In The Football Man, his acclaimed 1960s portrait of the national sport, the writer and journalist Arthur Hopcraft wrote that “the way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are”. Viewed from the present, that is quite a depressing thought.
England’s football family is an unequal, fractious and divided one right now. Booming broadcast revenues, the success of the Premier League and the legacy of an anything-goes approach to club ownership have channelled enormous power and wealth to the top of the domestic game, but created deep insecurity elsewhere. Despite having signed a record £6.7bn domestic television deal in December, Premier League clubs continue to resist calls to level up enormous financial disparities between leagues. As a turbo-charged elite hoovers up trophies, TV contracts and big bucks, clubs outside that gilded circle struggle to survive and remain vulnerable to reckless and exploitative owners.
Plans unveiled in parliament on Tuesday for football’s first independent regulator are therefore welcome and overdue. As outlined in the football governance bill, the new regulator would be responsible for granting operating licences to clubs in the top five divisions, according to agreed conditions. Backstop powers could be used to intervene, in the absence of a fair financial settlement being agreed between the different leagues. Other principal objectives include ensuring financial sustainability at clubs, giving a meaningful voice to supporters and safeguarding club “heritage”. Clubs judged in breach of their licence agreement would risk large fines.
The devil will be in the detail of the eventual legislation. It is all very well, for example, to insist that owners engage in proper consultation with fans. But in the absence of, say, a designated supporter’s seat on the board, or some kind of golden share system, the danger of a merely cosmetic exercise is obvious. Nevertheless, the direction of travel is the right one, as the Football Supporters Association has enthusiastically acknowledged.
Predictably, the response from the Premier League has been rather cooler, warning of consequences that could “weaken the competitiveness and appeal of English football”. This is self-serving, arrogant stuff. The glory of the English game does not stem solely from the success of a Manchester City or a Liverpool in the Champions League. Nor should it depend on the continued goodwill of passing billionaires and oil-rich states. Viewed from abroad, the most admired feature of our national sport has long been the breadth of a footballing landscape that sustains so many smaller clubs as sources of local pride and identity. The presence of a robust and independent “guiding mind” for football, committed to the common good of all stakeholders in the game, is likely to enhance rather than diminish competition, leading to greater unpredictability and excitement.
The road to the current bill began in 2021, when it took a revolt by fans to see off plans for a breakaway European Super League, to which the owners of England’s six biggest clubs had signed up. The ESL would have hobbled the domestic game and corrupted its soul by creating a competition in which there was no risk of relegation. The government’s licensing proposals are intended to ensure that there can be no repeat attempt. The publication of the football governance bill may be belated, but in this, and more broadly, it is a potential gamechanger.
