Football fans tonight urged Boris Johnson to speed up an overhaul of the game’s governance.
The PM said the Government would set up an independent regulator following a fan-led review.
Speaking at Bury FC, Mr Johnson said it would “help fans stick up for their interests” but gave no time frame for when.
But the Football Supporters Association warned: “There’s no time to dwell on the ball. Each day is another day a club might cease to exist, another day for a dodgy owner to get their hooks into a club.”
Fans of Derby, doomed to be relegated from the Championship after a 21-point deduction following their plunge into administration, agreed there was no time to lose.
The Rams Trust said it was “disappointed that there is no timetable” adding: “These reforms are needed urgently to protect clubs up and down the country.”
The Government will also work with football bodies and police to consider the safety and economic case for piloting the sale of alcohol at matches in lower leagues.
Fans will have a formal role deciding “heritage issues” such as changes to their club stadia, logo, name and kit via a “golden share”.
Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust chairman Keith Morgan, who has followed the Bluebirds for 60 years, hoped the overhaul would stop a repeat of controversies like when City’s owner changed the club’s home shirts to red in 2012, before a U-turn in 2015.
“The idea of fans having to be formally consulted on major changes is important, and that’s going to go through,” he said.
“We wouldn’t have had the change of colours because fans would have had to approve it.”
Conservative MP Julian Knight, who chairs the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said: “The commitment to introduce an independent regulator is a welcome step, but the Government must now get on with setting it up for the sake of the health of our national game.
“Developments such as the proposal of the preposterous European Super League and the struggles for survival faced by clubs in our communities, have exposed football governance in this country for the joke that it is.
“With no firm timescale to tackle the deep-rooted problems afflicting the game and no move to establish the regulator in shadow form ahead of legislation, it feels like the Government has parked the bus, when they should be going flat out on the attack to deliver in the best interests of fans.”
Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell said: “There’s no dressing up that this announcement is a massive disappointment for fans.
“After a government review and many previous promises, a delay to legislation until at least 2024 is a kick in the teeth to proud footballing communities across England.”
The Government tonight claimed it could not immediately introduce the new regulatory regime because of the shock the sudden change would unleash.
Sports minister Nigel Huddleston said: “It is incredibly complex.
“We are going to be bringing in incredible rigour and discipline, particularly financial discipline, on clubs that has not happened before.
“If we were expected to bring these regulations in tomorrow, that could cause considerable difficulty for clubs who are perhaps not in the current position to be able to prove that level of discipline and rigour on the finances that we would be seeking under a new world with more regulation and with financial regulation, so we have to do it at the right time and give adequate notice.”
