Football Clubs (Governance)

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram]

I hear what the Minister is saying. I myself do not think that the Barcelona model or any other model is a panacea. I am not suggesting that, all of a sudden, the fans of every single football club will go out and seize control of their clubs in a revolution, but regarding the way in which clubs such as Barcelona are structured, the argument cannot be made that those structures make them less likely to be successful.

As I was saying, it is a case of “horses for courses” and it would be naive to suggest that we should simply adopt the Barcelona model or anything else off the rack. Clubs such as Barcelona are long-established products of their respective cultures, politics and histories, and there is little evidence that their ownership models would prove suitable, or even desirable, here in the UK. It would be equally naive to suggest that supporter ownership or control of major clubs in the UK would prove to be some kind of panacea. Teams will always have lousy seasons, as my team did last year. There will always be controversy surrounding management decisions, many clubs will intermittently struggle financially and there have been failed, or at least unworkable, experiments in supporter ownership before now.

A useful lesson that might be drawn from those experiences, and from the European models that I cited earlier, is that mutuality alone is not enough. Mutuality must be coupled with effective business practice and regulation. Supporters fully appreciate that. Manchester United Supporters Trust has declared that

“we have neither the desire nor the intention to run the day-to-day affairs of the club. A club like United should be run by professionals whose experience and expertise will ensure its success.”

Such a sentiment should allay the fears of those who view supporters as little more than a bunch of amateurs who wish to take over the show, or lunatics taking over the asylum. Supporters are not stupid—they want and recognise what is best for their club. The point is not to establish some type of cure-all for the systemic problems in the game’s governance but to seek ways to make that governance fairer, more robust and more fitting for a global sport in the 21st century.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the timeliness of this debate. Does he not agree that an essential element in coming to grips with the problem of the modern-day game is that however difficult it is, we must grasp the nettle of the obscenity of the six-figure-sum-per-week footballer, which is totally unsustainable and is corrupting the game from within?

[Steve Rotheram]

It is a difficult issue. I am a supporter of one of the supposedly big four—Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool—and that is how we and some other clubs attract the big footballers. Implementing that idea would be like turkeys voting for Christmas, but I understand the rationale behind the obscenity of somebody earning such huge sums when the people paying his wages are on a fraction of what he earns a year.

I have described the “Why?”, so the next question is “How?”. What can we as politicians do to assist? The social value report that I mentioned concluded with several recommendations on how national Government can do their bit. Time constraints prevent me from listing them, but they are excellent ideas worthy of serious exploration, and I urge interested colleagues to take a look at the document.

Having made a fundamental commitment to encouraging reform, the coalition Government have not yet revealed how they intend to proceed, but the previous Labour Government published a raft of proposals before the 2010 election. They include making Government support—especially financial support—conditional on co-operation, creating the right framework for better regulation from the top down and grassroots up, and working with governing bodies to enshrine supporters’ rights to buy their clubs and/or be represented in the ownership and governance of the club.