportant: of course, it could not be more significant for us all. My objection is both practical and principled, because barely has the ink dried on this revised Bill, and already we are seeing a litany of attempts to extend the regulator’s scope. This, I am afraid, is what many of us who work in football are so worried about. We are the first major country to introduce a government regulator for football, and immediately there is pressure to have it solve every challenge on the spectrum.

Let me remind noble Lords: this Bill already gives enormous power to the regulator. It can decide who can own a football club; how the club can spend its money; how it should organise itself as a business; how it must engage with its supporters; in what circumstances it can move location; the approach it should take to equality, diversity and inclusion; the overall flow of money; and even the continued existence of key competition tools throughout the ecosystem. However, even that does not seem to be enough. Today it is environmental sustainability; tomorrow it will be something else. We already have amendments tabled to mandate specific kinds of corporate social responsibility; to add the women’s game to the IFR’s scope; to meddle with free-to-air listed events; to require regulator consultation on political statements made by clubs; and even to govern football clubs’ relationships with sports betting.

It is a well-known phenomenon that all regulators significantly expand their scope and size over time but, if we start before it has even begun, imagine what this regulator would look like in a decade. Where will it end? I do not expect it to be anywhere positive for our currently world-leading football pyramid.

The Premier League and its clubs, as well as many EFL clubs, are already taking substantial action on environmental issues, as all responsible businesses should do. We already have comprehensive environmental regulations that apply to all businesses, as well as the aggressive targets of a country reaching net zero. In addition to serious and often innovative action to reduce their own carbon footprints, many clubs also campaign and donate substantial resources to environmental campaigns.

Premier League clubs also do a huge amount to help other clubs in this regard. Let me give one example: the Premier League has put in place a brilliant programme to provide grants of up to 70% of the costs associated with installing modern LED floodlights at stadiums across the National League system and women’s football pyramid. This has already helped dozens of community clubs both to lower their running costs and to minimise the impact they have on the environment, but it is fair to point out that Premier League clubs make these sorts of voluntary contributions while facing already unprecedented financial demands. Again, I will give one example.

The Budget increases to employers’ national insurance contributions will cost Premier League clubs an additional £56 million annually. That is an extraordinary new burden—more than £0.25 billion over the rest of this Parliament. This new bill also comes on top of the £1.6 billion in pyramid support that we already provide, as well as our significant investment in youth development and community programmes, and the constant need to maintain expensive infrastructure and build new facilities. The Government want us to spend even more on grass-roots pitches and, through the Bill, they may force us to give even more to the well-funded Football League.

All of this is before Premier League clubs can focus on their most basic and fundamental requirement—of which the Bill takes so little account—to keep their own teams strong and competitive on the pitch. Let us remember that that is what the fans really care about. It is our ability to do that which underpins the overall health and sustainability of English football.

We must not compel this regulator to interfere in areas far beyond its core purpose, adding yet more cost and complexity to what is already a set of implementation challenges. Every additional requirement we add dilutes its focus and risks its effectiveness, so this group of amendments surely cannot adhere to the basic principles of good regulatory design. Effective regulators need clear, focused remits. They need to do specific things very well, not everything poorly. Let us not undermine this regulator’s clarity of purpose before its work even begins.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My noble friend Lady Brady makes some very powerful points. Any business sector would not argue against or disagree with best practice in terms of the sustainable aspects of their business. In football, you need only look at the quality of the hospitality element and the work that goes on there or the maintenance of the grounds and pitches.

Carlisle United has been mentioned several times. The river is in the centre of town and it floods regularly, but that is a matter to do with the location of the club and the river in that city. This comes to my other point about the historic nature of football clubs and their grounds. Many of them were built in the Victorian period in the centre of cities. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talks about sustainability and transport, but it is very difficult for many clubs—Premier League and other league clubs that are located in the centre of towns—to do the things that the noble Baroness is proposing to insert into the Bill.

I will just give a quick example of sustainability, and that is Old Trafford. It is situated between Manchester docks and a railway line, in Trafford Park. The carbon footprint of Trafford Park has significantly reduced over recent decades, and Manchester United and other clubs throughout the league have reduced their carbon footprint, because that is the right thing to do. It is good business practice and therefore we do not need these amendments, because the football clubs themselves know the benefits of offering good-quality hospitality and good performances on pitches.

Some of your Lordships will remember the summer of 1976. It was a sign of global warming, perhaps, but the quality of football pitches in 1976 was terrible. The grass did not grow and the technology of the day did not enable pitches to survive that drought. The technology is there now and it is sustainable. Football clubs have the power, technology and wherewithal to cope with climate change but, if they are located close to a river in the centre of town, there is really only one solution, which is to move that football club.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

My Lords, I have talked to quite a number of major new investors in English football and have not found one who opposes the general principle of having a regulator. They are quite relaxed about it, yet they are the major new investors. I think one reason is that, when people invest, they often find some hidden nasties that had not been disclosed about the investment and its finances. That extra element of transparency is not necessarily a discouragement to investors; it can be an encouragement, particularly to reliable, long-term investors.

If you talk to a random selection of football fans, one case that will always quickly crop up is the Glazers buying Manchester United, not with their own money but with leveraged buyouts. I am rather more benign about the Glazers, because their intentions were always very open: they were borrowing money from reliable sources and attempting to make a profit. I would not be too comfortable about that if it were my club, but it cannot be denied that what they did was clear, transparent and out in the open. Anybody who thinks that there are not people today who the fans believe are generous and beneficial owners who have put lots of their own money in, but who have in fact borrowed the money from sources that are not public, are being rather naive, because that is still a model through which people buy football clubs. Football clubs are easy to move money in and out of and speculative investment has proven over the last 20 years, particularly in English football, a reasonable bet and may continue to be so. Indeed, the whole case of the Premier League is that it will continue to be so, so the regulation being proposed is not necessarily an anti-business case.

There is another interesting aspect that does not come to light because we do not know about it. I hear from current and recent professional players about the impact and influence of agents. Are there now agents who are sufficiently powerful in the game, with the corporate entities they have created to own footballers and, more critically, footballers’ rights, that their unseen investment in a club could have an influence in ways that the wider public, including the fans, do not know about? It seems to me, from a fan perspective, that that is a problem for the health of the game. On balance, the good, long-term investor who could make good money —that seems to be a rational motive—will be in favour of this element of transparency and not against it.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mann, with his very pertinent points on agents and fans. I rise briefly to support my noble friend’s Amendment 27 and to make a point about owners being fit for purpose, fans’ interests and consultations and unintended consequences. Along with other noble Lords, I spent last Friday afternoon with the shadow regulator. I asked whether they were aware of how unpopular they could be. I used the example that has already been used of Newcastle United, which has a new owner and a sovereign wealth fund, and the fans are excited because of the potential that brings. That is great, but what would this regulator make of the new ownership? Compare and contrast that with the previous owner, Mike Ashley.

Noble Lords will be aware of what Newcastle fans thought about Mike Ashley: in their eyes the team was underperforming and he was not investing in the club and its players. However, he was probably being prudent and working within the constraints of the rules of the game, and the regulator might have judged him to be a perfectly fit and proper person to run and own that club. I ask noble Lords to imagine a situation where the regulator says to a sovereign wealth fund owner, a country such as Saudi Arabia, “I do not believe you are a fit and proper person to take over and own this club”, but the fans think it would be wonderful. The regulator could end up in a situation with literally tens of thousands of protesters going down to Manchester from clubs like Newcastle.

As the noble Lord said, Brighton and Hove Albion supporters are very passionate, and he clearly did a good job there as a council leader. However, we know that fans will travel all around the country to support their team and we could end up with the unintended consequence of the regulator denying the potential of an owner to buy a club based on his set of rules and regulations, but tens of thousands of fans would disagree and we could have a situation where they would go down and protest. That could be one of the unintended consequences, so perhaps the Minister could let the House know whether the Government have thought of that.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 182 to 184 in the names of my noble friends Lady Taylor and Lord Bassam. I do so, as my noble friend Lord Bassam said, specifically in relation to Wimbledon—not AFC Wimbledon, at which I happen to be a season ticket holder, but Wimbledon, the previous club, which has now been moved 60 miles up the M1 to Milton Keynes. I want to focus on the situation prior to that happening, and that is why these amendments are relevant.

Ironically, in one of the debates on the Bill last week I talked about state intervention and mentioned the Taylor report. It was that report, published in, I think, 1991, which said that our grounds at the top level must be all seated. Wimbledon’s ground was too small and too cramped, with houses round about it, for that to be done, so they moved from there to a ground share with Crystal Palace, ostensibly on a short-term basis—it turned out that they would be there for more than 10 years, but that is not really relevant to this. The point is that the owner eventually sold the ground from under the fans to a supermarket chain, and subsequently sold the club to Norwegian owners. The point is that the fans were nowhere consulted in any of this, although they made their views clear. But the point is that the home ground is key to any football club and there has to be the long-term commitment to that.

My noble friend Lord Bassam talked about going up to Milton Keynes. The previous owner of Wimbledon FC wanted to move it to Dublin. That was a serious proposal. Thankfully, it came to nothing, of course. On this issue of whether a club can move, that is why the regulator is important. It is maybe lost in the mists of time that, when Wimbledon FC were about to be moved, the FA and the Football League opposed it, and the FA, totally wrongly, set up a commission, which gave the club permission to move to Milton Keynes. It was famously said that retaining the club in Wimbledon would be

“not in the wider interests of football”.

Well, 25 years later, Wimbledon FC, now in Milton Keynes, gets crowds of about 6,000 and AFC Wimbledon, the new club, gets crowds of about 8,000—so noble Lords can work out what is in the wider interests of football from that.

My concern is about the commitment to the club’s ground. It is important that, unless we can get a long-term commitment for when ownership is going to change, there is no reason why any ground could not be sold off, with a new owner claiming, “Well, I’ve had such and such an offer from a supermarket chain, I can’t possibly turn it down. I’ll build a new ground some time in the future, but I don’t know when”. That is why the word “codified” in Amendment 182 is particularly important. It needs to be nailed down, because the importance of the home ground cannot be overstated in terms of the investment of fans into their football clubs.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and Amendment 157, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I shall speak also to Amendment 249, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, which has a lot to commend it.

Before I comment briefly on those three, I want on the record to thank the Minister. We met this morning. We are fortunate in this Committee to have a Minister who is patient, engaging, professional and, unquestionably, inclusive in her approach to many different amendments and many different views that are expressed throughout this Chamber. When she consistently says how much she is enjoying this, some of us might question that, but there is no doubt that if she is, she deserves to, because she has the respect of the Committee and certainly my respect for the way in which she has engaged with us.

I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for whom I have many decades of respect. I was completely in agreement with 50% of what he said today, but I caution him in labelling a large number of Members of this Committee as purely spouting the views of the Premier League, trying to talk this Bill out or, more importantly perhaps, breaching the admonition from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, that because both Front Benches supported the Bill, we should not scrutinise it. He will know that for many decades I have been a passionate and independent voice for sport. My own deeply held view is that the autonomy and self-regulation of sport worldwide, be it in the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA or any number of international sporting bodies, are essential to the success of sport and ultimately those who participate in it.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I am slightly embarrassed, but there has been a former professional footballer on the Labour Benches. He is now deceased. He was certainly here in the early 2000s. I shall find out his name.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, it was Lord Burlison.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and the noble Lord for rightly recalling him. It is right that he and professional footballers are getting the attention they deserve. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.

I have risen to speak to my amendments in this group—Amendments 74, 75, 76, 82, 84 and 85—as well as to express my support for Amendments 73 and 83 in the name of my noble friend Lord Markham and Amendments 86 and 87 in the name of my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham.

My Amendment 74 focuses on the meaning of the word “expedient”. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, did not like it last time I mentioned a dictionary definition. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, reached for his dictionary earlier in today’s Committee, so I hope she will not mind me doing so. I think it is important in this instance because in the Cambridge English Dictionary the word “expedient” is defined as,

“helpful or useful in a particular situation, but sometimes not morally acceptable”.

I was quite struck by that definition. I am not quite sure why a regulator, a public body, should be using its resources in a manner that is sometimes improper or immoral, and I think it is worth scrutinising the choice of that word and the message it might send to the independent regulator.

Our choice of language matters, particularly where legislation is concerned. The words in front of us in the Bill, as well as those uttered by the Minister from the Dispatch Box opposite, can be called upon in a court of law and relied upon to explain decisions and decide appropriate courses of action. The regulator will be deriving its power from this Bill and will be operating according to the principles set out in Clause 8, so it is an absolute necessity that the language in the Bill is clear and well chosen, and I do not think “expedient” meets that test.

A number of the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Markham in this group are very simple. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, highlighted, they change “may” or “should” to “must”. I echo the points that he made, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, made when she had an amendment making the same change earlier in the Committee. When moving that amendment, she noted that it was pretty straightforward, and I would make the same observation about our amendments today.

In seeking to make these straightforward changes, we are asking the Government why the less rigorous words “may” and “should” have been used in these instances. That is important to ascertain because of the significance of establishing the regulatory principles in the Bill. The first principle is that the regulator should use its resources in the most efficient—“expedient” as presently set out—and economic way. However, any public body that will be taking funds from the public purse, which this regulator will in its initial period, must be required to use its resources in the most efficient and economic way possible. The word “should” gives a degree of leeway here. I am sure that the clubs that will be paying the levy would not be happy with the regulator using the money they are giving it in an inefficient and uneconomical manner, so Amendment 73 attempts to tighten the phrasing here and remove that leeway.

My Amendment 75 would change the “may” to a “must” in paragraph (b). This would mean that the Bill required the regulator to co-operate and engage with the relevant parties. That amendment is complementary to my Amendment 76, which would leave out the words

“so far as reasonably practicable”.

Again, that amendment is about tightening up the wording of this provision to give the regulator strict instructions rather than looser intent.

I have put my name to Amendment 79 alongside those of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, and the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Addington, which would also amend paragraph (b). The amendment would add fans as one of the parties with which the regulator must co-operate and would therefore standardise this paragraph with other portions of the Bill.

My other amendments in this group—that is, Amendments 82, 84 and 85—would all change a “should” to a “must”. Amendment 82 would amend paragraph (d) so that the regulator must acknowledge the unique sporting context of football. That is particularly important for regulated clubs since, as the Bill rightly points out and as my noble friend Lady Brady and others have been keen to stress, football clubs operate in a very different environment from other businesses. The top clubs in the English football pyramid will have teams in both national and international competitions, so the rules and regulations they will already be required to follow must be taken into account by the new regulator.

My Amendment 84 states that the independent football regulator must hold officers of a club responsible for the actions of the club where appropriate.

Amendment 85 says that the regulator must operate transparently. Transparency, of course, has a wide range of benefits. The Institute for Government, in its report The Benefits of Transparency, argues that:

“Collating and publishing government data can also help improve the performance of government services, through the monitoring of key metrics and by increasing access to data across government”.


The Institute for Government also points to benefits relating to improved efficiencies, accountability and value for money. Given all this, surely the Bill’s language should seek to require this new regulator to operate with that sort of transparency as well.

I will not enter into the debate that we had over the rival Back-Bench Labour Amendments 80 and 81 from the noble Lords, Lord Shamash and Lord Mann—although the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in true Liberal Democrat fashion, has signed both. I am interested in the Minister’s view as to whether, between those two, she has a preference in consulting supporters, trusts or elected representatives of football club supporters’ groups. I will not reopen the question of the definition of fans, but I am interested in whether she has a preference between those two amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Evans of Rainow]

93: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Requirements on Football Agents(1) The IFR must use its powers under this part to ensure that any person who is licenced by the Football Association to provide football agent services (“a football agent”) must—(a) always act in the best interests of their client Players, Coaches or Clubs and in accordance with their fiduciary duties;(b) abide by article 16 of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations relating to their conduct;(c) respect and adhere to the statutes, regulations, directives and decisions of the competent bodies of FIFA, the IFR and the Football Association;(d) avoid conflicts of interest while providing their Football Agent Services;(e) ensure that their name, FIFA licence number, FA registration number, signature, the name of their client Player, Coach or Club and any other information as may be required by The Association from time to time appear in any contracts resulting from the provision of their Football Agent Service.(2) Any football agent must, upon request, cooperate with the relevant body of the Football Association, or with the IFR, with respect to any type of information.(3) A football agent must submit to the Football Association and the IFR any agreement with a Player, Coach or Club other than a Representation Agreement, including but not limited to agreements relating to Other Services within 14 days of execution.(4) Within 14 days of payment of a fee related to any agreement entered into with a Player, Coach or Club other than a Representation Agreement, a football agent must submit confirmation of receipt and proof of receipt of such payment to the Football Association and the IFR.(5) For the purposes of this section, a person is a football agent if they provide football agents services.(6) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (5), “football agent services” means football-related services performed for or on behalf of a Client, including any negotiation, communication relating or preparatory to the same, or other related activity, with the purpose, objective or intention of concluding a Transaction.”

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 93 would place new requirements on the independent football regulator with regard to football agents. There is nothing new about agents. They have a role to play in the football league, but they have a disproportionate influence now on players, clubs and the league.

Premier League clubs spent a combined £409 million on agents and intermediaries in the 12 months to February 2024, according to the Football Association report last week. Most of this money is leaving football. FIFA is trying to implement some clear and fair rules to the transfer system, including regulations on agents, for the sake of transparency, accountability and better redistribution across all levels of the game. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has said that more money should be going to

“the clubs that trained and developed the players signed”.

He called on Governments and lawmakers to join him and

“play an active role in ensuring the funds generated in transfers are kept within football and are shared with clubs from all around the world, as they are absolutely key for current and future generations of footballers”.

It appears to be a glaring omission, therefore, that we have this 125-page Bill to regulate football, yet agents are not mentioned once. This cannot be right. There exists a set of Football Association regulations that license agents, which are based on the FIFA Football Agent Regulations. These were approved by the FIFA council on 16 December 2022 and sought to provide a balanced legal instrument to protect the effective functioning and integrity of football transfer systems. The importance of this system cannot be overestimated. Without a properly functioning transfer market, clubs would not be able to obtain the world-class talent they so desperately require; players would not be able to climb the ladder and progress their career, which would instead stagnate; and fans would suffer, too, as they would not be able to enjoy the dynamism and excitement that transfer windows bring to the game or see new faces play in the team that they so love.

However, those FIFA regulations have faced legal challenges in the German courts. On 24 May 2023, the district court of Dortmund placed an injunction demanding that FIFA suspend a number of provisions of its football agent regulations for any transfer that was linked with the European Union. The FIFA circular that was sent to the relevant national associations, of which the FA was one, said that the ruling was

“inconsistent with … judicial decisions in other European countries”.

Consequently, large parts of the FA’s own regulations were suspended in December last year.

This amendment seeks to rectify the situation without creating regulatory overlap with the FA by codifying the regulations that had to be suspended. It therefore would not double up on the licensing rules that the FA and FIFA have already set out, but would instead complement those rules. Under this amendment, the regulator would have a duty to ensure that anyone who is licensed by the FA to carry out football agent services abides by Article 16 of the FIFA regulations. That article establishes the rights and obligations of agents. It ensures that agents act in good faith, comply with reporting requirements and uphold the values of the game. Unfortunately, the provision that required agents to comply with Article 16 was one of those that was suspended.

This amendment would also require agents to co-operate with the FA and the independent football regulator whenever those bodies should require, and to ensure that they operate with full transparency.

I believe it is only right that these rules should be reintroduced, so that is what my amendment seeks to achieve. I would be most grateful if the Minister could commit to reviewing the requirements placed on football agents and inform the Committee of what action the Government plan to take to ensure that agents are held to the same standards by this regulator as clubs and leagues will be.

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[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for his amendment, which was an interesting contribution to this Committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, eloquently outlined the costs to the game. The actions of some football agents are clearly a concern, with both the Government and FIFA publicly recognising it as a serious issue. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, gave a number of specific examples.

FIFA has recognised the need for the better international regulation of agents and proposed reforms on this to its member associations. The Government agree with the fan-led review that a global, game-wide solution, led by the industry, is preferable to statutory regulation of agents through the independent football regulator. Trying to address this issue unilaterally could simply push global talent to other markets, so a multilateral solution is preferable. If there is reform, the Government will work with the FA to ensure that any future regulation is fit for purpose. For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for her response. I am somewhat disappointed by talk of a unilateral approach, given that FIFA is calling for other countries and authorities to work with it, but perhaps we can revisit this at a later date. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 93 withdrawn.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to two groups of amendments within this group. Amendment 167 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Taylor is about the removal of rogue owners. In a sense, this amendment poses the question: what is the point of a regulator that identifies bad practice and rogue owners but does not have clear powers and mechanisms to replace them? Our amendment seeks to incorporate within articles of association provisions that would oblige owners to give up their shares and make sure that those shares were given over to a new beneficial owner, subject, of course, to the usual checks.

Our argument is that the Bill must adequately address enforcement of the fit and proper owner test to enable the regulator to force an owner to sell their shares or force a director to resign from the board. In doing that, the regulator would be able to ensure that clubs have sufficient reserves to meet ongoing operational costs if an owner is disqualified.

At some point, it might be advantageous to consider having a central sinking fund in place to help cover interim costs. In the licence criteria, the regulator might also want to insist that clubs include in their articles of association a mechanism for the resignation of a director in those circumstances. That is important because we do not want situations such as Aston Villa found in 2016. In the mid-1990s Brighton & Hove Albion had owners not only who were deeply unpopular but who were not there because they had the best interests of that club at heart. More accurately, they were asset-strippers who eventually, without providing an alternative, sold the ground to a series of companies that set up a retail park. One of the saddest moments of my life was going to the last game there. We all knew what was going to happen to that site. It was going to end up as a Toys “R” Us. I have nothing against Toys “R” Us, but there were plenty of other sites in Brighton where it could have happily located.

I turn to Amendments 205, 208, 210 and 259, which are about protecting domestic competitions. Currently, the Bill does not require clubs to prioritise domestic over European or worldwide competitions. We feel that clubs should be property consulted before changes are made to competitions. The Bill should ensure that the regulator can designate European or worldwide competitions as restricted and not to be prioritised above domestic competitions. This would prevent clubs establishing a new entity to inherit the existing club’s identity and players—for example, the Man Cities of this world leaving the Premier League and calling themselves City Blues for the purposes of entering a restricted competition.

This is important because the ecosystem of competitions has been under pressure in the last few years. For instance, earlier this year moves were made to prevent replays in FA Cup matches. I think it would be fair to summarise that that was against the will of most clubs and largely for the convenience of the bigger clubs playing in European competitions. There is nothing wrong with them playing in Europe; it is very welcome and important for the success of our Premier League. We want to make sure that this carries on being the case, but the abolition of FA Cup replays went against the vast majority of clubs’ interests and has undermined the beauty of the competition in the sense that, periodically, replays provided much-needed funds for clubs in the lower leagues. It has also restricted the opportunity for lower-league supporters to see the bigger clubs when they enter the competition. It is important that the regulator has an interest in this and that we provide clubs with the certainty and security that they will be consulted about competition changes.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mann. It is relevant to Amendment 93 which, your Lordships may recall, requires the new regulator to regulate football agents. My motivation for that amendment was to try to keep transfer fees within football. As I mentioned, it is very important that the grass-roots clubs that develop the players of the future get their fair share.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, setting out all financial arrangements with external agents and other intermediaries involved in contracts, recruitment or both is an interesting one. My only question is: how will this work in practice? How will the regulator deal with highly confidential multi-million-pound transfers? The noble Lord mentions it being private and confidential and therefore not public, but potential leaks could affect these deals. What would the regulator do? How would he operate? How would he stop or block those transfers? The Premier League still has the best players. We still want to attract the best players. It is vital that we get this right to avoid the trap of unintended consequences. It is so important to protect the international reputation of the Premier League.

My amendment was tabled to ensure that no matter where the transfer comes from, that money stays within football. However, we would have to be careful about how that happened in practice.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, regarding Amendments 150, 152 and 164, I will not repeat what has already been said about community assets. I will speak just to my Amendment 248A, which probably counts as a miscellaneous amendment. It is a probing amendment, strong concerns having been raised by the Supporters Trust at Reading. It seeks to insert a new clause, after Clause 51, on ticket pricing, meaning that regulated clubs would have to adhere to the following rules: dynamic pricing strategies being prohibited, concessionary tickets being mandatory and ticket prices for away fans being kept at the level set out in regulations by the Secretary of State. It is a simple amendment, but I suspect that it will not be universally supported.

I understand why clubs want to use dynamic pricing and how it can be used very successfully, but this amendment seeks a more fan-inclusive approach. The Supporters Trust at Reading quoted the Early Day Motion tabled in September 2024, when 19 of the 20 2024-25 Premier League clubs increased their ticket pricing. Abolishing or reducing concessionary tickets would be very bad news for older or younger fans who felt the effects of the cost of living crisis harder than most. Also, Fair Game has said that the constant rise in ticket prices has priced long-standing fans out of the game and that there should be proper consultation with supporters to address their concerns.

I do not seek to open the debate on what a fan is, but this amendment is about giving consideration to how fans can be engaged in discussions about ticket pricing. I am expecting many noble Lords to tell me that this is too interventionist and that it will limit clubs too much, but I am interested to hear the Minister’s response.