Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Lincoln Jopp

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

I would have thought that if my hon. Friend was going to watch Portsmouth play Southampton, she would want to be well inebriated before she had to watch Southampton win—[Interruption.] I am sorry to upset her.

I say to the Minister that we do not have to make the decision now—this is not the Bill to do it—but we should at least reflect on it with the FSA.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that the new clause is not asking for the ban to be lifted. It is very much in the spirit of what he is saying. It says that there should be a requirement to consult, which seems to be the process that he is advocating, so I do not think it would be out of place in the Bill.

[Mr Betts]

In the end, the Minister will advise us what the approach is likely to be. I hope she will at least keep a slightly open mind so that if she does not make a decision now, she thinks about the issue.

Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Lincoln Jopp

Committee stage
Thursday 12th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

I hope the Minister can take this seriously; it is a worry that the Bill does not quite go far enough at present. The reality is that this legislation tries to deal with bad owners and anticipate how they might behave. The more restrictions that we can build around bad behaviour, and possibilities for controlling it, the better.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I appreciate the desire to legislate for bad owners, but is the hon. Gentleman not concerned about good owners who might find money very tight? They have assets beyond the home ground and team itself that they might have to consider selling, including a training ground, to remain financially viable and therefore be on the right side of the regulator in their business plan. Is he not concerned that, by extending even further the regulator’s purview into all properties, he might overly constrain good owners from doing what they want to save their clubs?

[Mr Betts]

I do not believe that is the case. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I think what we are saying here is that this gives the regulator the power to look at that situation. The worry is that some owners will try to exploit not for good football purposes but because they can see themselves making a profit on the side. That can damage the competitive ability of the clubs that they own. Unfortunately, some owners take that capricious view, and it is for them that we must legislate. I do not believe my amendments would adversely affect good owners, as I do not think the Bill does either.

Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Lincoln Jopp

Committee stage
Thursday 12th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

I am still a bit uneasy about those clubs that are not going to enter into the spirit of the really important part of the Bill: proper fan consultation. I come back to Sheffield Wednesday and its owner, who thinks sitting down for 10 hours of deliberation with hand-picked fan groups and not answering any questions amounts to a consultation—it does not.

I was interested in what the Minister said about how the regulator will have the right to issue guidance about how consultation should happen, and then there can be enforcement if the guidance is not followed, which means the guidance effectively becomes a requirement. I hope that we can elaborate on that later in the Committee’s discussions, as she indicated we would, because, without those backstop powers, there will be some club owners who regard the club as their personal possession and believe that no one has a right to interfere in how they run it.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I am intrigued to know whether, with all his experience, his chairmanship of the football all-party parliamentary group and his background with the Bill, the hon. Gentleman thinks he has yet received an adequate explanation from the Minister on why emblems and colours are treated differently from the names of clubs.

[Mr Betts]

No, not really—I have not. I am still not sure why it is so difficult to have a requirement to consult on a name. I hope the Minister might reflect on that, a bit like she reflected earlier.

Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Lincoln Jopp

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No one wants to see the regulator come in and compel clubs to change ownership. That is not the intention. Encouraging owners to behave better so that that intervention is not necessary is of course the ideal outcome, but history would teach us that not every power or potential use of power will compel some owners to behave properly. This is about what happens when they do not.

The whole purpose of these arrangements in the Bill is to stop the Burys happening again, or to stop the situation at Reading getting worse than it did. At this stage, I do not see where the power is for the regulator to do anything other than to say that someone is not a fit and proper person.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Has the hon. Gentleman considered that, essentially, we are talking about the state seizing someone’s assets and giving them to someone else? If a club falls into administration, the administrator is governed by a very strict set of laws in terms of treating all creditors fairly. Is he not concerned that this power could fly in the face of existing powers for the administration of companies?

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Member raises a worthwhile point for consideration. It may be that in the situation of Reading, if it had not changed ownership, the club would have gone into administration, because it would have had no income coming in because it could not play in the competition. That is entirely possible. It is possible that the chairman could just walk away and say, “Right, I am dissolving this organisation—I am off.” That would not be acceptable for fans.

That is why I said at the beginning that it is a complicated legal issue, and I am not saying that I have the only solution here. What I am saying is that there is a problem that does not currently appear to have a solution in the Bill. It is a problem. I keep going back to the situation at Sheffield Wednesday. We have a situation where an owner is running out of money. We do not even know where his money comes from. It clearly does not come from his companies, because his companies are loss-making. Is he being supported by his family? Is the Thai Union Group providing the money? Is the family trust providing the money? The regulator will have the power to find the source of funding, which might be quite interesting in some cases. We had a situation at Leeds a few years ago where we did not even know who owned the club.

Getting that information on the record and giving the regulator powers to find out who actually owns the club, what the source of funding is and whether the beneficial owner is the same as the owner who claims to be the owner are important issues, but then we get to the point where the owner is found to be not fit and proper. What actually happens? I do not know the answer. I have read the Bill many times and debated it many times, and still do not know the answer. There has to be an answer.

[Lincoln Jopp]

My understanding of the Bill is that under those circumstances, they would lose their licence to operate.

[Mr Betts]

They would, and therefore the club disappears. No one wants to see that. The whole purpose of the Bill is to stop clubs disappearing, to stop what happened to Bury, and so there is a gap in the legislation, because what happens in that situation? It nearly happened at Reading—the club nearly disappeared, but in the end it was a last-minute sale. If the owner had not sold it at the last minute, however, the EFL has no powers to deal with it, and the regulator will not either. The regulator has the power to say: “You shouldn’t be owning the club. You shouldn’t have a licence to operate the club, because of what you have done, you haven’t got the funds, your source of funds is inappropriate”—all those things—but then what happens?

I am saying to the Minister that the whole intention of the Bill is to ensure that the clubs that fans have supported for years, for generations—for communities, it is their club—do not disappear, go out of business or lose their place in the competition they are playing in. Clubs might get relegated, that is fine, but they should not lose their place because they have an owner who is not fit and proper, and does not meet the test. We have to find way of dealing with this, which the Bill does not do as drafted.