Football Governance Bill [Lords]

Mark Ferguson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. This is not—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, Labour Members are saying, “You shortlisted them.” Let me assure this House: I most certainly did not shortlist this gentleman. Even if he was presented to me, there is no way I would have appointed him, for precisely the reasons my right hon. Friend has set out.

Labour’s expanded remit for the IFR significantly increases the regulatory burden on clubs. Make no mistake: it will be the smallest clubs—the beating hearts of their communities—that will be hit the hardest. The Government’s own impact assessment estimates that the cost of compliance could reach a staggering £47.3 million, and make no mistake: that will push ticket prices up.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

At the FSAs’ 2023 annual general meeting, the shadow Minister said:

“Despite the phenomenal success of football at home and abroad, we have seen too many examples of the devastating impact the failure of a beloved club can have on a local community.”

My local club in Gateshead was nearly wound up in 2019. Is he really content to maintain the grotesque status quo, which allows too many of us to lose our clubs, to score political points on this matter?

[Stuart Andrew]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that his party is actually going to be adding cost to those clubs. I have just mentioned the £47.3 million, but with the football regulator’s remit now considerably expanded, operational costs could rise to £150 million, which clubs like his will have to fund through the levy.

Baroness Brady, someone with deep knowledge of the football industry as vice-chairman—[Laughter.] Labour Members mock, but the Sports Minister, the hon. Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), had to retract similar comments, which she did graciously, I have to say. Baroness Brady has raised serious and well-founded concerns about these costs and the disproportionate impact they will have on clubs, as all this comes against the backdrop of Labour’s wider economic mismanagement, which is already undermining the financial stability of our football clubs. Labour’s new national insurance job tax will hit clubs’ finances hard, with the Premier League saying it will amount to £50 million a year and £250 million over the life of this Parliament, compounding the pressures of increased regulation.

At the same time, football stadiums are facing higher business rates under Labour’s watch. To give a few examples, Wembley stadium is set to pay £829,000 more, while the Etihad stadium will see a rise of £564,000. These are not abstract figures; these are real costs that will trickle down to fans through higher ticket prices, reduced investment on or off the pitch, or even clubs having to close.

Against this backdrop, we now have very real concerns about the impact of these changes on smaller clubs. Indeed, Mark Ives, the former general manager of the National League, highlighted the financial strain that increased regulation will place on lower league clubs, calling it, quite rightly, “a huge concern.”

However, and most egregiously of all, the Government have fatally undermined the IFR’s independence. The fan-led review into football governance was unequivocal that a credible regulator must be fully independent, free from political influence, and certainly free from Government interference. It stated clearly:

“Independence means operations and decision making are independent from the government”.

That is a critical element for me personally. That point was made over and over again in almost every discussion I had, and quite right too.

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[Charlie Dewhirst]

Those of us who support a club that was previously owned by Ken Bates and Massimo Cellino have had our fair share of rough ownership over the years.

Coming back to the wider landscape and who should regulate, above the Football Association, EFL and EPL we have UEFA and FIFA as international bodies representing the global game, and they each have a regulatory function. I believe that instead of the Government creating yet another quango, headed up by a Labour party crony, they should be working with the Premier League, EFL and FA to resolve current concerns such as financial sustainability and fit and proper ownership. That would be a far more satisfactory outcome for the clubs and ensure that sport and politics are kept at arm’s length.

[Mark Ferguson]

The hon. Gentleman mentions UEFA and FIFA. Would he categorise those as organisations where politics is kept at arm’s length and where there is no place for cronyism?

[Charlie Dewhirst]

The hon. Member raises a very good point. FIFA’s recent history is not a proud one, but we do not have time to go into that. There is an important point about the way in which UEFA and FIFA operate within the landscape. There is a danger that measures including parachute payments, which affect competition tools and structures, being in the scope of the Bill places the Government on a collision course with those international federations. That has already been discussed.

Ultimately, the fact we are here discussing this Bill today is a sad indictment of the relationship between the existing stakeholders. However, it is not beyond the wit of Government to find solutions that do not involve a new regulator. [Interruption.] Well, I am not burdened by previous legislation. I also worry that the Bill is playing to a certain viewpoint among EFL clubs that money from the bottom half of the premier league should be redistributed en masse to the championship. Those clubs argue that that would give the promoted clubs—one of which I am a fan of—a better chance of success.

I fear that could have serious unintended consequences. It could create a small group of entrenched successful clubs at the top of the premier league and ultimately damage competition, as the top clubs accumulate more and more wealth, to the detriment of clubs lower down. It would effectively end any chance of a club such as Leicester winning the title, or teams such as Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford and Nottingham Forest cementing themselves in the league and challenging for Europe. It would be another two-tier system created by this Labour Government.

The idea that the championship is a poor relation is also false. Every championship club receives £7.8 million from the Premier League, which is between 20% and 40% of their typical annual revenue. The EFL has recently signed a domestic broadcast deal worth more than £900 million, increasing its own revenues by 50%, and the championship is already the sixth-richest league in Europe.

Finally, I want to address the issue of the medium to long-term future of the regulator. This legislation has morphed from creating an independent regulator with a narrow scope to creating a Government regulator headed up by a Labour party donor, with sprawling powers. Once the regulator has dealt with the most pressing issues, who knows how it might justify its existence in future. The devil will surely make work for idle hands. My fear is that the football regulator will not behave as a guardian of the sport but will instead look to involve itself more and more in day-to-day club operations.

We have come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s—an era that reached its nadir just under 40 years ago with the Heysel disaster, which saw English clubs banned from European competition for five years. It was a period when the best English players sought to ply their trade in Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1. English football is now the envy of the world. I am sure our competitors in Spain, Italy and Germany are watching and would be delighted if we were to regulate ourselves into a less competitive place. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

My constituents in Gateshead have, by and large, been subjected to a lot of dodgy owners in their time. The vast majority of my constituents are Newcastle fans. Many people remember the Mike Ashley era: the grotesque nightmare for Newcastle fans of seeing their football stadium named the Sports Direct at St James’ Park Arena, or being sponsored by Wonga. Even as a Sunderland fan, I found that pretty appalling. But Sunderland were not spared the nightmare of bad ownership. We had owners who used parachute payments—as chronicled in the Netflix nightmare show, “Sunderland ’Til I Die”—to buy a football club. I am therefore delighted to hear that parachute payments are within the scope of the Bill. Frankly, for me, that is a unique selling point of the Bill, not a downside.

A lot of my constituents also support Gateshead, which has had challenges with ownership as well. In 2019, Gateshead football club faced a winding up order, and the club was preserved only thanks to football fans including Neil Pinkerton, now Gateshead’s chairman, and Gateshead Soul. I say a big thank you to them, because it is thanks to Gateshead Soul and the current fan ownership of Gateshead football club that I still get to go to Gateshead matches with my dad, and that my son might one day be able to come and watch Gateshead matches with his dad. Ultimately, that is what football and football clubs are about: a sense of place and community.

Gateshead has faced a huge number of challenges as a football club. Somewhat infamously in the town, we were relegated in 1960, the last time we were in the football league, but we were not relegated on the basis of sporting merit; instead, we were voted out of the football league. Although there were two teams below us—Oldham and Hartlepool—it was Gateshead who were chosen to be kicked out of the football league. I am pleased to say that if Gateshead are successful in beating Southend this weekend and then progress through the play-offs, we will hopefully have an opportunity this season to right 65 years of wrongs and get back into the football league. However, it should never have happened in the first place. It is something that matters a great deal not just to me, but to my wider community.

Opposition Members talk about how football clubs do not disappear, but I am afraid that is simply wrong. The Gateshead who were relegated, Gateshead AFC, disappeared in the 1970s; they were soon followed by Gateshead United, who also disappeared in the 1970s. Those football clubs do not exist any more. The current Gateshead FC is not the same football club as before. That is very important to me because my grandfather, Allen Forster, played for the original Gateshead in the 1950s. In the limited time I have left, I hope the House will allow me to talk about him, because he was passionate about football. He was not only a professional footballer but, in his later years, the secretary of the Northumberland FA.

My hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) and for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) have talked about dementia among footballers. My granddad was a footballer who headed big, heavy, wet leather footballs. He did not care—he would not have it any other way. He was a defender; that is what he did. In his later years, he began to forget things. I once found him driving around the village where I grew up, unable to remember how he got there or even how to drive his car back. It has a profound impact. I will never be able to prove that it was anything to do with heading footballs in the 1950s, but it is what I have always suspected, so I think it is important that it is part of our debate.

I thank the Secretary of State for bringing forward the Bill, which will be a huge benefit to teams like Gateshead.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

It is unusual for me to say this, but, having heard about Southampton earlier, we shall conclude with Portsmouth.