Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, as a 12 year-old boy, my father took me to my first football match, the 1987 FA Cup final at the old Wembley Stadium: Tottenham Hotspur v Coventry City. It was a classic. I was thrilled just to be there. My father was not a football fan, but he had promised to take me if we got to the final. I inform my noble friend Lord Maude that we lost. Such is the lot of a Spurs fan, but I was besotted by the game and my club. So today I speak as a fan—one who watched this weekend as we lost again, this time to Ipswich.

Football is the beautiful game. It is simple, graceful and physical; fast and slow; and accessible to those who play and for the many who watch, support and listen. It is a game for everyone, which is why it has become the world’s most played and most watched sport. In that context, English football is the pinnacle of successful club football when it comes to commercial success, especially since the advent of Sky TV and its innovative partnership with the Premier League. Billions of pounds of revenue have flowed into English football. This has caught the eye of various types of club owners—some are in the game for their own passion, but, more so now, some wealthy owners seek to utilise football for other purposes, including making themselves wealthier—but the game and the fans have made our football the most watched and admired in the world.

This was never clearer than during Covid, when the world got to watch the Premier League being played without fans in the stadiums. That meant that, although we could hear the thud of boot hitting ball, there was a total absence of atmosphere, making the whole experience like watching a game in zero gravity—no noise and no atmosphere. This demonstrated how important and integral, and how much a part of the fabric of the match experience—or should I say the product?—are the fans and their passion and voices. It was so much of an issue that broadcasters started to play recorded crowd noises for the TV audience. Fans are not just for match days; they are for life.

Our football is steeped in communities, families, generations and the lifeblood of local residents. Clubs now have fan bases that span the globe, but it is the rich history that makes English clubs unique, as well as what fans sing on the terraces. Our football is not some fabricated, franchise-based, Monopoly board model where owners can have absolute power—such as in American sport, which is based on that; Major League Soccer has continued in that vein. Around the world, other sports, notably cricket, have adopted franchise-based models to turbocharge their development of leagues as commercial cash-producing machines, churning out games and merchandise in equal measure. Let me be clear: there is an audience and a market. By all means, create a product—but that is not the nature and history of our game. In our game, fans have power.

Modern-day owners can be loved, if they spend money to buy players and invest in the club—and, most importantly, if the team wins. They will be hated, if they do not win or are seen not to care about the club, and they will be hounded out. It has been said by the Premier League that its clubs have a virtuous-circle approach to their finances, investing in world-class players and facilities, in player development and local communities. But it seems clear that the old analogy to prune juice once made by the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, is still accurate, as ever-increasing amounts of money come in and go out of the game through huge transfer fees, player wages, agents’ fees and more.

So, what is the modern-day owner’s dream? What are they in it for? Maybe it is to buy a small, lower-league club, invest in the ground, buy smart when it comes to players with potential, use technology and data to inform their decisions, build a global fanbase by leveraging social media and even have a fly-on-the-wall TV show—basically, sweat the asset. Then, hopefully, you watch the value of your investment go up, with maybe a promotion or two to keep the fans happy. Is anything wrong with that? Football is now as much a business as it is a sport. We must acknowledge that. But it must still deliver for the fans, who also know that not everyone can win every game—because the magic ingredient of our game is competition and jeopardy.

Taking all this into account, and the unequal success of English football, means that an independent regulator must tread lightly—or, dare I say, it may undermine the magic pyramid. Football fans have already seen how the promised land of good intentions can end up mutilating the beautiful game. I speak of the video assistant referee—VAR. Ask any fan if they would like that genie put back in the bottle: the erosion of the undiluted joy of scoring a goal as fans in the stadium best-guess whether the goal will be disallowed, fans at home wait while watching endless replays, and the poor chaps at Professional Game Match Officials Ltd draw lines on screens. Fans are now rueing what they wished for, and I would go as far as to say that they would rather live with a few human errors than the suspension of the joy of a goal, the increased ambiguity and the removal of power from the official in black to the faceless operators miles away behind a bank of screens. Let us not let the good intentions of the excellent, fan-led review by Dame Tracey Crouch lead us into the unintended consequences of heavy-handed regulation that will potentially do similar damage to our game and its commercial success that is the envy of the sporting world.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly as an impartial Cross-Bencher. In the interest of productivity, I am aware that we are still on the amendment to:

“Clause 1, page 1, line 4”—


although many of us are still discussing line 1. I will suggest a compromise. The word “sustainability” on its own is too undefined; I suggest that it should be “financial sustainability and success”—thereby combining Amendments 1, 2 and 3.

However, I do not agree with Amendment 4. On growth, I would go back to the banking sector. I know that football is a very different industry, but banking and the financial services in the noughties had the most phenomenal growth rates and we are still all picking up the tab as taxpayers. That was not financially sustainable. So my suggestion is that the words should be “financial sustainable” and “success”—those two together.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4, because words matter. We have been debating the words “sustainable” and “sustainability”, but I will mention the word “unpredictable”—as was my team this weekend in trouncing Manchester City 4-0 away; a completely unpredictable result by all accounts. That is exactly what the Bill is trying to work against—if somewhat inadvertently.

Having spoken to many organisations in the professional game, I get a sense that the Bill is trying to establish a vision for the game that it does not need to. That vision needs to be left in the hands of this successful industry. That is why there is a general feeling that, when we are focusing on whether it is sustainable or on how much we are listening to fans, we are stepping in to an arena that we do not actually want to control and should leave to the people who have been so successful so far.

Many views have been expressed—including, with respect, those of the noble Lord, Lord Mann—on football’s past, but we should be cautious of looking back through rose-tinted spectacles at the history of our game. Yes, it is celebrated by fans, but the future is about innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said. Whatever we say, the game will evolve—because of pressures from fans and commercial pressures. The European Super League did not succeed, but have we seen what UEFA has done with the Champions League? It has evolved again, with more games and more clubs. I am not sure that I completely understand the process it works in at the moment, but it has created a whole new league. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, maybe the Church is losing some of its customers, but these leagues and clubs are gaining customers, eyeballs and commercial contracts that are only getting bigger. So something is succeeding and it will continue to succeed and drive the evolution of our game.

I say in conclusion that, as we go through the Bill and look at the regulator, can we say that the regulator does not drive the vision of football—leave that to the successful industry—but steps in if there is going to be significant failure? That is what a good regulator should do.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for withdrawing from the Second Reading debate at short notice because of an urgent personal matter, and also draw the attention of the Committee to my declaration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mann, I have occasionally not paid for football tickets as a guest of the EFL and the Premier League, mainly in my former role as shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

It is right that we focus on definitions, and I should like to point out a couple of the amendments in this basket. We are saying that we want to protect the sustainability of football and are effectively or explicitly saying that football is so unsustainable that the state wants to intervene in a market to such an extent that we are going to create a new regulator—another regulator. I have been in politics for about 40 years and I have been in many debates where people often talk about the failure of regulators and regulation. If there is one lesson that I have learned from that, it is that the politics of regulation are this: you can always delegate power but you can never delegate responsibility.

What we are saying to 1.5 billion people on the planet is that we are so concerned that your weekly viewing of English football is so unsustainable that politicians, the ones who moved Clause 1 last year and the ones who are moving Clause 1 this year, are taking responsibility for your hopes, desires, heartache and disappointment every week when you watch English football. Well, in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, that is about the bravest and most courageous decision I have ever seen taken in either House of Parliament. Good luck with that.

My second point is this: I have been in another bit of the territory, trying to get the Secretary of State to define what she means by “football fan”. Whatever you think a football fan is, an English football fan—the ones I am thinking about today watch a lot of football, including the World Cup and European Championship —wants everyone in this House to guarantee that our national team will be able to play in every international competition.

The noble Lord, Lord Maude, has spoken to Amendment 6, which he has told the Minister is very helpful to the Government. On this occasion, I agree with him. This is explicitly saying to English football fans, “We will not allow our regulator to allow the rules of UEFA or FIFA to be breached such that there is a threat to England playing in future competitions”. We are not going to resolve this discussion today, but I guarantee that by the end of the passage of this Bill, this Parliament will have to say to 1.5 billion English football fans that we will guarantee that England can play in an international competition. I should be grateful if, in his summation, the Minister could reassure at least this English football fan that that will be the case at the end of this Bill.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Maude, I rise to move Amendment 68. I intend to speak more fully later, but I welcome the group as it stands because the amendments in it cover the issues that will arise soon after the completion of this legislation. I beg to move.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of this group of amendments, particularly my Amendment 328 in which, in short, I seek to assess the impact of the Bill and the independent football regulator on the Premier League.

When I spoke at Second Reading, I highlighted my view from the perspective of a fan of football because football is so much more—it is more than a business; it is a love, a passion, for billions around the world. In Committee, there has been much debate about the potential impact on the game, which is so loved and successful, from the implementation of an independent regulator which may inadvertently temper both the game’s passion and its commercial success. I now put on my business head and shall explore how the regulator means to measure its impact on the clubs it will regulate.

First, what data will the regulator require to report on its effectiveness and on how it is impacting football, particularly the Premier League? Secondly, how will the regulator report to the Secretary of State on how this global industry is operating in many different environments? When we start to explore that question, a further question should come to our minds: are we actually talking about football or something different?

My love for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club remains undiminished despite the testing of my resolve almost every weekend—and last weekend was no exception. However, I ask noble Lords to look further than what occurs on the pitch. My club, like many, has and will continue to invest heavily not just in players but in infrastructure. I must congratulate our chairman Daniel Levy on building a truly world-class stadium in Tottenham, but please note that I did not say “football stadium”, for the Tottenham Hotspur stadium is much more. It has been built to exacting specifications so that it can also host American National Football League games with an entirely separate pitch built underneath the football pitch—a real feat of engineering—and completely different changing rooms have been incorporated into the stadium to meet the exacting requirements of the NFL squad sizes and their expansive kits. More than 120,000 spectators watched NLF games at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium during 2019, 2022 and 2023, and thousands more will this year, which means that already 12 of the NFL’s 32 American teams have played in the new stadium.

But this is not all. We have also welcomed Beyoncé, Guns N’ Roses, Lady Gaga and many other world-class stars. World title boxing fights have been hosted, and we have F1 DRIVE London, the official Formula 1 karting experience. When I walk up towards this gigantic modern-day Colosseum that sits on White Hart Lane, I see the Premier League logo proudly attached to the facade but, alongside it, the Formula 1 and NFL logos—probably with space for a few more. The club quite rightly states on its website:

“Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has become a new sports and entertainment destination for London, bringing a boost of circa £344m to the local economy every year”.

Tottenham is widely regarded as a well-run football club, with owners firmly focused on delivering a sustainable business operation and quality entertainment—I will not talk about trophies.