Sports Minister Stuart Andrew has said that state ownership of football clubs will be “a matter for the foreign office”, as the government White Paper was criticised by a leading human rights group for containing no mention of "arguably the biggest threat to the English game".
Despite Manchester United prospectively becoming the third English club to be owned or run by a state in Qatar, and potentially being used as a sportswashing vehicle, the document did not contain any provision of human rights. Andrew did say that they would look at “other regulatory bodies to see what mechanisms they are using”.
