Draft Statutory Guidance on the Meaning of “Significant Influence or Control”

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moynihan]

That this House resolves not to approve the draft Statutory Guidance on the Meaning of “Significant Influence or Control” in the Context of the Football Governance Act 2025, as it creates uncertainty regarding the eligibility criteria; increases the likelihood of legal and ownership challenges; creates a conflicting regulatory regime for the licensed football clubs; and has the potential to damage the financial success and growth of the regulated leagues.

Relevant document: 41st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I have initiated this debate because the question of who is captured as a person of “significant influence or control” under the Football Governance Act inextricably links to the regulatory regime they will have to follow, and that will determine the success or failure of the Act. We need to get it right; clarity is the key word here. We need clarity to have effective regulation, and good regulation is essential for the success of EFL clubs and Premier League clubs alike. Unlike in debates during the passage of the Bill, we are all at one on this. We need to get this right, because that is the best way of ensuring the financial success of professional football.

Just one reason was given by the Minister for Sport in introducing the statutory guidance in another place on 27 October. She stated that the purpose of the statutory guidance on the meaning of “significant influence or control” under Section 1 of the Act was to

“ensure that fans can identify the real persons exercising control of their clubs, notwithstanding any opaque or complex ownership structures. This will give fans the much-needed transparency they deserve”.

She added just one further observation:

“This delivers the Government’s election promises to combat poor governance and financial mismanagement of football clubs in this country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/25; col. 1WS.]


Unfortunately, as drafted, it does no such thing.

As the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, helpfully contributed during the passage of the Bill, the concrete benefits to fans are a few statutory protections, mainly of heritage items, typically club names, crests— courtesy of my noble friend Lord Parkinson—home colours and home ground; and consultation, which already exists in most of the professional clubs in this country. There are no fan veto powers. What it does is create far tougher owners’ and directors’ tests than exist anywhere in the world, and it overlaps with UEFA and the Premier League and EFL’s requisite regulation.

There is no clear definition in the guidance of the meaning of “integrity” or “competence”, or indeed “source of funds”. In fact, the stated objective of the regulator is to go further than the Premier League does at the moment, requiring each and every club to list in the personnel statement those of “significant influence and control”. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the final rules on guidance and regulation will come before the personnel statements that are requested from clubs.

Most Premier League clubs sit inside a multi-club organisation and most of their owners live in jurisdictions abroad, where identifying those with “significant influence or control” is exceptionally difficult to determine. To say that the ownership of professional football in this country is complex is an understatement. In the Premier League, only two clubs have a solitary shareholder. The staggering complexity of the challenge for clubs is clear when you realise that the ownership of Premier League football clubs is primarily international. As of this summer, American ownership is 40%; Chinese, 5%; Saudi Arabian, 4%; Swiss, 4%; Egyptian, 2%; international institutions and others, 2%; Greek, 5%; the UAE, 4%; Uruguayan, 2%; and Czech, 1%. UK ownership stands at 22%. Yet clarity is everything, so let me ask the Minister about just one club. Since the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, and I are both avid supporters of Leeds United, I have chosen that club.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I will have to defer to the Box on that point, but I will be happy to pick that up with the noble Lord afterwards.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response. I will pick up on some of the points she has made and try to answer the other interventions that came from the packed Benches on the Government side, which I am delighted to see for this debate. I have rarely been called a trout-fishing terrier. I love trout fishing and I also love terriers, so I take those both as compliments. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, that I am passionately committed to football, both amateur and professional; I always have been in 40 years involved in sport. There is no one who would regard my intervention on this subject as coming from any other position than being passionate about sport and football.

The Act is detrimental to the future of professional football; it is a view I spoke about a great deal in Committee. This evening, I did not address any of those points but focused exclusively on the guidance. I say to the Minister and to others that the debate this evening does not stop the regulator for one day. The statutory guidance is laid before both Houses until 5 December, and there is the opportunity to debate it in either House until that point. It is not a delaying tactic; it does not delay the regulator getting on with its job. To say that and to imply that is fundamentally wrong. We cannot do anything about this until 5 December, when both Houses will have had the opportunity to consider it. We have had the opportunity in advance of that to have a debate.

I say to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, who are passionate about sport and highly knowledgeable about football—they may not take this as the greatest compliment coming from me, although it is meant to be a compliment at the highest level—that I tabled this Motion because, if we have secondary legislation, we have the opportunity to review it in the normal way, but if we have draft statutory guidance the only way we can debate it is by tabling a fatal Motion. I have no intention of pressing it to a vote, but I absolutely intended to make sure that what we looked at during the passage of the Bill—the decision to bring forward statutory guidance on this so that the whole of Parliament could consider it—was given due consideration.

Having read the guidance, I made it clear to the House this evening that I was concerned it went too closely along the lines—which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said was inevitable and important in the drafting—of being kept purposefully and precisely vague, to use his phrase. I was a little nervous that, in responding, the Minister might do exactly what the noble Lord encouraged her not to do and provide clarity and precision. Understandably, she could not, because it is vague, and intentionally so.

I say to the Minister that this could be far better written. I genuinely believe that it is important to take it away and write it with greater clarity, because the guidance needs to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the need for the regulator to look into significant interest or control and, on the other, having to think about investors and the best interests of every club. It is my firm belief that, if you go too closely down the road of being so precisely vague and wide ranging, it could deter investors in professional football. That is why I felt it important to have this debate.

This Motion does not delay the regulator at all and gives this House the opportunity to consider something it requested in Committee on the Bill and which the Government granted. This debate has been very well attended. I am exceptionally grateful to those who have contributed. I avoided completely going down the line that the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, thought I might by focusing exclusively on and going into detail on this guidance. Having placed this on the record, I hope that the regulator and the world of football will be able to go away and consider whether there are ways to improve the statutory guidance and that, when we sit down with the football clubs, we avoid overlapping with the regulatory frameworks of UEFA, the EFL and the Premier League, which is also vital and to be avoided here.

I am grateful to the Minister for sitting through another debate on football and for the very helpful contributions from, in particular, the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, feared that we will see this in case law; I fear that he is absolutely right.

It may help the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, if I repeat one point. I was absolutely opposed to this legislation all the way through and thought that it would be bad law. I believe it is bad law. I thought Boris Johnson’s knee-jerk reaction to go to legislation on the Monday after the Saturday announcement of the super league was wrong. That is not the right way for professional sport in this country. But I did not go down that road this evening. I focused on this because I want to make it as good as possible and passionately want this Act to succeed now that it is in statute, in the interests of football and investors as well as of regulation. I wish the regulator every success with this. I hope it gets it right and has the opportunity to reflect on what has been said on both sides of this House. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion withdrawn.