Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Melanie Onn and Lincoln Jopp

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I wanted to take this opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East’s amendment 141. It speaks directly to the principle at the heart of this Bill: ensuring a sustainable and fair future for football clubs throughout the pyramid, including those at the very heart of our communities.

The current structure of parachute payments, where clubs relegated from the Premier League receive tens of millions more than their counterparts, is a major contributor to systemic unsustainability. Those payments—£48.9 million in year one and £40.1 million in year two—create a gulf that clubs in the Championship must try to bridge, not with balanced support but with risky financial manoeuvres. The result is dependency on volatile owner funding, something that we have seen tragically unravel at clubs such as Bury, Wigan, and, of course, Derby County.

The backstop mechanism that the Government are introducing in the Bill is absolutely the right approach, providing a necessary and independent means for resolving disputes in financial distribution. But the two-year protected period on parachute payments really does risk hampering the ability of the new independent football regulator to respond with the urgency that is often required.

When the Bill was first published back in October, the understanding among many clubs, including my own local club of Grimsby Town—I declare no official interests, although it is important to our local community and is one of the teams in the lower leagues that really feels the financial strain from unfair distribution—was that the protected period would be set at 12 months rather than two years. Amendment 141, as I read it, simply seeks to reflect that original expectation.

Allowing for a one-season window still gives the regulator the discretion to proceed carefully, while also preserving the flexibility to act more swiftly should the need arise. This is about fairness, and also about credibility, because, if we are to empower the regulator, we should not be artificially constraining it before it begins its work.

I am grateful for the Minister’s attention to detail and her response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East’s contributions so far. I really think that the spirit of amendment 141 aligns with all our shared ambitions to build a financially sustainable game. It is a constructive proposal, and I hope that the Minister gives it serious consideration.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Sir Jeremy. I remind the Committee of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Unlike the hon. Member for Rushcliffe, I chose my tie with purpose this morning, to celebrate both the fact that this might be the last day of the Bill Committee and also events in Atlanta last night.

What we have seen is the thin end of the wedge. I am alive to the arguments about the disparity that parachute payments create in the overall economy of football. However, this Bill is undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge. It will come as no surprise to Members that I am a Conservative, and therefore I think the best form of regulator is competition. We all just ought to watch, because if the regulator has parachute payments within its purview, what is next? It will be agents’ fees, TV rights carve-ups, finishing position bonuses and cut prize money. Seeking to run football as some sort of socialist command economy will come unstuck. I put on record my concern that that is exactly what the Bill seeks to do.