Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a long-time season-ticket owner, indeed joint owner, of AFC Wimbledon. I say “joint owner” because AFC means “A fans’ club” and I am one of 4,000 in the Dons Trust, which oversees the general direction of the club, not the day-to-day management of it.

I go to a football match at least once a week—anything from level 2 in the Championship down to level 8, which is the Isthmian and Southern Leagues. I no longer go to Premier matches, for the reason outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Ranger: VAR. In my 65 years of watching football, that is the worst development that has happened. It sucks the spontaneity and excitement out of much of the game and leaves the fans, as the noble Lord said, confused. It is a blight on the game and needs to be removed—but of course it will not be.

I was interested to read the comments recently of Trevor Birch, who is the CEO of the English Football League. When asked about VAR in that competition, he said, “We won’t be having it”. He used a term that I think was very apt when he said, “We’re authentic”. Quite.

I welcome the Bill that noble Lords have been discussing today very much because it stems from the fan-led review and will ensure that the interests of fans are heard in a meaningful way in a sector—I suppose, necessarily—dominated by billionaire clubs. The Bill will introduce the independent regulator, which I believe is necessary, given the fragile nature, to which many noble Lords referred, of too many clubs in the EFL. The word “fragile”, of course, would never be seen in the same sentence as “Premier League”, which, by contrast, is vibrant. Self-styled as the premier league in world football, it is certainly the strongest—financially, at least, though not necessarily in playing terms, something about which I shall say more a little later.

The Premier League, though, is something of an anomaly as an English institution, because only four of the 20 clubs are English-owned and only three have an English manager. Russell Martin at Southampton was born in England, but he represented Scotland as a player. In the 32 seasons that the Premier League has existed, not once has the champion club had an English manager. At the start of the current season, just over a third—36%—of players registered in the Premier League were eligible to play for England. That probably explains why the competition is not called the English Premier League, because it is actually an international league that just happens to be based in England.

That begins to explain why—as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Triesman; what a delight it is to see him participating in this debate—the England team has not been nearly as successful as it should have been. As a Scot, noble Lords will understand that this does not keep me awake at night, but the Premier League makes it harder for the England team to achieve success because of the limited pool of top-level players from which the manager can select. There is an even more limited pool from which the FA can select when choosing the England manager. As far as we know, not one of the three English managers currently with a Premier League club was deemed by the FA to be good enough even to be interviewed for the post that went to Thomas Tuchel.

Therefore, having the world’s strongest league based in England is, to put it mildly, a double-edged sword. Yet even with the considerable number of world-class players that it contains, the Premier League underperforms. Since it was formed in 1992 there have been 32 competitions for the European Cup, now the Champions League. Spanish clubs have won 12, and English clubs have won seven. Only three of the past 12 Champions League semi-finalists have been from England, and last season there was none. It is legitimate to ask where the vast resources generated by the Premier League are going other than in inflated transfer fees and player salaries—and the inflated fees for their agents.

In its briefing for this debate warning against the backstop powers contained in the Bill when agreement on financial distributions cannot be agreed, the Premier League says that they are not necessary because the EFL is thriving, but that is not what the EFL says in its own briefing. The EFL’s briefing points out that its clubs will lose around £450 million this season and are reliant on their owners to fund this shortfall, which is unsustainable and affects not just clubs in the Championship but throughout League 1 and League 2. That is why, although he is not in his place, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—frankly, he sounded as though he had stumbled into the wrong debate—that everything in English football is not well. An independent regulator is therefore very necessary.

The regulator must have the powers to decide on distribution deals between the Premier League and the EFL, not simply to choose one or the other league’s preferred figure. That assumes a genuinely independent regulator and board members without conflicts of interest, and the tests provided for in the Bill must be robust enough to make that a certainty. It is right that parachute payments, excluded from the first version of the Bill, have now been included. There is no reason why clubs relegated from the Premier League should be given a financial windfall from which to launch their bid to return to the top level, thus distorting the competitive nature of the Championship, which was set out clearly by my noble friend Lord Bassam. The parachute money should be added to the Championship’s existing solidarity payment on the basis of league positions the previous season. This would mean that the three clubs relegated from the Premier League would get the most and the three clubs promoted from League One would get the least, but it would be fairer, more equitable and would lead to a better competition.

The regulator must be genuinely independent and look after the whole of the football pyramid, because the importance of the pyramid cannot be overstated. I would like the Bill extended to level 6, covering the National League North and National League South, and the top two levels of the women’s professional game. It is worth noting that six current Premier League clubs have played at the fourth level in English football and a further four have played at level 3. I say to my noble friend Lord Bassam that although Brighton and Burnley were saved from dropping out of the English Football League on only the last day of season some years ago, prior to 2014 Luton Town spent five years in the National League at level 5; nine years later they were in the Premier League.

That is the most dramatic example of the pathway that the pyramid can provide and highlights why its sustainability is vital. The pyramid is not just about the professional game. There are 11 levels, stretching down to the grass roots, as exemplified by the story of AFC Wimbledon and—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—the resurrected Bury FC. Without any consideration for its loyal fans, Wimbledon FC relocated 60 miles away. When the fans appealed to the FA, it set up a commission which upheld the decision with the now-infamous opinion that allowing Wimbledon to remain where it had been since 1888 was

“not in the wider interests of football”.

That decision was proved spectacularly wrong because days later the fans formed AFC Wimbledon and the club entered the pyramid at level 9. After just nine years it won promotion to the EFL at level 4. This Bill will ensure that any decisions relating to changes to a club’s location or heritage must be subject to a vote by fans, meaning that the sequence of events that wrenched Wimbledon FC from its roots would be outlawed. Although there is much in this Bill to be welcomed, that alone makes it worthwhile.

That said, the Bill does have a couple of glaring gaps. Schedule 11 has a three- page index of defined terms. “A fan” is not one of them. That needs to be addressed in Committee, as does another glaring omission. This is a Bill about professional football yet not once in its 125 pages does it mention professional footballers. The independent regulator has the potential to impact the careers of those without whom there can be no game. The players have a right to know how the regulator will engage with them, which should be in the Bill. I very much look forward to getting to grips with these and other matters in Committee.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord has sat down. I just want to make a few comments on some of the points that have emerged in a very interesting debate. The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Maude, talk about success—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Is it an intervention?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

It is not.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House for the noble Lord, Lord Markham, to make it clear now whether he has not completed his remarks, in which case it would be appropriate for the noble Lord to wait a moment, or if he has sat down.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We have had a good debate. When the Minister replies, can she explain why it is not felt appropriate to have these measures of success to get the overall financial wealth of the game? I will now sit down.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thought that the noble Lord had indicated that he had finished. On success, which the two noble Lords that I mentioned talked about, the whole question seems to me to be totally subjective. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, what is success for one club is not success for another. I suggest that for at least half the clubs in the Premier League, success is not being relegated rather than winning anything.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

Just to clarify, I said that what sustainability is for one club is different from what it is for another, not success.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

That is interesting. Someone in the debate said that we should have financial sustainability and success. I think that in this setting the two, if not interchangeable, mean very similar things.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and others, talked about the competitiveness and the jeopardy. As you can hear, although I am an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder, I do not come from south London. When I lived in Scotland, my club was Dundee United. They were Scottish champions in 1983. Next season, Aberdeen were Scottish champions. There has been no team but Rangers or Celtic as Scottish champions in the 40 years since. That is a low bar, perhaps, but in fact only two clubs have won the Premier League more than twice in the 32 years of its existence. It is all very well to talk, as the noble Lord, Lord Markham, did, about Bournemouth beating Manchester City. Yes, it is always possible, but a club such as Bournemouth could never aspire to winning the Premier League. Only a very small number of clubs could realistically—

[A noble Lord]

Leicester City.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I am going to come on to that in a minute. Only two clubs have won the Championship more than twice. Three clubs have won it once. If you ask people how many times Liverpool has won the Premier League they will probably say four or five. No, it has won it once, the same as Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers. Of course there is jeopardy; many clubs can be very competitive within a game, but winning the league is something different.

I know that noble Lords have talked about selling television rights and said that it is a very attractive league across the world, and I accept that. However, we have to tone it down a bit on the competitiveness of the Premier League, because there are not really all that many clubs that can aspire to become its champions. That is not to disparage it, but it is just a fact of the past 32 years.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Will the noble Lord accept that since 2000 the four major leagues in Europe—Spain, Italy, Germany and England—have effectively produced the same number of different champions in each case, either six or seven?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Yes, I can accept those figures. I accept the noble Lord’s general premise, although I am not sure about Spain. I do not think that more than two clubs have won La Liga; actually, the two Madrid clubs and Barcelona have won it.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, talked about comparing England with France and Germany. I am not sure that is a fair comparison because in Germany the clubs are fan- owned. No club can have more than 49% ownership—51% is owned by the members of those clubs. There is not a direct comparison there. Yet Germany has been disproportionately successful in European competitions over that same period.

I want to move on to something else that my noble friend Lord Mann talked about— the opposition of many on the Opposition Benches. Unless I misinterpreted my namesake, my noble friend Lord Watson seemed to say that he was not in favour of the regulator having the powers that the Bill suggests. On the question of the role of the state, I thought that my noble friend Lord Mann was going to say that the Taylor report, which followed the terrible events of Hillsborough, was driven by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Quite right—I do not think anybody would object to that. There are cases where state intervention is appropriate and the only answer. If it had just been decided that we would hope all clubs produced all-seater stadiums for safety reasons, we would still be waiting for some of them.

That is one of the issues that we will probably come to later. The other one is the question of who is a fan. It is not for today, but it is very important to define what a fan is. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, talked about Peterborough and how Posh fans are spread right across the fen-lands and beyond. If you are defining a fan, it really has to be a season ticket holder, because otherwise you cannot pin them down. Manchester United and all the big clubs have fans across the world. You could not possibly consult them. I am sensitive that noble Lords will not necessarily agree with that. What about somebody who cannot afford a season ticket or who is not physically able to go to a match? I accept that, so we have to try to pin that down, and it will be one of the most difficult aspects of the Bill, because if we are going to take the views of fans into account, we have to have a means of corralling them and then taking those opinions. At this stage, I do not see how we can do that beyond season tickets.

My noble friend Lady Taylor talked about the sustainability and the success of English football, not just the Premier League but right down the system. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, talked of Stockport County. They sunk right down to level 6 in the National League North after going through some very traumatic periods, but have been able to come back up to level 3. My noble friend Lord Mann talked about AFC Wimbledon; in nine years they came from, basically, parks football to being back in in the Football League. It is natural that we tend to concentrate on the Premier League, but there has to be some understanding that the clubs below them are important. I am being opportunistic, but the Labour Government have talked about fixing the foundations. In any sense, when you look to go forward, you must have strong foundations. The foundations of English football are right down at the grass roots. I am not talking about the amateur level.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord references Amendment 10 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. Will that amendment not potentially embed in primary legislation an economic concept of moral hazard? It is an economic term: a situation where a party has an incentive to take risks because it does not have to bear the full costs of those risks. That is going to be on the face of the Bill for the new regime, and will be directed by the new regulator. Is that not the case?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

We will have to see how that comes out in debate. I am not quite sure what the import of that amendment is. That is one of the issues about the role of the regulator. Noble Lords, particularly on the other side of the Chamber, are seeking to give him or her greater powers or influence than intended in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said at one point that we do not need a regulator because nothing is wrong. There is something wrong, because the Premier League and the English Football League have been unable to reach agreement on the disbursement of the funds from the top level to levels below. That is one of the problems in the system at the moment.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

There is a deal in place agreed by all parties on how funds are distributed; 16% or £1.6 billion is distributed. It is also important to note that the Premier League has more title winners in the last 15 seasons than La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A, and the fewest number of titles won by one club than any other top European league over the same period, which shows it is competitive. That is why it is the best league in the world and the most valuable, and that is what we have to protect, because without that broadcast revenue the whole pyramid suffers.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I know the noble Baroness has experience with one of the major Premier League clubs but, in a sense, she has made my argument for me. The other leagues are less competitive, but I am just saying that if only four clubs can win the championship twice in 32 years, it is not spread very wide, and I would like to see it spread more widely, as many other people would—no doubt including those at her own club.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I think the noble Lord misunderstands what I meant by competitive. It is not just which teams can win the Premier League overall and, as the noble Baroness showed, more teams can win here than anywhere else. It is the competitiveness of every single game, because the value is that you have so many games that people all around the world want to pay to watch, so they are interested in watching all the games. Brentford might not win the league, but they know they are going to be competitive against Man City and Liverpool and Arsenal, and they are the games that people want to watch. When we talk about competitiveness, it means that every single game is competitive and that is what the viewership wants to see, and drives the value up of the rights.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

That point was made earlier. I would not say every game is competitive, but I take the noble Lord’s point. I do not want to say any more at this stage because it is important that we get some clarity on how we go forward after this initial debate, because there are many important sections of the Bill that we need to look at in detail. The regulator will have a role, and we have to use this to make sure that it is absolutely clear. Some of the issues raised by noble Lords are legitimate, and until we can have our debates on each of these, we cannot quite see what shape this Bill and the role of the regulator will have. I thank noble Lords for the points made, and I think there are a lot of issues that we will follow up.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, if we do not get up to Amendment 36, we have a big job ahead of us, so I am going to be very brief.

Take the BBC. The director-general, the chair and the board really try to work hard to meet its objectives. It is there to entertain, to inform, to educate—and those objectives live in the same organisation. I do not know why, in the same way, the regulator cannot see its job as one of sustainability and success as well as growth.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the Committee to my interests, which are declared on the register. I support Amendment 12 in the name of my noble friend Lord Maude, especially proposed new Clause 1(3)(f). This would set a clear success metric for the IFR that it should incentivise

“industry-led agreements on the distribution of”

the Premier League’s broadcast revenue. This is absolutely critical for the future collective success of the football industry.

We already know that UEFA has written an alarming letter to the Government which said, among other things:

“Mandating redistribution which affects the competitive balance in the game and wider European competition would be of concern to us”


and

“would … prevent amicable solutions being found”.

This is why UEFA says that the backstop should be “carefully reconsidered”. I understand and respect that this is what Ministers genuinely believe they have done in relation to the backstop powers, which we will discuss in much greater detail later. However, I profoundly disagree that the backstop provides any such incentives.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that earlier this year Dame Tracey Crouch, the chair of the fan-led review, called the backstop powers “nuclear … coding” never to be reached for. However, the Football League chair disagreed, and said he fully intends to use the mechanism and that it is entirely logical. To extend the analogy, in the Bill the Government are doling out nuclear weapons to football authorities. They are doing so in the belief that these weapons will somehow create space for diplomacy. However, the evidence is already very clear. In the real world, one side is ready to press the button and launch its missiles. The powers clearly do not place the incentives in the right place. If they did, we would already have a new agreement and the football bodies would not have been driven so far apart.

This is why I have tabled amendments to rebalance the backstop, so it can create proper incentives and space for good-faith negotiations and diplomacy. The fact that the Bill has led one party to believe it can launch a successful first strike is proof that these powers have manifestly failed in their purpose already. That is why I am so supportive of my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I have a couple of questions for the noble Lord, Lord Maude, but first, the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said that the amendments provide clear metrics. I do not think they do; they are very subjective, particularly Amendment 12. What is

“globally competitive in relation to audience and quality”?

Regarding the phrase

“continues to attract significant domestic and foreign investment”,

what is “significant”? I do not think it is helpful to include words like that.

For what it is worth—my noble friend the Minister probably will not like this—I think paragraphs (e) and (f) of Amendment 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, make sense, because we can clearly see what they mean. I would say the same of the Amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. Amendment 7 is rather rambling and unclear and is not suitable for inclusion the Bill. We need something clear that can be measured, rather than words like “substantial”, which could mean anything or nothing.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, just used two words which are of significance: “subjective” and “clear”. The problem with the Bill as drafted, judging from the lengthy debate we had last Wednesday and today’s proposed amendments, is that we are trying to provide clarity in relation to very subjective words, not least of which is “sustainability”, which is used several times. All these amendments are about looking at ways of making things clear, so that the football regulator can operate in some form or another.

The noble Lord was present throughout the debate last week, and during that debate I spoke about the threat to which the noble Lord, Lord Maude, has referred: that other sports and organisations will overtake our system—the Premier League and the other leagues—unless it is able to modernise and change as time goes on. What worries me genuinely about the Bill as drafted is that it almost implies ossification. It is an immovable process, because “sustainability” is just not clear.

Let us look at what we have seen in the past few days in terms of sport. This weekend the Middle East hosted a Grand Prix, a cricket tournament and a rugby tournament, so let us look at what might happen elsewhere. Equally, the Champions League, as was referred to in a previous debate, is changing and expanding. This Bill arose from a government reaction—an overreaction, probably—to the threat of a European super league whereby a set of clubs would be in a league of their own, never challenged. Quite rightly, the nation’s fans—not just this nation but a whole series of other nations—rose up and said that that is utterly unacceptable. Despite that, some clubs still believe that that is the right way to go. The Champions League has extended and we have the UEFA Conference League, et cetera. They are involving more and more British football clubs, and I welcome the success.

In referring to the football results of the past few days, I apologise profusely to my noble friend Lady Brady. But the success of the Premiership was identified in the fact that, albeit only briefly, Brighton & Hove Albion were second in the Premier League. That does not imply an unchanging, rigid position; it implies that the Premiership and the league system can develop. I was listening to the commentary on Liverpool v Manchester City—I apologise to any Manchester City fans for referring to yesterday’s game—and it was striking that, before the game, Radio 5 Live observed that there were more foreign correspondents covering that match than were covering the Liverpool v Real Madrid game only four days earlier. That indicates the very success and potential our system has—as long as it is reasonably developed and allowed to progress.

I have doubts, to be honest, about my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s amendment, because I do not think it goes far enough. I welcome that of my noble friends Lord Maude and Lady Evans, because it gives the Bill a better perspective and tries to provide clarity beyond the merely abstract word “sustainability”, and to develop some other aspects to which the football regulator should refer.

When I spoke last week, I was highly critical of the impact assessment, and I continue to be so. I know that it is largely based on the impact assessment prepared for the previous Bill, so I do not criticise the Minister; I criticise my colleagues in the previous Government just as much. However, I said that the impact assessment was intended to justify the current Bill, and that is made clear in paragraph 17:

“This Impact Assessment (IA) provides evidence and analysis to support the government’s case for intervention”.


In other words, it is providing support specifically for this Bill. It does not look at a range of other issues, which my noble friend Lord Goodman identified when he quoted from Tracey Crouch’s original report, relating to the overall success of the football industry in this country.

I believe that we need to provide greater clarity and greater indications of what we are trying to protect, develop and allow to go forward. Although last week I criticised the total lack of reference to “success” in the impact assessment, and I stick by that, I was very pleased, in part, to receive the letter from the Minister, page two of which has a section entitled “Proportionality and promoting success”. That is the attitude I want to see reflected in the Bill, in whatever phraseology we choose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Markham and Lord Maude of Horsham for speaking to their amendments and for setting out the case for them. Before the Minister responds to them and to my Amendment 7, which I moved at the outset, I should say that I am not precious about my amendment vis-à-vis those of my noble friends in this group, Amendments 12 and 13.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, said that he did not like my wording and found it rambling and insubstantial. I take no offence; I simply took the wording that the Government used in the Explanatory Notes and sought to put that in the Bill. If he finds that rambling, it may be that the Explanatory Notes are as well.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

The point I was making was that the wording was appropriate for the Explanatory Notes but not for the Bill.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. My noble friend Lord Hayward said that he did not much like it either, but it is helpful that my amendment has been grouped with the other amendments, which are seeking to give a bit more precision than the two short lines that are in the Bill. As I said in moving my amendment, my contention is that they do not go far enough to define what “sustainability” means in practice, which will be important for the regulator looking at it.

I am grateful to my noble friends, particularly my noble friend Lord Markham, whose Amendment 13 proposes a few tangible benchmarks through which sustainability can be measured. It suggests inserting criteria, including increasing TV viewership, increasing match attendance, improving international sporting competitiveness and increasing the overall income generated. They are all very tangible and specific. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will prefer them and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about them when she responds.

Criteria such as those would provide a far more accurate and reliable understanding of the sustainability of English football. As my noble friend Lord Markham said, we all want to make sure that we are helping to deliver that with this Bill and to give the regulator the clarity that it needs to uphold it. The Premier League’s television exports alone were worth £1.4 billion in 2019-20. If the Government are serious about growth and supporting the success of Great British success stories, the regulator must ensure that that growth trajectory goes only upwards. By basing the standards of sustainability on objective metrics, such as those that my noble friends Lord Markham and Lord Maude have tried to set out, football would surely benefit, and the regulator would have the clearer frames of reference that I think we are looking for.

As my noble friend Lord Hayward said, there is competition from a growing number of countries that are snapping at our heels. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, reminded us, there is no divine right for football to continue to exist in the way that it does in this country. My noble friend Lord Hayward pointed out some of the sporting fixtures that have happened this weekend. I enjoyed the Qatar Grand Prix, although I thought that the 10-second penalty for Lando Norris was rather disproportionate, especially since no safety car and no virtual safety car were deployed. I mention that not to take us on to another sport but to point out the difficulties that happen when a regulator—in this case, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile—makes curious or contentious decisions.

Through the amendments in this group, we are seeking to give a clarity of purpose to the regulator, so that it can focus its important work on delivering the sustainability of English football in a way that matches what the Government have set out in their Explanatory Notes. For all the differences that have been expressed, I think that we are all united on that. But it is important that we give this extra precision and clarity, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, the complexity of this debate—it is structurally complex as well as dealing with complex issues—illustrates how important it is that we explore these issues, because in every debate that we have another layer of the multifaceted success that is current English football becomes exposed and illuminated.

My noble friends’ amendments suggest that the regulator should be required to consider future fans as well as current fans and to take into account all fans not just fans in the locality. The truth is that, 20 years ago, there would not have been support across the world, particularly for the major clubs. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just said, this is not limited to the top level of clubs. This is a moving scene. Globalisation, for all its critics, has not come to an end; this is more of a global village than it was. Top-level football in England is much more international than it was in terms of the background of footballers who play here, and that is unlikely to become less so. As more and more of the world’s population have access to a variety of television channels, there will be more. We can only expect the degree of global interest and support for English football clubs to grow. This is a moving scene, and we should be clear that if we are going to have this regulator, the regulator should think in those terms and to be aware of it.

Of course, there will continue to be an incredibly important local fan base for every club. I was a Tottenham supporter when I lived in Oxfordshire, when I lived in Warwickshire, when I lived in London and now when I live in Sussex. My son, who is also a Tottenham supporter, feels it so strongly that he bought a house five minutes away from the marvellous Tottenham stadium, so he has now become a local supporter having been a distant supporter. This will continue to be the way in which support for football clubs develops, and it is important. My noble friend does us all a service by raising the point and developing the complexity of the issues that we are dealing with here and that we might, if we do not get this right, be putting in jeopardy.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak primarily to Amendment 17A in my name. Before I do so, I want to reflect on some of the contributions that we have heard, largely on the last group of amendments but spilling over into this one. I am a bit concerned that, while the Bill is about the regulator of English football, several noble Lords have said that it would be appropriate to extend it beyond the confines of England.

I understand the economic arguments for that. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, who asked: are we really saying that we do not want English football equivalents of American football teams coming here? I saw American baseball at the London Stadium this year and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I do not care about their leagues. I do not care what effect it has on their leagues or their fans; it is up to them.

I do care about the effect of sending games abroad, as other noble Lords have said, and playing competitive matches: not touring matches, as my noble friend Lord Knight said, but competitive matches in other countries. That would be, to put it mildly, a very slippery slope and it would impact on something that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said in the last debate about comparing other sports. There is a very worrying trend of other sports—such as the grand prix that took place at the weekend—being funded to outrageous extents by foreign, often repressive and undemocratic Governments, to ensure that sports go to their countries. I do not want to see that sort of magnet placed in the way of football clubs in this country.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Can I clarify what the noble Lord has just said? He described the sporting events in the Middle East over the weekend—which were cricket, rugby and motor-racing—as “worrying”. Receiving literally millions of pounds of income for a football club or other sport in this country—is that really worrying?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

It is absolutely worrying. These countries have the right to do what they like with their money, but we have a right to say, “I don’t really wish to engage with that”, because we become tainted if we do that to an unlimited extent. That is a slightly different argument from that of playing competitive matches in other countries. That surely is something that we all agree would be bad for the future of English football. There are plenty of ways of bringing money in from all sources—if clubs want to do that, it is up to them—but playing matches outwith this country is surely not where we want to go.

That impacts on the whole question of fans and my amendment, which is: what is a fan? I do not know whether my amendment is the way we should define it, but I think it is the narrowest definition of a fan that I have heard so far in relation to this Bill. How do you define the Liverpool fan in San Diego? What does she or she have to say about what is happening in the Premier League? They may watch it on television and that is fine. They may express a very definite preference for one club, and they are entitled to do so. But they do not have a vested interest in the club in the way that someone who pays their money to go and see a match does.

I will repeat the point that I made last week. Some people are unable to afford the price of tickets, particularly in the Premier League—although I have to say in all honesty that I bought a theatre ticket last week, which cannot really be equated with the cost of a Premier League football ticket. But the other question is whether some people are physically unable to go. It may be somebody who has been going since they were 10 years old; they reach the age of 70 and find they are no longer able to go. I would sympathise with that.

However, we have been talking in the Bill about the regulator ensuring consultation with fans. You cannot consult somebody if you do not know where he or she lives. There has to be a list somewhere of the people you are going to consult. You cannot just open it up online and say, “Anybody with an interest, let us have your view by email”. That is not consulting—or at least consulting properly. So people who have bought into the club by having a season ticket: that is a reasonable way of saying, “These are the only fans we can genuinely define”. You can put them in a box and say, when it comes to consultation, “That’s the group of people because they have put their names in”.

They do not go to every match, of course. I often laugh when I read the football results and they show the attendance. I do not mean any disrespect to Arsenal, but I will use them as an example. They are going rather well at the moment, but they were not going well five years ago in the latter days of the Arsène Wenger period. You would see a match the Emirates Stadium and it was perfectly clear that there were almost as many empty seats as filled seats, yet the next day the papers would say the attendance was 100 short of capacity. That means the club is saying, “Ah, now, but we’ve sold those seats. Season ticket holders have bought them but they’re not very happy at the moment so they haven’t come”. My argument is, “Okay, that’s fine, but the key to the attendance is the word ‘attend’. If people don’t go, there’s not an attendance”. Still, the point is that these people have made a financial commitment to the club, and that is a basis on which to go forward.

That is why I disagree with the other amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 26 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 17 from the noble Lords, Lord Markham and Lord Parkinson, which refers to those

“who have an interest in seeing the club succeed”.

That is so vague; we have to have some way of pinning it down. If there is a better way of doing that than through season ticket holders, I am open to that suggestion and I will consider it. But, until then, I believe that is the only basis on which we can do it. I also want to see it in the Bill.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

Suppose we base it on season ticket holders. If you take a club such as Bournemouth, whose capacity is 11,000-ish, it will probably have 4,000 season ticket holders—but they would not represent all the views of every Bournemouth supporter in the whole world.

In relation to supporters around the world, if a supporter gets on a plane from Sweden to watch Bournemouth play, are they a supporter or not? Some 5% of inbound flights to the UK involve taking in a Premier League game—I mean, the Premier League could run a successful airline. Putting that point to one side, though, it would be impossible for a regulator to try to rank supporters of the club in order of priority. We all know, respect and love our season ticket holders, but not everyone is lucky enough to get a season ticket—particularly if you are a Bournemouth supporter, because the capacity is only 11,000-odd.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

On the noble Baroness’s last point, I do not want the regulator to be doing this. That is why I want it in the Bill. This is not an issue where there can be any subjectivity. There has to be something tight.

Bournemouth may have season ticket holders in Sweden, I do not know, and if they come, they come. If they do not come, though, they are still a season ticket holder, so they are entitled to be consulted. But, if there is no financial commitment, I just do not understand how you can possibly meaningfully take the opinion of someone who just says, “Yeah, I’ve been at a couple of Liverpool games, I always watch them on TV and I’ve bought a scarf”. I am open to suggestions as to how we might pin this down better, but pin it down in the Bill we must.

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

My Lords, when it comes to taking opinion, I would rather not complicate things, but the divides that appear to be there are rather false ones, talking about issues that are not contained in the Bill but are contained on other issues.

I currently chair a supporters’ group that has branches all over the world. It has members—some season ticket holders, some not—who attend football. I am quite satisfied that the Bill says that supporters’ groups of different kinds should be consulted on issues that are of relevance to them.

I have a slight liking for “current and prospective” in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, but possibly for different reasons from him, and I am not sure it can be encapsulated in statute, so I do not warm to the wording, even if I do to part of the meaning.

There is a danger at the moment that football, especially the Premier League and the higher echelons of the Championship, is full of people who are more like me, rather than young children. Season ticket waiting lists in the Premier League are prodigiously difficult to get up. There are long queues and many children are in them, which is a dilemma. Unless stadiums get bigger and bigger, which I would encourage, how do we get in the next generation of fans? If you do something as absurd as a team in Manchester has done and make it £66 for a child, in the long term you will probably lose competitive advantage. But the family and the children are losing something which is quintessentially British and English: being able to support their local team and occasionally go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I hope I might be allowed to say a few words about my amendment in this group, if everybody is okay with that.

I asked for a definition of “fans” because I had a nightmare, and this discussion featured largely in it. A fan is a self-selecting person who has made a commitment. If there is another definition out there, save it, please.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

A financial commitment.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s excellent amendment. I think it is unarguable that in the last hour we have demonstrated why we need that amendment, because no one agrees what “local” means. I think that is a very important point. This whole debate reminds me of Humpty Dumpty in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when Humpty says:

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.


We do not really know what “local” means. My noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea talks about the importance of international fans. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that I fundamentally disagree with Amendment 17A because I think it is socially regressive and would lock out many people. It would actually go against my noble friend’s Amendment 8 in terms of getting new generations of fans involved: not everyone can afford a season ticket.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I accept that, and I hope I made that clear earlier—but how do you consult the other people? You do not know who they are.

[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.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his introduction to what I am going to say about Berwick Rangers. I declare an interest as having for some years been the honorary president of Berwick Rangers Football Club, which has existed for 143 years. During virtually the whole of that time, it has played in Scottish leagues, despite its stadium being in England. My amendment is there simply to secure clarification, which I am confident the Minister can give—although clarification would not necessarily survive subsequent amendment of the parts of the Bill to which I shall refer.

It appears to me that none of the regulatory provisions applies to a team in a competition that has not been specified by the Secretary of State. Under Clause 2(3), the Secretary of State does not have power to specify a competition in which the majority of the teams are not English teams. Thus, the Secretary of State could not designate the Scottish League, or the Lowland League or the Scottish Cup, in all of which Berwick play or have played.

Furthermore, Clause 15 makes it clear that operating licences are required only for a club operating a relevant team, which is defined in Clause 2(1) as a team participating “in a specified competition”. That would not apply to Berwick Rangers, because competitions in which they play could not, under the Bill, be specified. However, references in the same clause to a club with a stadium in England does raise in people’s minds the question about whether the Bill could be extended to Berwick—which would not be the Government’s intention, I am quite sure. Not only do they not seek to extend the Bill to Berwick Rangers, I do not think they are trying to move into the world of Scottish football, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid is well aware, is quite distinct in many respects, some of them desirable, some of them perhaps less so.

It has been the privilege of Berwick-upon-Tweed to play in Scottish football for almost the whole of its existence. Indeed, it has led to occasions on which we have played Glasgow Celtic, when I was able to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Reid, who came with the team for that fixture. We have played Glasgow Rangers on a number of occasions, defeating them in 1967 and holding them to a draw in the Scottish Cup on another occasion. To have a club playing such distinguished teams is obviously an asset to a town and, if there is any regulatory structure to be put in place, it should be the same one as for other teams in the Scottish league in which they play.

Berwick’s notable history is a very powerful case for making sure that any legislation deals properly with it. I am confident that the Government have no intention of causing us problems in this respect, but it would be helpful if the Minister could give us some clarification and would keep the matter in mind if there is any redrafting of this part of the Bill.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I just want to make a point that has emerged in this short debate—or has become obvious to me in it. The first thing is to say to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that I take issue with his characterisation that England is “littered” with clubs from Wales. There are only four. There is another one at level 6, Merthyr, but that is not the point I want to make. I am concerned, looking at Clause 2, that subsection (3) refers to

“teams that are members of … or … participate in”

competitions being

“exclusively or predominantly English teams”.

However, Clause 2(4) says a team

“is an ‘English team’ if the ground at which the team customarily plays its home matches is in England”.

These are contradictory because, as we have heard, there are two Welsh clubs in the Championship, one in League One and one in League Two. So I think perhaps on Report there will have to be an amendment, which I am happy to bring forward if it is helpful to the Minister.

I also take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, makes about Berwick Rangers, who made a contribution to Scottish football over many years. I was sorry to see them drop out of the Scottish League and I hope that they will soon be back. But they do play in Scottish football still at a lower level. It is unusual; UEFA, the governing body for European football, is very strict on clubs not playing their matches in another country. The practice of Welsh clubs playing in the Welsh FA Cup and representing their teams and cities in Europe was stopped by UEFA. Now it is only the much smaller Welsh clubs that are able to do that, because UEFA said that clubs had to choose which jurisdiction they were playing under. The only other example I can think of within the UK is Derry City. For reasons that might be quite obvious, since Derry is right on the border of the Republic of Ireland, they play in the League of Ireland, not the NI Football League.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has not been able to be with us today to speak to her Amendments 187A and 187B; I know she has a commitment to chairing some Welsh sports bodies, which I know the Committee will understand and support. I just wanted to draw the Committee’s attention to the two amendments that she tabled, which have been grouped together with the others that we have debated here. As her explanatory statement sets out, they aim to provide a route for the regulator

“for other individuals and groups of people, who may have more inside knowledge than the average fan, to act as whistleblowers and raise any concerns they have about the suitability of an owner or officer”.

It is regrettable that the noble Baroness has not been able to be here to set out the case more fully, but I am sure that noble Lords will pay attention to that and consider those amendments as well.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, is right that we have had extensive discussion on the issue of cost, but if there has been lengthy dialogue on this point then it is because the answers have not been forthcoming in the way that the Committee has wanted.

I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Hayward, who is doing an invaluable service not just for this Committee but for the smaller clubs on whose behalf he has spoken this evening, and in the way that he has gone through the impact assessment to try to get to the bottom of the cost implications for them in particular. I am glad that he will continue to keep at this important point, and I hope he gets some better and more detailed answers from the Minister as he does so.

My noble friend mentioned a letter that the Minister had sent him. Again, she has been kind in responding in writing to individual points that noble Lords have raised, but I ask her to share those letters with the whole Committee when the team sends them through. I think they are coming through to the individual noble Lords who have raised those points but they are not always being shared, and it would be a benefit to the whole Committee if we could all see those letters when they come. However, I am grateful to her, as I know those noble Lords are, for the speed with which she is responding in writing to the points that they have raised.

I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lord Markham for tabling their amendments in this very important group, which concerns the state funding of the regulator. That is a big issue that is worthy of debate, and I support the way that they have drafted them. I put my name to my noble friend Lord Markham’s Amendments 171 and 253, but I am happy to associate myself with my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough’s Amendment 50 as well, which was the one that began this group.

My noble friend’s amendment seeks to strip away the broad powers that could be granted to the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance to the independent football regulator as she sees fit, subject to conditions deemed appropriate by her. Amendment 50 from my noble friend is an important amendment in seeking to safeguard the integrity and independence of the independent football regulator. We would like to think that one of the core purposes of the new regulator is to serve as a neutral body overseeing the governance and financial management of football clubs in this country. By granting the Secretary of State the power to provide it with financial assistance, there is a real and present risk that the independent football regulator’s independence could be compromised.

As with any independent regulator, it is crucial that the independent football regulator operates free from any external pressures, particularly from the Government. The role of the regulator should be to assess the game on its own merits without any concern about political influence or the priorities of the Government of the day. If we were to allow the Government to fund the regulator, we would be introducing the potential for at least the appearance of government influence over the regulator’s work and its activities.

Even if that influence were not overt or immediate, the mere existence of government funding could lead to the perception, and possibly the reality, that the regulator would become beholden to future Governments. That is a danger we must seek to avoid, as it would erode the public’s trust in the new regulator, undermine its effectiveness and hamper its impartiality. The Government have rightly made much of the changes they have made to the Bill in order to guarantee the independence of the regulator in the eyes of international bodies that have paid attention to the Bill, so I am sure that is something they want to avoid in this instance as well.

I hope the Minister will agree that the provision as it stands is concerning in the way that it gives the Government the power to impose conditions on how the regulator uses its funds. The consequences of that are worth considering. The Government could impose restrictions or directives on the work of the regulator, such as mandating certain areas of focus or influencing the scope of its investigations. It could lead to the independent football regulator neglecting crucial issues or, even worse, aligning its work with the agenda of the Government of the day. That sort of shift would diminish the regulator’s ability to act in the best interests of football clubs, players, fans and the broader football ecosystem which the Government and all of us are mindful of protecting.

The existence of that sort of conditional funding could set a dangerous precedent for other regulatory bodies. If government assistance became contingent on adhering to political agendas or priorities, then the independence of other regulatory bodies could be called into question, further eroding public trust in oversight.

I would like also to support my noble friend Lord Markham’s amendments in this group, Amendments 171 and 253. Amendment 171 restricts discretionary licence conditions to include only “internal financial controls”. In Clause 22, the Government allow discretionary licence conditions to relate to “internal controls”. It is important that, in a Bill such as this, the Government recognise the details of the Bill and make clear that the provision refers to financial controls as opposed to solely internal ones.

As my noble friend set out, “internal controls” is broad and open to wide interpretation. Without his amendment, the regulator could potentially impose conditions that extend beyond the presumably intended focus on financial oversight. That surely creates a risk of the sort of regulatory overreach that the Committee has been very concerned about, whereby the regulator might intervene or interfere in areas unrelated to the core objectives of this Bill, such as operational decisions or non-financial activities within football clubs.

If we were to insert “financial” as my noble friend suggests, we would ensure that the discretionary licence conditions relating to internal controls are focused exclusively on financial governance. This refinement would make the regulator’s powers more precise, ensuring that its interventions are effective, proportionate and fully aligned with its mandate to oversee the financial health of football clubs. We have heard, repeatedly and rightly, that the financial sustainability of English football is what the Government are most concerned about and what has led to the Bill that is before the Committee.

The non-financial resources threshold requirement as outlined in the Bill is designed to ensure that clubs have adequate resources, financial and otherwise, to operate sustainably, but the specific mention of internal controls as part of this framework needs to be carefully defined to prevent unintended consequences. Without this amendment, the regulator could use its powers to impose conditions on internal controls that have little or no connection to financial matters. That could include operational areas such as staff management, logistical decisions or club culture, none of which falls under the regulator’s core responsibility to ensure financial sustainability.

By explicitly tying internal controls to financial matters, my noble friend’s amendment reinforces the Bill’s focus on financial governance, while respecting the operational independence of football clubs. They are of course complex organisations operating in—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have bit my tongue for the last hour as I have watched the charade from the Benches opposite, all using up their entire allocation while interrupting each other, repeating themselves and slapping each other on the back. This is meant to be a debate. I raise it when the noble Lord is standing up not because I disagree with the fact that they are serious about what they are arguing. But had Mr Sunak waited until November and not called his election in July, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would have been here with the same Bill in front of him, other than the issues that we heard have been changed so far—not the issues that we have been discussing for the last two hours or so. They would have been exactly the same. He would have been defending that Bill and now there is confected displeasure, if not outrage, with the way that the Bill is. Is that not hypocrisy?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am happy to use the time before the Committee to return to this issue but, as my noble friends behind me have said repeatedly, and as I have agreed to each time they have, I know that they would have been raising these points with me had I been at the Dispatch Box opposite. I know that because they were already raising them with me when I had the privilege of being the Minister, and I would be in the position of seeking to persuade them of the merits of the Bill. But I have also been clear, from Second Reading and all the way through, that we want to see this regulator established. We want to see it doing its work and doing so effectively, but we also see before us a Bill that is different, because of the election that was called and the result that happened.

We are interrogating particularly closely the changes that the Government have made to the Bill, of which there are many, and we have more concerns on these Benches, from my colleagues behind me, than we did before the election about the way we do it. As I have said before, the result of the election also puts us in a position on this side of the House to fulfil the duty that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Twycross and Lady Blake, dutifully fulfilled before the election: of making sure that government legislation is properly scrutinised. I make no apology for the fact that—

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends’ amendment, for the obvious reason that, from the beginning of our discussions, we have not substantially defined in the Bill what we mean by “English football”, other than by alighting on the word “sustainability”. We also have not defined what we mean by the “heritage of English football”. That was specified in the impact assessment—in fact, it says on the first page that we do not know what the heritage of English football is.

This is a very helpful amendment from my noble friends Lord Markham and Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, because it at least gives us and the regulator an opportunity to have a firm understanding in the Bill, among all stakeholders in all leagues, of what we mean by the heritage of English football. It is important that it means the tangible and intangible elements that define the unique historical identity of English football. I am surprised that the Government, for whatever reasons, have decided not to adopt that in the Bill and have left it to—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I am a bit surprised, because the Benches opposite have, on several occasions, accused us on this side of trying to extend the reach of the regulator. The noble Lord asked: what is English football? In the Bill English football covers the top five levels—that is the definition. Personally, I think it should go to level six, but it is at level five. It is clear what it means by English football.

Under subsection 1(d) of the proposed new clause, Amendment 58 seeks to increase “the number of clubs”. I do not see how you can increase the number of clubs without it taking in other levels beyond those in the Bill. These amendments seek to extend the role of the regulator, which is rather inconsistent from those opposite.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

As usual, the noble Lord makes a very pertinent and astute point. I disagree with it, because what we are seeking to do is further define what is in the Bill. There is a lack of definition—there has been since we discussed the issue in relation to Clause 1 a week or so ago. That is the difficulty.

The general point the noble Lord makes is also pertinent, because we are still deciding whether this is a hybrid Bill. It is important that we define English football, because if we do not properly define it, there will be an issue of hybridity. According to the Minister’s letter, as I understand it, it is still only provisionally being ruled as a hybrid Bill, and there is no definitive position.

The point that I was making was that we need a proper framework. The new clause proposed by the amendment would add that definition to the Bill. It would therefore make it a better and more holistic Bill. At the moment, there are significant concerns about the Bill’s enabling powers and Henry VIII powers, and the new wording would go some way—were it to be adopted by the Minister; I live in hope that it might be on Report—to ameliorate that issue. For that reason, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Markham.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, I have got up a number of times today to say that a particular amendment is not controversial and I hope it will be an easy one for the Minister to agree to. I have not been correct yet, because the Minister has not agreed to any, but I think that with this one I am on to a good thing. Everything that I am trying to do here is to make sure that what is written down in the Bill really does happen.

To take the exact wording on the regulator’s regulatory principles, in a number of places it says that it “should” use its resources

“in the most efficient, expedient and economic way”.

We are saying no, it must. It “should”, as far as is reasonably practicable,

“co-operate, and proactively and constructively engage”

with clubs, owners and competition organisers. Again, we are saying no, it must. There can be lots of good intentions, and lots of times when you can say that someone should do something. My mum told me that I should eat my greens. I cannot say that I always did. In all these instances, it is about making sure that the wording that the Minister and her team put in the Bill means that things really do happen.

Again, we suggest that the regulator “must” act in a way that

“recognises the specific context of football and the fact that clubs are subject to rules, requirements and restrictions”;

it “must” act consistently,

“recognising the differences between clubs and competitions and the differences between the circumstances affecting clubs”;

it “must” act in a way that

“recognises the responsibilities of owners, senior managers and other officers of clubs in relation to the requirements placed on clubs under or by virtue of this Act”;

and it “must” act

“as transparently as reasonably practicable”.

Again, we are just making sure that everything that the Minister has put down by way of the wording of Bill must happen, not just should happen. I think, this time, I am backing up exactly what the Minister would like to see happen. There are also a couple of other sensible amendments from others that fans should be consulted and engaged with in all this, which I also hope would get a resounding yes from the Minister. I look forward to hearing her response in terms of making sure that what she would like to happen really does happen. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 78, and I would like to begin with a quote, that

“there is no reference to players as a group the regulator should co-operate with … There is not a single mention of players, even though they are the main employment group within the regulated clubs. This means that the decisions that the regulator makes could have a tangible impact on their employment. For example, if the regulator exercises its powers to withdraw approval for a competition or refuses a licence to a club owner, there would be a direct consequence on the contracts of and conditions for players … Just as with fans, the professional game could not exist without players, so will the Minister explain why players are not mentioned in this part or elsewhere in the Bill?”—[Official Report, Commons, Football Governance Bill Committee, 16/5/24; col. 129.]

Those are the words of the then shadow Sports Minister, Stephanie Peacock MP, on 16 May, when the original version of this Bill was in Committee in another place. For that reason, I know that I am pushing at an open door here, because Stephanie Peacock is of course now the Minister for Sport.

As shadow Sports Minister, Stephanie Peacock not only robustly argued in favour of her amendment but then forced the matter to a vote, which, as is always the case with opposition parties in Committee in the other place, was lost. Therefore, it was both surprising and disappointing to myself and a number of others to find that this Bill—amended only in minor ways from the Tory Bill—did not include mention of players. Ms Peacock’s amendment in May this year included five categories of people and organisations to be added to Clause 8. I have taken out four of those so as to focus on much the most important: namely, the players.

Jock Stein, one of the greatest managers ever, once said, “Football without fans is nothing”. He was right, of course. As evidenced in 2020 during the pandemic, all games at the top level in England were played behind closed doors, and I defy anyone to say it was worth the effort. We all know it was driven shamelessly by the financial aspect of it, but as an experience it was, exactly as Mr Stein said, nothing.

Important as fans are—I am very much one of them—it was shown to be possible to play matches without them. Try doing the same without players. The players are not simply another stakeholder group in football, and it is fatuous, not to say insulting, that they should be categorised as such. Decisions made by the regulator have the potential directly to impact their careers and their contracts, as Stephanie Peacock said. It should not be left up to the regulator to decide whether they need to engage with them or not. In essence, this is, I believe, an employee relations issue rather than a football issue, as is the need for players to be viewed as distinct from other stakeholder groups.

The PFA—Professional Footballers’ Association—represents a very high proportion of the professional players in the Premier League and the English Football League. You might think that young men earning millions of pounds each season would not feel the need to join a trade union. You might, but according to the PFA, membership among Premier League players is close to 100%. Based on my experience as a full-time trade union official, that is remarkable in any sector of employment. But for such wealthy individuals to have calculated that there is benefit to them in becoming part of a union and working collectively, and having people work on their behalf, is astonishing. To suggest that players and their trade union should not be a group of people that the regulator should—to quote Clause 8—“proactively and constructively engage” with is frankly a nonsense.

The absence of players and their representatives constitutes a clear and obvious lacuna in this Bill so, with respect, I say to my noble friend, please sort it.

[Lord Shamash (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 80 in my name seeks to include football supporters’ trusts on the face of the Bill to ensure that they are consulted on all matters relating to fan engagement as set out in the Bill. It is not intended to restrict the regulator, as the Bill states, or to restrict other fan groups being involved.

I declare an interest in that I am currently a director of Manchester United Supporters Trust and was its former chairman over the past decade. It is a very substantial trust with over 100,000 members, and initially came into being in 1998 in opposition to the Murdoch bid for the club, followed by the bitterly opposed leveraged takeover by the Glazer family in 2005. However, in the last decade, the trust has developed a constructive relationship with senior management which delivers fan consultation and representation for supporters. Supporters’ trusts are uniquely equipped to perform this role, and every club would benefit from engaging with such a body.

Currently, there are 149 supporters’ trusts across the football pyramid: 16 in the Premier League, 18 in the Championship, 20 in League One, 15 in League Two and 80 in non-league football. Most, if not all, trusts are registered with the FCA and operate under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.

I invite my noble friend the Minister to accept this amendment on the basis that supporters’ trusts provide an existing substantive platform for fans to have a voice in club decisions. It is a structure that should be utilised to the benefit of football as a whole. It is an existing and vibrant structure that I envisage the independent regulator would welcome working with from the outset.

It is important for the Committee to appreciate the many facets of supporters’ trusts and how they contribute to football as a whole. Invariably, the trusts are democratically elected, operating, as I have said, under FCA-approved constitution and rules. They help to ensure the interests of the wider fan base and community they represent. This is vital in sustaining the contact with fans and in the case of smaller clubs.

Trusts often emphasise local community values and initiatives. The trust can help to maintain strong ties with the local fan base, fostering a sense of belonging and identity. This is relevant to the Premier League as well as non-league clubs. Many clubs have charitable foundations that, in my experience, work closely with their trusts. Foundations work with local schools, using their links with the club to assist teachers in their roles. Many also support local food banks.

Trusts, by raising funds through their membership and donations, can contribute to the financial health of the club. This can be particularly beneficial in the smaller clubs that face financial difficulties, as has been seen in recent history, where trusts have been instrumental in saving their clubs.

Trusts invariably advocate for transparency in club operations, hoping to make club management accountable. This can, of course, lead to better governance practices and more ethical decision-making. The Bill, of course, very helpfully and constructively sets out the criteria which clubs and fan groups have to take into account. Supporters’ trusts wish to focus on the long-term sustainability of their club rather than short-term profits, which is often the case for the owners of clubs. This perspective can lead to more responsible management of resources. Where supporters’ trusts are represented on club boards, they can influence strategic decisions, ensuring that the fan perspective is included in the governance, which, of course, is crucial.

All fans can join trusts, and this can promote inclusivity within the club, assuring that the fans, regardless of background, have the opportunity to participate in club activities and governance. As has been seen in times of crisis, such as financial troubles or ownership disputes, trusts can mobilise fan support to advocate for the club’s best interests, potentially influencing outcomes in the interests of supporters and the club as a whole. An obvious recent example was the attempt by a few clubs, including Manchester United, to establish a closed European super league.

Overall, supporters’ trusts enhance the governance of football clubs by fostering a more inclusive, accountable and community-oriented approach. Therefore, with great respect to my noble friend the Minister, I urge that this amendment be accepted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is telling that so many noble Lords from both principal sides of your Lordships’ House have tabled amendments about the regulatory principles established by the Bill, which have been gathered in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, has assembled an impressive coalition of support for his Amendment 78. He secured the support of my noble friend Lady Brady, his friend the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, and the present Sports Minister, Stephanie Peacock. The Minister keeps reminding us of things that were said in the last Parliament and arguing that we should be bound by them, so I hope she will demand the same consistency from her honourable friend and will pay heed to the support that Amendment 78 has secured.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is right that this seems a clear and obvious lacuna in the Bill. I do not think we have had a professional footballer in your Lordships’ House. We have professional cricketers and Olympians and Paralympians, and we have noble Lords with interesting and considerable experience, but he has given voice to a group of people who have not yet been spoken up for in this Bill. Perhaps noble Lords can think of one. I cannot, so maybe it is a suggestion for his noble friend.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Usually, with football—or whatever other sport—we say, “We can make lots of money out of it and we will do lots of good things with the money, but we can’t have it free to air”. The only sport I have ever heard people argue for the other way around was rugby league: it wanted to be a “crown jewel” event, but it maintains quite good free-to-air services. I hope that the Minister will agree that we should continue to have free-to-air services and listed events, that they should continue to be an important factor and that football will not find itself able to remove them. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in Amendments 91 and 92. I support his view on having free-to-air services for certain sports. My main reason is to expose those sports to the next generation—the youngers coming through. He mentioned rugby—which is not as available as it used to be, certainly not compared with when I was young—but this applies to other sports, including cricket specifically, as well as golf and boxing, which all now have very restricted free-to-air viewing. You wonder what that does to the current generation of children, who may want to be exposed to the sport, but cannot because their parents, for whatever reason, do not have subscriptions to the various channels.

Of course, the regulator will not cover Scotland—perhaps it will have its own regulator following this—but, currently, the Scotland men’s national football matches are available only on YouTube. You could say that that is equivalent to free-to-air viewing, but it is not in any way how international football should be presented. The whole question of how sport is made available to future generations—although it is not really for our debate today—is one that we need to think about very seriously.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I say simply that, while some very good arguments have been put forward, we have to be very careful here. The whole question of listed events that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I have been engaged on for many decades, let alone a year, is a complicated and difficult issue.

Currently, the Secretary of State has to opine as to whether listing an event meets the criterion of having “special national resonance”. That, in its own right, is a difficult thing for the Secretary of State to opine on. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, will recall that, only five years ago, the then Secretary of State made a famous speech on listed events where she put forward the idea that whenever a men’s event was listed, the women’s equivalent should be too. That brought into play a whole series of complex questions, which were important but certainly set the hares running among the people who were focused on listing events.

This is complicated further by virtue of a generational change. Young people increasingly access, and are comfortable accessing, all forms of media to watch the sporting events that they wish to see, sometimes in ways that do not necessarily follow the rules. The changing media landscape, certainly for young people, means that the listed event question may even become obsolete. I am not saying that it will but that is the sort of question that is now being posed as a result of the different patterns of media accessed particularly by young people, as opposed to our generation. I am being courteous to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, when I say that, because he looks a good deal younger than I am.

In that context, I would hesitate to push the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as valuable as they are, to further consideration in this Bill. However, it is important and probably timely that we now look at the whole question of listed events separately because they are vital to many sports. Equally, in the context of football, and without the wider issues that I have sought to bring to the Committee’s attention, we may be too focused on one sport and not considering the wider implications of what should and should not be listed in today’s media landscape.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Perish the thought. There are many Peterborough fans who do not live in the city of Peterborough but in the Fens; they may not be too displeased at going to King’s Lynn—not that I am in any sense proposing that. He alludes to the Posh. The Posh have been able to develop a number of commercial activities over the last few years. Darragh MacAnthony, the owner, started out in 2007 as a very rich man. Now he is just a rich man, because of his love for Peterborough United.

The point is that that club has been able to stay afloat financially because the board of the club, backed—disproportionately I would say—by the fan base, has supported the diversity of activities. The noble Lord’s amendment and Clause 46 as written would lock out the possibility of many clubs and boards making decisions to protect their long-term financial sustainability.

I respectfully say to the noble Lord, for whom, as he knows, I have huge respect—particularly for the great work he has done on kicking out anti-Semitism in football—that that is a different issue from regulated fans and setting up fan organisations. This amendment would be quite prescriptive for clubs, and it would not be in their long-term interests, particularly those teetering on the edge of financial instability and unsustainability. For that reason, I hope the Minister will consider these issues when she responds to the noble Lord’s amendment and others.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 138A on what consultation means. The wording—

“leave out ‘consults’ and insert ‘meets regularly with’”—

is taken from the Explanatory Notes. On page 44, paragraph 271, under the heading “fan consultation”, they say the following:

“This mandatory licence condition … requires clubs to regularly meet with a group which the IFR considers representative of the club’s fans, which could be a group elected by the club’s fans”.


Throughout these debates, many noble Lords have quoted the Fair Game document, which refers to fan engagement as a communication process, and to a range of formal and informal face-to-face processes being part of that. That is what I am trying to get across here. It is important that clubs meet regularly with the fans and do not just consult. To consult could mean anything. It is not exclusive—of course, it could take various forms—but they must meet regularly. I hope that ultimately, the Government will accept that. It remains to be seen, but I will return to this issue on Report because it is very important.

I will comment on some other issues that noble Lords have raised, particularly my noble friend Lord Mann, who I usually agree with. I did not really take to his dismissive comment in response to my noble friend Lord Shamash. My noble friend Lord Mann said that it is all very well having supporters’ trusts, but you need organisations with working-class members. I do not know much about the Manchester United Supporters Trust, but I am sure it has working-class members.

I am a member of two trusts and have been for some 20 years. One is in Scotland—my old club, Dundee United; I pay £15 per year for that. I am also a member of the AFC Wimbledon trust, called the Dons Trust. I pay the princely sum of £10 per year for that. For that reason, I think there are more than a few working-class fans. I think that my noble friend Lord Mann was suggesting that supporters’ trusts price some fans out. I do not know if that is the case, but I would not have thought so. By definition, you would think that would be rather pointless.

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

My noble friend has misinterpreted my comments. Supporters’ trusts—I have been heavily involved in one as well—have all sorts of members, but there are other kinds of organisations that have never had the objective that supporters’ trusts have. That is the point: there are different types of organisations. Some purely want to go and watch football and not take on the more significant interests and structures that supporters’ trusts have.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, and I fully accept that point; I have misinterpreted what he said. He seemed to be suggesting that trusts were different from other supporters’ groups. There are a wide range of groups and that is exactly the way it should be.

I am afraid I cannot go along with my noble friend’s Amendments 139 and 140. I am not opposed to them per se, but he seems to be distinguishing between fans and elected representatives of club supporters’ groups. Surely, these are the same people: you cannot be an elected representative of a supporters’ group if you are not a fan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their continued engagement on these important provisions of the Bill. I appreciate that I am one of the very few things standing between noble Lords and the dinner break, but I want to give a proper response and, I hope, the reassurance that my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton is looking for. We must not forget that, at the heart of all of this, it is the fans who matter the most. Football is nothing without them, and the fan engagement threshold requirement has been designed to reflect this. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, fans are the lifeblood of the game.

My noble friend Lord Bassam’s Amendment 138 seeks to make it explicit that clubs must have the appropriate structures in place to engage effectively with fans. I hope noble Lords can take comfort that this is already implicit in the Bill. The Bill already asks for all clubs, in order to meet their fan engagement threshold requirement, to have adequate and effective means to consult and take the views of fans into account. It would therefore not be possible for a club to meet this bar without also having the appropriate structures and processes for effective engagement with its fans.

On my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie’s Amendment 138A, it is important to avoid fan engagement becoming a box-ticking exercise for clubs. The intent is to ensure that dialogue can be constructive for both parties. This is why the threshold requirement requires a club to consult fans on the relevant matters. Consultation goes beyond just a meeting, which might lead fans to have only a passive role at their clubs. Instead, we expect clubs to seek input from fans on issues, with that input directly feeding into the decision-making or a club’s understanding of an issue.

I do, however, reassure my noble friend that the expectations on clubs will be proportionate to club resources and the demographics of the fan base. I hope that other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, also feel reassured by that point. This will not be the same as the statutory consultation, and we expect that the regulator will provide more detail about what consultation should look like in practice. This will allow for a bespoke approach to be taken across clubs.

My noble friend Lord Watson raised points around making fan engagement more explicit. The intention of the regulatory principle is not to list every possible stakeholder the regulator should ever engage with during the course of regulation, however important that stakeholder might be. That could be a slippery slope to an enormous list that risks—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I understand my noble friend’s point about every stakeholder, but can she name a stakeholder more important than the fans?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite clear, as are we, that the fans are central—I made that point earlier. However, making an explicit list for every single type of consultation that the regulator should have could mean that an unintended consequence would be that we missed off important stakeholders. The intention of the principle within the legislation is to encode a participative approach into the regulator’s regime. We believe that the regulator will be more effective if those being regulated participate constructively; that is to say, they are brought in and are pulling in the same direction. It is already clear from the very purpose of the Bill and its origin that the regulator will be regulating in the interest of fans and communities. As part of this, it should of course engage with them and representative groups, as appropriate.

On Amendments 160 and 163, from my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton, I reassure her that, where there are concerns that a club is not meeting the fan engagement standards, the regulator is empowered to gather information and look further into the situation. As it is a licensing condition, a breach of these requirements will qualify as a relevant infringement; if deemed necessary, the regulator can take enforcement action. The regulator will have the ability to receive evidence from fans when considering whether a club is meeting its licence condition or any other concerns in the regulator’s remit, but it will not adjudicate all consultations.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, will be unsurprised to know that I oppose these two amendments, which I will do briefly.

If the gambling industry is pouring money into football, I would say that that is a good thing. Anti-gambling commentators talk as if this were drug money coming from the Mafia. The whole tone is moralistic. We have already heard mention of match-fixing and cheating, as though it is all incredibly sordid and terrible. But let me just remind the Committee that betting firms are legitimate businesses. What, so they use their sponsorship to increase their market share—what is wrong with that? Is all football sponsorship beyond gambling to be forced to pass an ethics test—some kind of purity test? This is football, not some puritan revival movement.

Let us be honest: lots of football clubs need and appreciate this sponsorship money. It is all well and good that the Premier League has collectively agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of clubs’ match-day shirts. That is a voluntary measure—it is up to it—but the truth is that, as we have ascertained in these debates, the Premier League can afford such lucrative virtue signalling, as I consider it. For the lower-tier and lower-league clubs and for the EFL, however, such sponsorship money is often invaluable. The Bill aims to help clubs become more financially sustainable, so the last thing it needs is external parties or legislators turning off one financial tap. This would mean that some cash-strapped clubs would face ruin if deprived of such revenue.

The Bill has been put forward in the name of fans and, whatever my reservations, I do not doubt that people have the fans at the heart of their discussions, whichever side they are on. But I remind noble Lords that millions of fans are less bothered about what logo appears on a player’s shirt or on advertising boards than they are about the quality on the pitch. There is more than a whiff of nanny state when they are patronisingly told by anti-gambling advocates that the ban would be for their own protection. It seems that anti-gambling campaigners do not trust fans to make their own decisions and make the right judgments about how they spend their own money.

Writing on this issue, Jon Bryan—who is an excellent commentator on the whole issue of gambling, which he posits and reminds us is a pleasurable leisure activity—says that it also undermines any notion of fans’ agency. The notion is put forward that, as soon as fans see a logo on a football shirt, they will rush off and place a bet, as though they are being groomed and just one punt away from addiction. This treats adult fans as children, and it is infantilising. It is often posed—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

On that last point, is the noble Baroness aware of the amount of in-game gambling that takes place through television and, of course, mobile phones, where the betting companies encourage fans watching matches to bet during the game on who will get the next corner, whether somebody be sent off, whether there will there be extra time in a cup tie and so on? Is that not interfering with the normal cut and thrust of the game in a way that is potentially dangerous, not least—I would like her to answer this point—to young people, particularly children?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

First, I would make a distinction between children and adults. Secondly, as somebody who is from a large, football-obsessed family, I am more than a little aware of all the encouragement that football fans have to put on a bet. But not all of them do when they are encouraged and, what is more, even if they do, they do not necessarily become problem gamblers, which is what is being posited. It can be something that they enjoy.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. They sound very reasonable to me. We need to avoid the situation of groundless clubs. Coventry City come to mind. They had some very awkward years and some equally awkward ground sharing. We want to avoid groundless clubs and ground-sharing clubs. Avoiding stadiums being used as security for loans taken out by owners is incredibly helpful. I very much hope that the Minister will support that.

I also support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I declare that I am a member of Historic Houses and tend to bang the drum a little about heritage and aesthetics. To give a personal example, my local team are Shrewsbury Town. They had this amazing stadium, Gay Meadow, on the banks of the River Severn. They had a chap or chapette in a coracle who would go out into the river when the ball was kicked into it. Like many other clubs during the 1990s and 2000s, they moved to a sort of identikit shopping centre stadium. I guess it has some practical advantages, but it is pretty soulless and is like so many other stadiums. So I hope the Government can listen and take this into account. We have some amazing stadiums in this country. If we are going to get a club to move, let us move them to a better home, not a worse one.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to say a few words in support of my noble friends Lady Taylor and Lord Bassam, some of whose amendments I have signed. I also want to pick up on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, has just made. He mentioned Coventry, who moved to Northampton, which is about 35 miles away and obviously not at all convenient for fans. My noble friend Lord Bassam’s club, Brighton, moved to Gillingham, which is, what, 70 miles away?

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Seventy-two.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Some 72 miles and a few chains, I am sure.

Even a club such as Bristol Rovers, who were obliged to move to Bath, which is only about 15 miles away, had to play there for 10 years until their new stadium was built—and even then, I think they ended up sharing with a rugby club.

Amendments 227 and 233 are really “the AFC Wimbledon amendments”, because they refer to that club in which I have an interest, which I have stated on a number of occasions in consideration of this Bill. On the figure of five miles, it may not surprise noble Lords to know that, when Wimbledon FC were obliged to move because their ground had been sold from underneath them, they went to Crystal Palace, which is about six and a half miles away. It still was not convenient for a lot of the fans.

It has been said that, when Wimbledon moved to Crystal Palace, the crowds increased. Factually, that is correct—and I see the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, nodding—but they increased because there was a far greater ability for visiting fans to go to Crystal Palace. It was not at all unusual for Wimbledon FC to play home games where their own fans were very much in the minority. So that was not a benefit—okay, in financial terms for the club it was, but it is not a system that anybody would advocate.

My final point is to reinforce Amendment 234, about taking reasonable steps to ensure that the club’s fans do not consider arrangements for any change to be unsatisfactory. That should be a very basic consideration. I think it is in the Bill, but it is helpful to have that stated quite clearly and I hope that my noble friend will take that on board and, if she is not able to accept it today, which I would not expect, that we might come back to this to get something more solid on Report.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friends Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lady Taylor of Bolton and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, for tabling these amendments regarding home grounds. The noble Lords, Lord Harlech and Lord Goddard, gave powerful examples of why home grounds matter and what they mean to fans, as did my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie, particularly in relation to relocation. As somebody who grew up within hearing distance of Oxford United’s Manor Ground, I can empathise with the feelings of fans when grounds move —although inevitably they do sometimes, and often successfully.

I will talk first to Amendments 219 to 223, 227 to 230 and 233 and 234 in the names of my noble friends Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lady Taylor of Bolton. Starting with Amendments 219 to 222 and Amendment 230, home grounds are clearly often the most important asset of a club and that is why this legislation has carved out specific protections to safeguard against risky financial decisions or sales of the ground. This does not mean that other assets such as training grounds or office space are not also important to the club, but there is a specific consideration necessary for the home ground. I reassure my noble friends that there are protections in the Bill to safeguard against owners stripping a club of its assets or making reckless mortgage decisions against clubs. They include the enhanced owners’ and directors’ test, which will look to ensure that owners are prepared to be appropriate custodians of their club and its assets.

The regulator will also have oversight of the financial plans and balance sheets of the regulated clubs, ensuring that the club is not putting itself in a risky position unnecessarily. We would expect that this would include what assets remain in the club’s ownership and any plans to dispose of them. If it were to become evident that an owner was looking to asset strip the club or deliberately worsen its financial position, the licensing regime gives the regulator power to place licensing conditions on the club. The regulator could also take enforcement action if those conditions are breached or if the financial plan that the club has submitted has not been followed.

I turn to Amendment 227. I will not repeat the same points made previously as they are both similar to other amendments in this group. However, on the second sub-paragraph proposed by this amendment, with changes to the ownership or use of the home ground as collateral, the potential adverse outcomes are entirely financial. They do not impact the heritage of the club, nor would they necessarily relate to a relocation. If there is reasonable prospect of a change leading to relocation, Clause 48 sets out the parameters for any home ground relocation. The regulator would need to be satisfied that the move does not undermine the financial sustainability of the club or significantly harm the heritage of the club. This means that the regulator will be able to look at things such as location.

However, the Government have deliberately not set a fixed distance or considerations. This is to further allow for a bespoke approach to be taken at all clubs to make sure that the impact of a relocation can be mitigated if one is deemed necessary. Amendment 223 seeks to expand the scope of the duty to gain the regulator’s approval to include all substantial changes to specify properties or the club’s home ground. Given the addition of the specified properties, this amendment could include any significant changes to property, such as a hotel owned by the club. This is a significant expansion of scope and could be onerous and resource intensive on the regulator. In such a case as a hotel, the amendment could feasibly lead to a full consultation and approval process for substantial changes such as building an extension. This would not be an appropriate or efficient use of the regulator’s time or resources.

Instead, such substantial changes to either the home ground or other assets can be addressed via other areas in the Bill. For example, we expect all clubs to consult and have regard to the views of fans on the specified relevant matters. This includes home grounds and business priorities, among other issues. We would also expect any substantial changes to the home ground or other assets to be captured by the club’s financial plans. The regulator will therefore be able to have oversight and react to any concerns.