Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Goodman of Wycombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

They have made a financial commitment or signed a pledge—I do not know, but they have made a commitment. They have said that they are a part of this and there is no compulsion; they have made a decision. That is why I felt we should have this in the Bill.

Apart from anything else, this is British law we are talking about, and the English leagues. I do not know why we are bothering discussing what people in South Korea or San Francisco are doing, because we can only deal with what is in our own legal framework. If they join a group over here and make a financial or long-term commitment, maybe then they are consulted. But it is here in the UK that you have to make a commitment; it is about the local base. These people are committing to something which is located in a place. That is why I tabled this amendment. My noble friend got to the guts of it when he said that it is an emotional commitment.

We need some guidance on what the Government are going to say. You are not going to keep everybody happy, clearly, but let us at least know why we are unhappy, and we will see what we can do about it at another stage if that is appropriate. That is what my amendment is for, and I hope we can reach that point with all rapidity.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest of a kind as a season ticket holder at Wycombe Wanderers, who are still top of League One, as they were when I spoke at Second Reading. Therefore, I would count as a fan under the definition in Amendment 17A, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. However, I want to describe a group of people who would not count, as I think it casts some light on our proceedings as to what the regulator might say and the Government’s view.

Last year, a Spanish-language YouTube channel, La Media Inglesa—I hope I am pronouncing it correctly; it is apparently the largest football YouTube channel—wrote to every single EFL club asking why Spaniards should support their club. Wycombe Wanderers were the only club to reply in Spanish. As a consequence, 100 Spanish supporters turned up to see Wycombe play Derby County at Adams Park, then again for a game against Sheffield Wednesday, and then again to Fratton Park for a game against Portsmouth—and so on, and so forth. They greatly enlivened the proceedings by waving their scarves, chanting loudly and showing commitment—to pick up the word just used by the noble Lord, Lord Addington—to their team.

The point we are trying to get to the heart of is not exactly who we think is a fan, but what the regulator’s view will be and what the Government believe the regulator’s view might be, given that “fan” is not defined in the Bill. There is obviously common sense in the approach just taken by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, among others. He suggested that, logically and intuitively, there must be some sort of difference, in respect of interest in the ownership of the ground and the prices of tickets, between fans who live in the broad locality and fans—however committed—who travel to the ground from a great distance away.

That is precisely what we need to hear a view about from the Government Front Bench. What I suspect the Minister will say—knocking the issue back across the Benches—is that these are matters for clubs to decide for themselves. If that is the Government’s view, then the Minister in due course should tell us.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 17. What we have seen today, and I am glad that the Chief Whip has been here to witness it, is a passionate and informed debate. Perhaps it will give him an understanding of why the debate may be lengthier than one might have hoped. Not surprisingly, 15 or 20 noble Lords have spoken and we have probably had 21 or 22 different definitions of what a fan is—so none of us underestimates what a complicated area this is, but what we are all united in is that it is vitally important and, as such, it should be in the Bill. That is what we are asking the Minister to reply on.

I am probably biased, but I happen to think my Amendment 17 tries to take those different aspects into account, saying that fans are

“individuals who … identify with the club, engage with the service the club provides, and have an interest in seeing the club succeed”.

Bringing in the service that the club provides is trying to take into account that wider commitment and interest in it. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that the most dedicated version of that is the season ticket, but we also know that there are massively long waiting lists for season tickets. Does that mean that people who are on a waiting list or people who cannot afford a season ticket somehow count less? That is why my wider definition talks about people who engage with the services of that club to try to take that into account.

I think we all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in his amendment that giving the independent regulator a definition to work to is vital, because this is at the core of what a club is. In any consultation that a club has to undertake, it needs to be clear who it is consulting with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, in the slightly unexpected but spirited exchange between my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, I have to say that I incline more to the view of my noble friend Lord Deben on the merits of the case about around climate change. I am not remotely sceptical about climate change, the threat that it poses or the need to take urgent action to combat it. I am, however, sceptical about its place in this Bill and for it to be a strong consideration in the role of the to-be-established regulator of English football.

The reality, exactly as my noble friend Lord Evans just outlined, is that some football clubs are already more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than others. All football clubs will have to invest in adaptation measures to combat the effects of climate change, because there will be malign effects whatever is done. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, they are already being experienced.

I also take the view, and have done for a long time, that businesses which value their brand and reputation have a commercial interest in ensuring that they get ahead of the curve on issues of this kind, because their customers—who, for these purposes, are the fans and supporters—care about these matters. People identify very strongly with their football clubs and with the values that they embody and represent. They want to see these institutions being successful, as obviously all football clubs intend, but they are very aware of the need for them to be responsible and to move towards their own zero-carbon position. I do not want this regulator to spend time and money—not their money but the football clubs’ and therefore the fans’ money—doing things that are not necessary, because all football clubs want to be successful, so they will be addressing this already.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords this series of amendments raises an issue that will come back again and again during Committee, which is a clash of priorities. I will introduce it by again reading out a section from Tracey Crouch’s original report, in which she refers to

“the fragility of the wider foundations of the game. It is both true that our game is genuinely world leading and that there is a real risk of widespread failures and a potential collapse of the pyramid as we know it”.

In other words, we are being told, on the one hand, that football is so financially troubled that we need a state regulator to guide it and, on the other hand—in this series of amendments and others to come—that we must load the regulator with additional responsibilities.

As my noble friend Lady Brady said, these amendments relate to climate change, but we will have more on fan safety, the regulation of women’s football, the expansion of the regulator to other leagues and others on environmental sustainability. On and on they will come. There is a fundamental tension between loading the regulator with these responsibilities and the state of football as the Crouch report described it and as the Bill attempts to address.

There may be other ways of meeting these environmental objectives. I will avoid being drawn into the adverse exchanges between my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Moynihan of Chelsea. There may be other ways in which clubs that lead on environmental action can help clubs that do not. As matters stand, the regulator, were these amendments to come into force, would be imposing on clubs that have, for better or worse, not thought about these matters at all, requirements that would affect how fans come to the games, how they treat their pitches and how they deal with litter—all matters for which they are completely unprepared.

If the Government are correct in stressing—as they have done throughout in talking to Peers; the Minister has been generous in doing this before and during the Bill—that they do not want the regulator to have a heavy touch, I look forward to the Minister explaining the other ways there might be to encourage clubs to take responsible environmental action besides accepting these amendments to the Bill, which might have effects we do not expect or want on clubs that are in financial difficulties—the very basis, after all, on which the Bill has been brought forward.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I join in with the sentiments expressed by many other noble Lords. I made the point at Second Reading that, however well intentioned, noble Lords came up with seven new commitments they wanted the regulator to be involved in. This all starts from the premise that we believe it should be a light-touch regulator and the unintended consequence is that each one, however well intentioned, can add another burden, as so ably explained by my noble friend Lady Brady. I, like others, am fearful of adding something new to the Bill.

I would like to explain a slight difference. In her response to the first group, the Minister talked about mission creep regarding how we were trying to expand the sustainability argument to other objectives of the regulator; for example, to some of the income-generating TV advertising. The key difference here is that we were trying to talk about the action the regulator takes—the measures the regulator might take to force clubs to put down a deposit to cover their sustainability requirements, and whether the regulator should have wider criteria beyond financial sustainability regarding the wider benefits of the game. Those sorts of things are appropriate because they look at what the regulator is responsible for and its objectives. Thing that put new burdens on the clubs come into a different category. They come into the mission-creep category, so to speak, which I, like other noble Lords, are reluctant to add in.

So, although I support the points made by other noble Lords, I would make that distinction. When talking about things the regulator might do that might impact clubs we should make sure that the regulator looks at the wider benefits of the game but we should not look to add extra burdens on clubs, however well intentioned.