Non-league Football

Ian Murray Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts (Ian Murray)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) on securing this important debate. I hope he is not too intimidated by the size of the crowd in here this afternoon. [Laughter.] He is a passionate advocate for non-league football and his own club. He is a dedicated supported of Hartlepool and is a season ticket holder.

Hartlepool United is a club that has seen the highs and lows of the professional and non-league game over its history. As a Scot, I feel a bit of a fraud responding in this debate, because I do not know much about English non-league football. I do know a lot about Scottish non-league football. My own club, Heart of Midlothian, is at the top of the Scottish premiership this season, four points clear of Rangers and flying high.

[Paul Waugh]

Speaking of clubs that are at the top of their league, Rochdale are at the top of the national league right now. Despite that, we do strongly support the 3UP—and three down—campaign, because although we may well benefit this year from going straight up, we know all too often that clubs can sometimes rack up lots of points but still not go up, as York City did last season even though they were 20 points ahead of Oldham.

As a season ticket holder, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash), it is really important that we reward the loyalty of fans and footballers who play for clubs such Rochdale, Hearts and Hartlepool. I also want to pay tribute to Ian Henderson, who marked his 41st birthday last weekend with a goal and an assist and who plays for Rochdale as our record goal scorer.

[Ian Murray]

With Ian Henderson’s age, maybe there is still time for my hon. Friend to score a hat trick to take the Dale up. He mentioned in his previous intervention the Dale Trust and Dale 1907, and I pay tribute to them. We tend to forget that, right across the country, all our football clubs have strong community spirit and strong charities and trusts attached to them that do so much in the local community—Big Hearts is attached to my football club. Indeed, the reason I mention my club is not just to get it on the record, as we always like to do, but because it is the largest fan-owned club in the UK. That fan ownership was born out of ownership crisis. The club was owned by a Russian-born oligarch from Lithuania, but when it went into administration and liquidation, the fans bought out the club and now it is riding high.

When we see what has been done at Hartlepool— I pay tribute to Landon Smith for taking over the club—hopefully it will have a bright future with that settled ownership. Clubs such as the Pools—or the “monkey hangers”, a nickname which my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool did not mention—are not just sports teams; they are part of the very identity of our towns and the communities within them. They are the institutions that provide pride in place, which is a concept that I know my hon. Friend champions, and they play a vital role in the social and economic fabric of all our communities. Without our football clubs, our communities would be hollowed out, so congratulations to everyone who runs a non-league club.

British and English football is a global success story. Of course, it was invented in Scotland, and Scotland won the world cup in 1967 by beating England at Wembley. [Laughter.] This Government are committed to ensuring that football’s foundations remain strong, sustainable and supported for generations to come, and crucially, that fans are put first. That is really important.

As my hon. Friend has highlighted, the influence of non-league football extends far beyond the pitch. Clubs are frequently the beating heart of our communities, serving as hubs for social cohesion, education and physical activity, and bringing people and our communities together. Department for Culture, Media and Sport research has shown that the sport and physical activity sector contributes £53 billion to our national economy. We must also look at the major social value: the £8 billion of wellbeing value created by grassroots and non-league football and the £43 million saved for our NHS every single year from fans’ involvement in their clubs. Whether it is Hartlepool United’s work with local youth or the thousands of smaller clubs across the country run by volunteers, the Government recognise that every pound invested in non-league football is an investment in the health and happiness of our nation and our communities—and my goodness, don’t we need a bit of that in our communities?

A key pillar of our support for the game is ensuring long-term sustainability through the Football Governance Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in July last year. That historic legislation establishes the Independent Football Regulator, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool mentioned. For the first time, we have a statutory body with the powers to ensure that clubs are run sustainably and to protect the heritage that the fans hold dear—the very lifeblood of the game. Importantly for today’s debate, the regulator’s remit includes the top five tiers of the men’s game, of which Hartlepool and Rochdale are part. That means that clubs in the national league benefit from oversight that demands financial resilience and meaningful fan engagement.

We have also given the regulator backstop powers to intervene in financial distributions. If football is unable to reach an agreement, we want to see a fairer share of the game’s wealth flowing down the pyramid system, ensuring that the prosperity at the very top of the game supports the sustainability of those further down. Non-league football provides the stars—the premier league players—of the future.

The sustainability of non-league football was fundamentally challenged during the covid era and, indeed, post covid. The sport survival package, which was worth £13.4 million in loans, supported 35 non-league clubs when their need was most acute in response to unprecedented circumstances—I know that that has been a huge issue for Hartlepool. We understand that for many clubs, the legacy of that turbulent period remains a challenge. That is why the Department continues to work closely with Sport England, and its loan agent, which regularly engages with borrowers to monitor their financial position.

Physical infrastructure is important and is often a substantial overhead for grassroots community clubs. That is why we are continuing our investment through the multi-sport grassroots facilities programme, which is delivering £98 million this year alone for community clubs below step 6 of the national league system. I am pleased that we have recently confirmed that £85 million will be committed for 2026-27 as well, building on the huge success of the grassroots programme. We understand that for the clubs that are climbing the tiers of the national league system, the requirements for stadium infrastructure become more intensive. That is why we work so closely with the Football Foundation, which my hon. Friend mentioned, that also delivers the Premier League Stadium Fund. Although that is the Premier League’s own fund, its delivery through the Football Foundation ensures that it is aligned with our shared goals for a sustainable pyramid.

I will touch on the 3UP campaign, which is the main thrust of the debate—maybe we will only need “one up” this season if the Dale end up at the top of the division. The Government recognise the strengthen of feeling on the 3UP campaign. It was a major debating point in both Houses during the passage of the Football Governance Act. However, decisions about the structure of football competitions, including promotion and relegation arrangements, are rightly a matter for the footballing authorities, as my hon. Friend says. Otherwise, if we had the power to do so, I would be standing here announcing an extra three or six points for Heart of Midlothian football club. It is not in the power of Ministers to deal with the footballing authorities in that way.

[Mr Brash]

I should probably point out that my father was a Hibs fan as a child—I hope that does not act against me in this debate. The Minister mentioned that the Football Governance Act requires meaningful fan engagement. Given that fans are so unanimously behind the 3UP campaign, would he see it as a failure of engagement if we do not see that change coming forward?

[Ian Murray]

After my hon. Friend’s confession about his father being a Hibs supporter, I do not know whether he has gone from being my hon. Friend to just a hon. Gentleman. He is right, and fan involvement in the game was the key driver in the Football Governance Act. One of the key drivers of fan ownership at my own club was to have fan’s voices heard. Fans are the lifeblood of the game. Whether it is ticket prices, the colour of the football club, the name or where they play, all those issues are key because they make football what it is and are why we support the clubs that we do. I hope the EFL listens to the fans on this and sees the strength of feeling on what needs to be done.

The EFL—of course, my hon. Friend knows this—is a membership organisation, and therefore vested interests take hold on whether a club may be advantaged or disadvantaged by 3UP and, of course, all the connotations around that. The EFL and, I hope, its member clubs have heard this, and the fan voice is strong on this campaign. I say from this Dispatch Box that I hope the EFL hears that strength of feeling at its meetings in March.

My hon. Friend mentioned the regulator, and I am pleased that the Independent Football Regulator recently launched its consultation on the terms of reference for its state of the game report. I appreciate him saying that things need to move quickly, but this comes ahead of the report’s publication in 2027, which will be a huge milestone for the regulator. The report will provide unparallelled insight into the structural issues facing the game and the wider football ecosystem, informing the regulator’s approach and decision making. The debate around restructuring leagues and football has been there since time immemorial, and if we put four football fans in a room to debate football reconstruction, we would get eight different answers for how that should go. These are complex negotiations. There will be financial distribution, organisational and scheduling challenges across multiple leagues, and it is ultimately a matter for the EFL.

I hope I can spend a few minutes talking about the women’s game, which is hugely important in this context. As we strengthen the foundation of the men’s game, we are equally committed to the continued transformation of women and girls’ football. Edinburgh South FC in my constituency has 1,200 young people playing every single weekend, many of them girls. The number of girls who want to play is exploding, and I am incredibly proud of the progress we have seen.

As the major independent review led by Karen Carney rightly noted, we must work to raise the standards across every level of the game, including in non-league and grassroots football. Our investment is already delivering gold-standard provision through the Lionesses futures fund—I think England might have won a tournament somewhere. We provided £30 million to deliver state-of-the-art 3G pitches, dedicated female facilities, proper changing rooms and accessible toilets. We have ensured that this infrastructure is not just built but is accessible to all, with reserved peak-time slots and priority booking for women’s teams. These vital learnings are now hardwired into our main facilities programme.

The Government’s support for non-league football is multifaceted. It is about financial regulation, modern facilities and sustainability, but mostly it is about social opportunity. I want to thank the thousands of volunteers who keep our non-league clubs running, the tens of thousands of fans who go every week for their pie, their Bovril and their entertainment. They are the unsung heroes of our national game. This Government will continue to work with the Football Association, the Premier League, the EFL and the new independent regulator to ensure that our non-league clubs remain at the heart of our communities for years to come. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House.

Question put and agreed to.