Non-league Football

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move, that this House has considered the future of non-league football.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall endeavour to comply with that informal guidance.

First, may I thank all those who have supported this important debate on the future of non-league football? I thank the Backbench Business Committee and colleagues across the House today for taking part and for other work they have done on football issues. I also thank the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport; Supporters Direct, which has provided tremendous additional help; and, above all, the Hereford United Supporters Trust, the Hereford United Independent Supporters Association, the dozens of Herefordians who have shared their feelings and views with me, and the thousands more who have poured their passion and commitment into the local game in Herefordshire over many years.

You do not have to be a football supporter to know how important this game is to the people of Great Britain. Every week during the season hundreds of thousands of people turn out to watch premiership and football league games, and millions more watch at home or catch up with the highlights. Football is the lifeblood of many of our towns and cities: it is what parents and kids do on a Saturday afternoon; and it is the subject of endless banter and gossip during the week. But the premiership and the football league are just the glamour at the top. There is huge activity below the surface, in non-league and grass-roots football. It is very easy to forget the significance of those parts of the game, and the roles those clubs play in the community and their importance in seeding the players and supporters of tomorrow.

That carries with it a crucial point: football clubs are not purely private organisations. They are not merely the private playthings of their owners—they are public as well. What gives the clubs their life and energy, even in the premiership, is the passion and love of their fans. I am talking about supporters who turn out every week, who yell their heads off at the match, who make the trek to away games and who buy the season tickets and the merchandise. So it is entirely appropriate that Parliament should take an interest in football and, specifically today, in non-league football: how it is funded, regulated and managed, balancing private interests with the public interest.

In large part I have called this debate to focus public attention on what has happened at Hereford United, which has been the result of a disastrous catalogue of mismanagement and poor regulation. We will come to that, but first I want to look to the good. In Herefordshire, despite many competing sports and other outdoor activities, the high cost of coaching and a shortage of access to good pitches, the non-league and grass-roots game is flourishing. We have 42 grass-roots senior football teams, some 150 junior teams, a schools league and midweek leisure games. Every weekend during the season about 2,000 youngsters between the ages of nine and 16 turn out in teams such as Ross Juniors in Ross-on-Wye and Pegasus Juniors in Hereford. Over the summer some 78 girls took part in girls week football, and I had the privilege of barbecuing several hundredweight of sausages for the different nationalities’ teams in the first-ever Herefordshire world cup in July.

The issue of finance is a very important one, and I know colleagues will have a lot to say about it—indeed, it deserves a separate debate in its own right. But it is important to recognise the £1.4 million in Premier League, Football Association and Government grants that has been given to grass-roots football in Herefordshire since 2000 and the further £240,000 that has been received from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund, which is funded entirely by the Premier League. As always, however, what really matters is community spirit and local organisation. I pay tribute to Jim Lambert and the Herefordshire Football Association, whose president is a distinguished former Member of this House, my predecessor but one, Sir Colin Shepherd. I also pay a special tribute to all those who play in these teams, to the families who support them and to the volunteers who give up their time to referee games and organise the league. Many of those people have supported and nurtured football in Herefordshire for generations.

Much of that good news has been cast into the shadows by events at Hereford United, which have been a catastrophe for the club, for the city, for the county and for Bulls fans everywhere. This debate has special significance for Herefordians, because the terrible truth is that our club, my club, Hereford United—the club of Ronnie Radford and what has been described as the most famous goal in FA Cup history, against Newcastle United; the goal that launched the career of John Motson—with its famous tradition and international name, in the year of its 90th anniversary, is likely to go into insolvency next Monday, with a court judgment on its outstanding debts.

How did that occur? How has a club that was solvent and competitive three years ago suddenly found itself on the brink of annihilation? It is a long and tortuous saga, which I will not recount here, but let me tell the House that Hereford United stand as a case study in mismanagement and poor regulation, of a kind all too prevalent in lower league and non-league football.

In 2008-09 Hereford United were playing in league one against teams such as Leicester City, now in the premier league, and Leeds United, currently in the championship. They were relegated to league two in 2009 and to the football conference in 2012. That is when the financial problems began to bite. Their share of rights income dropped from £750,000 a year to a tiny £50,000. That was offset by a parachute payment of £215,000, much less even than one year’s drop in rights income, much of which will have been returned to clubs in the league and to the FA itself.

The 2013-14 season was beset by financial crises but the fans rallied, funds were raised to see off the threat of a series of winding-up petitions and Hereford United secured an astonishing last-gasp 2-1 victory over Aldershot, thus narrowly managing to avoid relegation. However, in June, Mr Thomas Agombar became the 57% owner of Hereford United. When he arrived at the club, he reassured staff that

“all payments and wages due to themselves, players and football creditors would be paid in full this week, subject to Conference status”.

Despite those promises and the deadline for payment being extended three times, Hereford United failed to pay their football creditors and failed to post the bond as required under conference rules. They were then expelled from the conference on 10 June 2014. That created, indeed reinforced, the strong impression locally that Mr Agombar was less interested in football than in taking over leases to the Edgar Street ground and using them for commercial development. We now know he met repeatedly with Herefordshire council, which to its credit has taken no steps to allow him use of the leases.

There was also immediate local concern about the suitability of Mr Agombar to own a football club, not least because he has convictions for conspiracy to steal and theft. Furthermore, two other directors appeared likely to fail the FA’s owners and directors test. One, Mr Philip Gambrill, was subject to an individual voluntary arrangement and another, Mr Thomas Agombar Jr, had been banned by Essex County FA.

I wrote to the Football Association in early June, asking it to consider whether Mr Agombar met the requirements of the owners and directors fit and proper test. However, perhaps because of the World cup, it was difficult to get a rapid response from the FA, despite the answer being vital to Hereford United’s survival. Indeed it was not until 4 August, some six weeks later, that the FA finally confirmed to me that Mr Agombar Sr had failed the test, along with Mr Agombar Jr and Mr Gambrill. Even then, despite my repeated requests and warning of the reputational risks to the FA itself, the FA refused publicly to announce the results of the test. It pleaded confidentiality, although the club was even then in negotiations over a company voluntary agreement, with Mr Gambrill’s name on the CVA document. It took until 12 August for news that Mr Agombar and those two other directors had failed the test to be made public. I must tell the House that the FA has still not made a statement on the matter. Not only that: the Southern League accepted Hereford United as a member in mid-June, despite the fact that it is supposed to abide by FA rules and that Mr Agombar had not passed, and as it proved would never pass, the fit and proper test.

This whole fiasco raises very serious issues about governance and the need for greater transparency; about funding and financial fair play; about the negative effects of the football creditors rule; and about the importance of supporters trusts. I would encourage the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to revisit in the next Parliament its 2011 report on football governance to reconsider some of the issues.

Today I want to focus on the FA’s fit and proper test and how that was administered. How could it be right for the FA to refuse to publish the results, which were clearly material to a proceeding in court? The creditors should have been immediately informed, so that they could judge the CVA in that light. Some of those were football creditors, to whom the FA arguably owed a special duty of care. I can see no reason why the FA should not be able to make public in a timely fashion whether an individual submitted the relevant form for the owners and directors test; and whether, if they have, they passed the test. After all, this is the practice in the parallel case of financial services and, although that industry is no poster child for good regulation—goodness knows that is true—its approach has been proven to deter some very dodgy individuals from seeking senior positions.

Moreover, how can people who buy shares in football clubs be able to register their directorship with Companies House when they have not passed the test? Surely people who would be likely to fail the test should not be allowed even to get to that stage. The FA, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and Companies House should work much more closely to identify potentially unsuitable club shareholders, owners and directors as soon as they appear.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I have listened closely to the hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech. Wrexham has had similar experiences, and the club has gone through a very difficult period. I am interested in what he has said, and he has come to the nub of the matter. Regulation must precede ownership. The key decision on whether someone is a fit and proper person must be made by the FA before it sanctions any transfer in ownership. For the life of me, I cannot understand why that does not happen.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes a proposal that has been scouted before but needs to be examined more closely. There is a tie-in to a wider question: should there be a licensing regime for clubs? That is worth exploring.