Football Governance Bill [Lords]

Luke Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

Even though we are talking about the Conservatives, I am absolutely gobsmacked. We are talking about millions of football fans around the country. Certainly in recent years, I have never not been of the opinion that Conservative Members do not think about anyone but themselves, but even on that test, I would have thought that they would see that it was in the interests of the Conservative party to back something that means so much to millions of people in every town, village and city across this country.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

rose—

[Lisa Nandy]

I will make some progress, but I will bring the hon. Member in when I can.

Let me remind the right hon. Member for Daventry what he used to think about the Bill. He used to say that a regulator was “substantial but necessary”; that not having one would be “catastrophic”; and that

“Without fans, football clubs are nothing. We would all do well to remember that as we work towards reform to secure a brighter future for football.”

The Conservatives have now worked themselves so far towards reform that they are virtually indistinguishable from the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). I can only think that he is writing their policy on football.

But seriously, how can the right hon. Member for Daventry look football fans in Hartlepool, Bolton, Portsmouth, Reading, Bury and Luton in the eye and defend this amendment, after making them a promise just two years ago, and again at the general election? [Interruption.] I have the full list. He might as well have it, because he is the only person in this room who does not seem to remember what he has said. I am left wondering whether he did not understand a word of his own Bill, which he introduced to this place just a few years ago and championed at the general election, or whether the sad truth is that the public cannot trust a single word that his party says.

Let me try to help the shadow Minister on what the Bill actually does. First, it introduces a licensing system to require clubs to have a sensible business plan that they stick to. That will include a clear financial plan that properly assesses risk. That is measured and proportionate, and it places requirements on clubs that reflect their circumstances. Let me address the concern that he has just discovered that he has. The Bill will take into account factors such as league, club size and financial health. That will ensure that the regulation is light-touch. We have cemented the proportionate approach that we inherited from him by adding two measures: a financial growth duty, so that the regulator will need to consider the financial growth of English football as part of its secondary duties; and a specific—[Interruption.] He cannot have it both ways. He cannot take credit for this legislation and then try to vote it down. Honestly, I have seen a lot from the Conservatives. I have seen people taking three different positions on two different options in front of them, but what I have not seen for a long time is a shadow Minister who has two different positions on his own view. It is just absurd.

We have also included a regulatory principle in the Bill to clarify that the regulatory regime is light-touch. That will provide clarity and certainty, and prevent any unintended consequences from deterring good owners from investing in our clubs. The Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), and I have worked closely with clubs at every level to produce legislation that is clearer for prospective owners than the existing system, and we are confident that this stable environment will drive more investors with a long-term prudent approach into the game.

[Dr Luke Evans]

One of the sticking points in the Bill, and one of the things that has changed, is the approach to parachute payments. One of the Opposition’s concerns is that the Bill will deter investment. We are talking about literally the best league in the world. People from across the world invest with security because of those payments. If the Government take them away, there is a worry that it will deter investment in other leagues. That is exactly what the German league, the French league and the Spanish league are looking for. Will she rectify the issue by putting a provision about those payments in the Bill?

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Gentleman raises a decent point, and I will address it head-on. We have no plans to abolish parachute payments, and there is no measure in the Bill that allows us to do so. We also do not take a view on parachute payments; it is for football to determine its view. However, it would be nonsense to exclude parachute payments from the state of the game report, given that this Bill is about the financial sustainability of the whole game. The regulator must be able to take that into account and to use it to inform discussions with clubs in every league across the footballing world. That is the view that we took, but it is also far closer to the spirit, intention and recommendations of Dame Tracey Crouch’s review of football, which was led and informed by thousands of fans across the country. It is the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue, which affects many clubs around the country. The Department continues to engage regularly with fans and sporting governing bodies that are facing difficulties—not just in football, but across the board. We are working constructively to help support them, and I would be delighted to provide him with a further update on the individual case that he mentions.

We are determined to meet our commitments and promises to fans. We have improved the Bill explicitly to require clubs to provide effective engagement with their supporters, and to consult fans on changes to ticket prices and on any proposals to relocate their home ground.

[Dr Evans]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

It feels like my right hon. Friend has already read my speech, because those are the points that I want to make. When I had those extensive meetings, that question of independence was absolutely raised time and again by fans who were worried that they did not want party politics or Government interference in the game they love, by clubs and leagues, who time and again wanted reassurances that a regulator would be truly independent, and by UEFA and FIFA in particular, who have strong statutes about political and Government interference in football, as indeed most international sports governing bodies do. I pledged and promised to all of them that independence meant just that. I fully understood the possible consequences if the regulator were seen as anything other than independent. That is why independence matters, and why I always held it dear.

[Dr Luke Evans]

There are not only political concerns about independence but concerns from the EFL about the regulator’s previous links with the Premier League. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when trying to make a digital decision when, for example, we come to the backstop and choosing one side over the other—the EFL or the Premier League—which is in effect what the legislation does, there would be a conflict of interest if the regulator had worked for the Premier League?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend makes really important points. This appointment is really important to the future of the regulator. What have the Labour Government done? They have announced the appointment of David Kogan, a key Labour donor and political insider, to lead the football regulator. It is deeply troubling—[Interruption.] No, I am sorry, but I feel really strongly on this.

Let me be clear: Mr Kogan is no impartial figure. He is a long-standing member of Labour’s inner circle, having donated thousands of pounds to the party and having spent five years on the board of LabourList, the party’s propaganda outlet, resigning only this month, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said. This appointment is not about qualifications or about merit; it is about rewarding a political ally. At the same time, Labour have totally thrown out any credible claims that the regulator is independent and free from political interference. Football fans deserve better, the British public deserve better, and our national game deserves protection from political meddling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Luke Evans]

The English premier league is the best in the world. Any bar we go into across the world wants to show premier league football. There is a real danger of killing the golden goose if we try to pull that down. Also, the championship is the seventh most valuable league in Europe, and it is our second tier. I have a big worry here. We should look at the way England is playing, and at the way the clubs have come up. Leicester won the premier league in 2016, and the likes of Brighton and Brentford and Nottingham Forest are all flying up the leagues. The premier league is a competitive league, and that is what we want; we do not want to over-regulate it and kill both our national game and our international presence.

[Mr Betts]

I am sorry, but we must kill this myth that somehow the Bill is going to kill the premier league. It is not. This Bill is designed to sustain the rest of the football pyramid. We should look at the resources the premier league has: it has twice as much money as any other major European league. That is the difference. Taking a proportion of that away to support the rest of the pyramid will not undermine and destroy the premier league. It will help sustain the rest of the pyramid, and that is the message that we need to get across.

On the rest of the Bill, the issue of the sustainability of the pyramid is absolutely key, but I am still a bit wary about the rigidity of the backstop powers. There is some room for debate about giving a bit more flexibility to the regulators on that; I hope we can discuss that in Committee. The other key element is about ownership. We have heard stories about the problems that clubs have had with owners who simply are not fit for purpose, and I have no doubt that we will hear more. I was talking to colleagues in Reading on a Teams call the other day, along with other Sheffield MPs, and we discussed the problems facing Sheffield Wednesday supporters. We should stop clubs having to face such problems in the future.

On Sheffield Wednesday, the owner is not a bad man; he has put a lot of money into the club and he has not ripped it off, but he is clearly running out of money to make the club sustainable. He could not pay the players’ wages last month, and he could not pay the tax dues a few weeks ago. Another failure to pay will mean the club is subject to a transfer embargo for three transfer windows. That would completely undermine both the competitive and the financial basis of the club. That is not acceptable. The chairman is the only owner and the only director; he does not have a board of directors and has no chief executive. He runs the club from Thailand by remote control, and when he could not pay the bills he said, “Well, my companies are owed money, so I don’t have the money to pay the club’s bills.” We do not know what companies those are in Thailand. As far as we can see, he has no companies that earn money. We suspect that the money comes from the family trust that owns Thai Union Frozen Products, which owns John West and other brands. In other words, he is reliant on his family members to give him the money to pay the players’ wages. That is not sustainable. This Bill compels the regulator to make sure that owners have the funds to sustain their club, and that the sources of those funds are transparent and open for all to see. That is absolutely key, not only for Sheffield Wednesday but for lots of other clubs.

Finally, I am concerned that the owner, like owners of other clubs, has separated the ownership of the ground from the ownership of the club, and I hope we can strengthen the Bill on that issue. I do not think that was done for malevolent reasons; it was done to try to get around the financial fair play rules, and to help the club—that was his view. The fact is that the ground and the club are separate. Other clubs have that problem as well. In future, if an owner wants to separate the club and the ground, the regulator can step in to ensure that that is for proper reasons, and done in the proper way. Unfortunately, when ownership of the ground is separate from ownership of the club, there is a challenge. I would like a measure in the Bill that says that in order to get a licence, the owner has to prove that they have not only financial funding but a ground to play on. That should be locked in.

Changes and improvements can be made, but the Bill really helps football. It helps fans to ensure that their club is sustainable, and it holds owners to account. It is great that fans will now have a real role and involvement in their club. They can be properly consulted about what happens at Hillsborough; currently, there is an engagement panel for fans, but the chairman chooses who goes on it. When people join the engagement panel, they have to sign a document that states that they will not talk about what has been discussed outside the group. What sort of accountability is that? It is nonsense. The Bill will strengthen the hand of fans, so that they can properly engage with a club. I fully support it, and hope that the House overwhelmingly supports it, too.