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For a long time, football has heard the voice crying in the wilderness: make way for the coming of the regulator. This has been the hope that has sustained the rump of the game as the rich have disappeared further and further into the distance and clubs have been dragged further and further from their traditional communities. And now, with the launch on Thursday of the football governance bill, it feels a little realer, a little closer. This is actually happening.
But as details emerge, perhaps the most important thing to remember is that just because a regulator exists does not mean that regulations are followed, as the water industry demonstrates all too clearly. Far more important than any individual clause in the bill is what power the regulator will have in practice.
Ticket prices, sustainability, fan representation and equality, diversity and inclusion within the game are important, as is the reduction or abolition of parachute payments, but equally none of the intentions matter much if the regulator lacks teeth. And even if the regulator is given significant power, it can only be as good as the people who run it. Perhaps experienced, intelligent, sensitive and strong-willed individuals do exist in football, but will the regulator be well enough funded to be able to afford them? Or is there a danger, as has happened in other industries, that those being regulated have deeper pockets than those doing the regulating and so can pick off the best people from the regulator?
And this is the existential question facing the modern game: is it actually governable? It’s true that some clubs have always been richer than others. But what is new is that modern owners, whether states, oligarchs or the wealthier private equity funds, have the financial might to bully football’s administrators into submission. Might they even sue the regulator?
The only way to stand up to financial power of that nature is through government intervention. So it’s a terrible irony that Uefa and Fifa, the very bodies that have failed to tackle the related scourges of sportswashing and inequality, should explicitly outlaw government intervention.
Attempting to keep politics and sport separate, trying for instance to prevent a sports ministry overriding a national federation to appoint the national coach with all the kickbacks that may entail, is a laudable aim. But intervening in issues of regulatory oversight plays into the hands of the very wealthy and already powerful. Only last month the Uefa general secretary, Theodore Theodoridis, wrote to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, warning that England could theoretically be banned from Euro 2028, which it will co-host, should there be “scope creep” by a regulator into areas beyond “the long-term financial sustainability of clubs and heritage assets”.
This, it should be stressed, is not a government regulator but an independent body, albeit one set up by the government in the face of such concern from the Premier League that it has presented gifts worth more than £100,000 to MPs, including Keir Starmer and nine serving cabinet ministers, over the past three years.
Newcastle’s takeover in 2021 showed that English football has become a stage on which global politics is played out. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
In reality the prospect of Uefa scuppering the financial viability of its prime international tournament is minimal, but the threat suggested just how wary many within the football establishment are of regulation. Notably the clause about the regulator taking foreign and trade policy considerations into account in club takeovers has been removed from the bill, which should help to assuage Uefa’s overt concerns, although it’s baffling that was included anyway.
While it’s realistic to worry about the consequences if a nation with whom Britain has strained relations buys an English club, it’s bewildering that English football should be expected to consider trade policy when deciding whether an owner is appropriate – even if it is now clear that Boris Johnson, when prime minister, actively supported the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United after being warned by Mohammed bin Salman that blocking the deal could damage UK-Saudi relations. The idea of an outside government interfering with the running of football seems not to exercise Uefa and Fifa.
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In any other era it would have sounded ridiculous. Edward Heath has helped the Shah’s Iran buy Coventry City? What? And yet this is where we are. English football has become a stage on which global politics is played out. That, inevitably, has an impact on integrity – and sport without integrity is nothing. It’s not just the Saudis, Johnson and Newcastle.
A freedom of information request a year ago showed that the UK government had been in contact with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi to discuss the potential fallout of the Premier League charges against Manchester City, but the emails were withheld on the grounds that their release could be prejudicial to the UK’s relationship with the UAE.
These are enormous issues, beyond the scope of the football authorities. The truth is, they’re likely to be beyond the scope of a regulator. If the regulator actually does have the remit and resources to begin to address issues such as ticket pricing and sustainability, then it is to be welcomed.
A regulator is at least a focal point for resistance and potential action, and should be free of the institutional self-interest that so often blights football. But nobody should think a regulator is a panacea. And, frankly, in terms of the biggest issue facing the game, that of ungovernable wealth, it may already be too late.
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