The Labour Party has challenged the UK government to hurry up and introduce an independent regulator for football or the opposition will make it “an election issue” in constituencies with crisis-hit clubs.
Speaking during a parliamentary business debate on Thursday, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell asked her opposite number Penny Mordaunt why the government had not yet introduced the Football Governance Bill that was promised in November’s King’s Speech, the formal statement of the government’s intended programme of legislation.
“The much-needed and heralded legislation to regulate English football is still nowhere to be seen,” said Powell.
“Just this week, the Premier League shelved a new financial settlement for the football pyramid and the English Football League (EFL) is responding today. Doesn’t (Mordaunt) agree that new powers to impose a fairer deal for smaller clubs can’t come soon enough?
“Fans in Bury, Macclesfield, Derby, Reading, Scunthorpe and, may I add, Portsmouth want their precious clubs saved.
“If the Conservatives want to make this an election issue in these places then I say ‘bring it on’. Because let’s be really clear, if they don’t want to regulate football governance, then we will.”
The six clubs Powell mentioned have all experienced grave financial problems in recent years, as Mordaunt, a member of parliament for Portsmouth and a fan of the football team, knows well.
The timing of Powell’s question also requires no further explanation, as the Premier League confirmed on Monday that it had failed to agree on an improved support package for the EFL and was postponing talks on the so-called “new deal for football” indefinitely.
Reading supporters protesting against the club’s ownership (Warren Little/Getty Images)
This came as a bitter blow to both the EFL — whose 72 clubs have been waiting for a formal offer from the Premier League for months — and the government, as it had been hoping the threat of regulation would be enough to persuade England’s top flight to share more of its enormous media-rights income with the rest of the game.
But the Premier League’s 20 clubs are so divided on the issue — and other related topics — that the league’s board has never even put the “new deal” to a vote.
Powell’s call for action was echoed by John Cryer, the Labour MP for London constituency Leyton and Wanstead, who said: “Many of us, on both sides of the house, have clubs in our constituencies that have been on the verge of going under and that situation is only going to get worse.
“Could we bring the putative bill to the floor of the house as soon as possible?”
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Mordaunt responded by reminding Powell that the government “initiated” the “programme of work” that should result in the creation of an independent regulator for football, as it was the key recommendation from the “fan-led review” into the game’s governance that was conducted by former sports minister Tracey Crouch in 2021.
The background to the decision to look at football’s governance was widespread concern about the number of insolvencies in English football and fears that more could follow during the pandemic, although the immediate impetus for Crouch’s work was the attempt by the six biggest Premier League clubs to join a breakaway European Super League.
Mordaunt told Powell that the government “will shortly bring through the bill” and then reassured Cryer that “it’s very important that we bring this bill forward — the football pyramid at every level needs to be supported”.
She did not, however, give any clues away as to when the bill will appear, with many wondering if this government still has time to introduce any new legislation. The Easter recess is now less that two weeks away, with MPs not returning to Westminster until mid-April.
An article in PoliticsHome, an outlet that specialises in the minutiae of Westminster life, on Thursday said it understands that the government will make parliamentary time for the bill to be read and debated before the summer recess in late July.
It quoted an unnamed Conservative MP with a role government who said: “It doesn’t matter whether (the Premier League) they agree or not, whether the Premier League like it or not: the bill is coming.”
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(Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
