Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will say a few words in support of what the Minister said this evening. It is right that we talk a little about the new arrangements for mediation and the backstop. The original amendment was overcomplex, but many of us were concerned about the binary nature of the choice that was to be made. For many of us, the important factor in finding a way forward was that we maintained a backstop, because we are not talking about negotiations between equal partners. That is why we needed the retention there; that is very important. I congratulate Ministers on finding a way through this which is satisfactory to everybody who expressed concerns and wanted to move forward.

I welcome what the two previous speakers said about the new independent regulator. He is intent on making this job work and moving things forward very quickly, which is exactly what football needs.

On behalf of my noble friend Lord Bassam, who cannot be here this evening, we are very impressed by and very much welcomed the engagement of the Minister in this House, my noble friend Lady Twycross. It is a model of how Ministers, Back-Benchers, civil servants and external parties can react. I am very glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, nodding, because we have not agreed on every aspect of this Bill. That has been important.

I should declare my interest: I am looking forward to the new season, with Bolton Wanderers playing Stockport on that first Saturday—I think I am looking forward to it anyway. Bolton Wanderers went through all the problems that are very well known. I was struck, in the final stages of the debate in the other place, by how many individual MPs had to get up to say that their individual clubs had just gone through difficulties or were facing similar difficulties in the very near future; Sheffield Wednesday is the most obvious example.

The need for this Bill is well and truly proven. It is now in extremely good shape, and I congratulate those who have been involved. We should mention Tracey Crouch, who started this process with her review. I will also say that I am very pleased that three talented women Ministers have been the ones to see this through.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I will be reasonably brief. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, covered most of what I was going to say on the technical stuff. We sent the Bill back, and I think everybody agreed it was not perfect. Then we got this list of amendments back, and my heart sank at the thought of another 12 hours’ debate on each and every one of them. The only person whose eyes lit up was the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who obviously gets paid by the hour by Manchester City. We are nine months into waiting for the 115 charges result; we are still playing a lot of extra time on that one, but let us park it. I am not sure who is the underdog in the game between Bolton Wanderers and Stockport County, but it will be an interesting encounter.

We went over these amendments to try to find fault with them, to pick something out, and to see whether the Government were trying to slide something through. Honestly, they have improved the Bill tremendously, and that is partly because of the slight input from the regulator designate, who has clarified the situation. We were a little bit in the dark before about what we thought the role should be and what it was morphing from and to, but just talking to David and understanding his love of what he is going to do, and hearing the passion with which he speaks about being the regulator, tells me it is in safe hands.

I had a number of chairmen, not so much from Championship but from League One and League Two clubs, emailing me, and I said that it is going to be good for the game. That is really where I have always been: at the bottom of the pyramid. The Premier League is fantastic—it will flourish and it will carry on delivering—but League One and League Two clubs, and some of those in non-league clubs, will take a deep breath now and say, “Let’s see this happen”. It will give them that certainty and hope that there will always be something there for them when times are difficult. I have known football clubs that have had to come to local authorities and beg and borrow for assistance. That is a difficult thing to do with public funds, but we did it, and the benefits for the economy, for local councils and for shopkeepers are there now for all to see. The community is all football, and if you had any doubt about that, you would look at this.

I have no complaints about Chelsea becoming the world champions, but that was the most ridiculous competition in the most ridiculous place. Any regular football fan seeing two o’clock in the morning kick-offs was the Armageddon that was said would happen to us. It has not happened because we have got our Bill through; we have got our ducks in a line, and we will be able to protect the league that we love and cherish. I wish the Bill well on its way now. We can move forward. If the noble Baroness has nothing to do, she might want to help me out with the employment Bill tomorrow if she is free, because that is another challenging Bill.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my register of interests, in particular my position as vice-chair of West Ham United, who play in the Premier League.

One of the privileges of speaking in this House is that we can talk not only to the present moment but for the historical record. When the story of the Football Governance Bill is told, I hope it will reflect that this House asked the right questions, foresaw and understood the risks, and ultimately helped improve the legislation. I acknowledge that the Bill we return to today is better than the one we began with. That has not always been an easy journey, but Ministers have listened, for which I am very grateful, and some important safeguards have been added. For that, they really do deserve genuine credit.

We are now entering a new phase, moving from the politics of the Bill to the reality of the regulator. In doing so, I suggest that the new regulator will be judged against three simple but vital tests. First, will it protect growth? The Premier League is not just a domestic competition; it is one of the UK’s most globally admired exports, an economic powerhouse, a cultural asset, a voluntary supporter of the entire football pyramid and a £4.2 billion annual contributor to the public finances.

Future success is not inevitable. It is under pressure from a range of sources. FIFA and UEFA are expanding club competitions and business models that compete directly with the Premier League and put huge pressure on the domestic football calendar. Broadcast markets are changing very fast and in a number of competitive European leagues domestic revenues from broadcasting are falling, as we have seen in the example of Ligue 1 in France. Agent fees are rising, taking money out of the game. State-backed competitors, such as the Saudi Pro League, are changing the football economy. The EFL’s leadership appears to have chosen stasis over innovation.

In that challenging context, protecting growth must be front and centre for the regulator, not just because it is good for the Premier League but because that growth underwrites the very system that the regulator is charged with supporting. That system today includes record redistribution, rising solidarity payments, and the ongoing voluntary support for clubs up and down the pyramid. If we do not protect growth, we risk weakening the whole system. It must therefore be uppermost in everything the regulator does.

The second test is whether the regulator will truly be light-touch. This is a commitment that Ministers have repeatedly made. The proof will be in the pudding. The new independent regulator will have extraordinary powers that are unprecedented in global sport. That requires not just legal and policy constraint but cultural restraint. It must show grit, independence and judgment. It must be evidence-led and not driven by others’ grievances or agendas. Above all, it must demonstrate a proper understanding of football’s competitive dynamics, with a regulatory approach that offers clarity and certainty for clubs. Critically, that means protecting the competitive balance that is so central to the magic, appeal and value of the Premier League.

In other words, clubs in the same division must know how to comply with the financial regime and trust that they will not face opaque financial constraints that place them at an unfair disadvantage on and off the pitch. In football, a fair and level playing field is not a “nice to have”; it is a precondition for compliance. A disproportionate approach, where clubs do not know if they fall the right side of the line, or even which line rival clubs are aiming for, simply cannot work in football. It will be the fastest route to regulatory failure.

Whatever one’s views of party politics, the appointment of David Kogan as the inaugural chair is encouraging. He brings serious knowledge of the game and credibility across football. The regulator will have an early opportunity to set the tone through the approach taken in the “state of the game” review, the appointment of the board and the CEO, and the proportionality and clarity of the regulatory approach it instils in the first place.

The third test whether the backstop will truly be a backstop. This House has done important work to constrain and de-risk this power. I thank noble Lords including the noble Lords, Lord Birt, Lord Pannick and Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for their diligence, thoughtfulness and pragmatism. The legal, evidential and procedural safeguards now in place are appropriately strong. Under this model, the IFR board will need to consider incredibly carefully whether it could ever be in the best interests of English football to use this mechanism, which Dame Tracey Crouch described as “nuclear coding”. Thanks to an important government amendment, the IFR board must now exhaust all other regulatory tools before ever using the backstop. As the Sport Minister confirmed in the other place, that means using those tools and failing, not just imagining that they may not work.

However, the EFL’s current situation appears to rest solely on the promise of this lever, betting its future not on innovation but on a perceived regulatory shortcut. There is no doubt that the backstop has made the conventional, consensual approach to agreeing the distribution of Premier League revenue far harder. I can report to the House that the Premier League has very recently made a credible and generous proposal to the EFL, but this has been rejected by the EFL board. We must hope that common sense will soon return and that a new approach can develop in the best interests of the whole game.

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[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, while I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, on many aspects of sports policy, I have to say that, in character, I am afraid I disagree with him again on what he opened up with this evening. It would be remiss of this House not to seriously congratulate Chelsea on winning the FIFA World Club Cup. To put three goals in the back of PSG’s net in the first half of a final—an often impenetrable net this season—was remarkable. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is one of the great football occasions in memory. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, an avid supporter of that club, on the extraordinary and magnificent performance of Chelsea only a few days ago. It matched the success of England’s cricketers in the Third Test.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, just for clarity, I am staying this week in the Chelsea Football Club hotel, and it is a fantastic set-up and a fantastic ground.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am glad the noble Lord added that because otherwise, I would have kicked his name off the register, if I had been him.

The key amendments before us this evening are undoubtedly improvements, and I thank all the noble Lords who worked so hard, not least the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Pannick, to bring those amendments to us this evening and worked so hard with the Government to gain those improvements. But, as my noble friend Lady Brady, has said, for many of us they do little more than remove some broken eggshell from the omelette, which many in the other place joined with us in describing as unpalatable to both the fans and professional football clubs.

One constant theme throughout my consideration of the Bill’s details has been the layering of regulation that exists within football and the dangers of adding an additional regulator to what is already quite a complex and competitive structure of football regulation. In respect of Clause 61, can the Minister say whether the changes have been approved by UEFA and FIFA, and whether they now see no conflict with the position that they stated very clearly only a matter of months ago?