Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

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

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and right reverend Lord.

As the new football season approaches, those of us who are season ticket holders at these debates relish the prospect of further discussion on this important issue. I pay tribute to the Minister for the care she has taken with this. All of us will be conscious that she has many other responsibilities, and I know she has listened very attentively, along with her colleagues in the department, to consider genuine concerns that were raised in these debates in your Lordships’ House at earlier stages.

This is a better Bill than it was. I think the fact that, as the Minister said, a commitment to such a Bill appeared in the manifestos of the three major parties is a dire warning of the dangers of consensus, because there are many of us for whom this Bill is definitely in the not proven category. The case for having it is not proven, in that what it is intended to rectify is not obviously a proven defect. The current system has not been perfect, for sure, in allowing wealth created at the top end to cascade down through the pyramid, but it has been pretty effective at doing that.

Sometimes, in these debates, it has been assumed that the bottom of pyramid is the bottom of the EFL and, of course, that is not the case. It is significant that the leadership of the National League, several tiers below the EFL, has been very sceptical about the need for regulation. I speak with a particular interest as Horsham Football Club has just won promotion to National League South. My interests in football are in the Premier League, where I admit that my—our—football club did well in Europe, but not quite so well in the domestic competition. But in the National League, the clubs are much closer to the grass roots—in many cases they are the grass roots—and they are much closer than even League Two in the EFL. There is a scepticism there about whether improving the mechanism —creating a wholly new mechanism for cascading wealth down through the pyramid—is really necessary at all.

We have to remind ourselves, as my noble friend Lady Brady has done, that the Premier League is the most successful sporting league of any kind anywhere in the world. There are competitive winds: side winds and head winds. There is state-sponsored money being put into creating alternatives. Competition is healthy, but we should not assume that the golden goose that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, referred to will continue to lay golden eggs for ever. It is incredibly precious, as various noble Lords have commented. This is a sport that is much more than just a sport or a competition; it is a passion that attracts enormous depths of loyalty. The Premier League attracts a deep commitment, not just from British citizens but from fans right across the world. We should be very chary indeed of taking steps that jeopardise that.

So, while this definitely a better Bill and there are clear improvements to the backstop arrangements which reduce the risk of permanent damage being created, I hope the chair designate of the new regulator—about whom I hear nothing but good things—will bear in mind the need for the regulatory hand to be used with great lightness of touch. There is something very precious here. It looks like it is solid and indestructible, but that success—what the Premier League earns every year, from which the whole of the pyramid of football benefits—is a right and that wealth has to be earned. It has to be earned every week of every month of every football season that there is. So I urge the Government to bear in mind the need to tread lightly on this success, and for the new regulator to bear very much in mind the concerns that have been raised on many occasions in this House. I am grateful to the Minister and her colleagues for listening to some of them and responding, but the concerns remain.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two football interests I should declare: one is historical and the other current. The historical one is that I served as vice-chair of the Football Task Force 25 years ago and in one of the four reports that we produced, the case for a football regulator was argued very carefully. We thought we had won the argument, but we were not able to persuade the Government of the day—not a Conservative Government, but a new Labour one—of the merits of football regulation.

The fact that we now have all-party support for a football regulator is an indication of how far that debate has progressed. I would like to add my congratulations, first, to my noble friend Lady Twycross for the brilliant way she steered the Bill through this House, where it suffered no defeats whatever in any Divisions; and to the Ministers in the House of Commons who, with support and willingness to listen, were able to change the Bill and, I readily accept, improve it.

This takes me to my current interest. I am vice-president of the National Football League, to which the noble Lord, Lord Maude, just referred. Its scepticism was there in the beginning but as far as I understand it, that has now gone, and it is satisfied with the form of regulator in the Bill and looking forward to playing its part. As he said, it is a very important part of the football family and the element closest to fans at local level.

There are two groups of people I want particularly to refer to, and I will be very brief. One is the Football Supporters’ Association, without whose support this Bill would never have come to light. It was, as noble Lords will recall, the product of the fan-based review and the interests of fans have been very strongly taken into account and represented in the outcome. It deserves a great deal of congratulation for the part it played in the debate. The second group are the supporters of Wimbledon Football Club—the club I was proud to support in the 1970s and the 1980s—who found that their club was being taken away from them and moved to another part of the country against the wishes of the fans, the local community and everybody concerned with it. That was the sort of dictatorial decision which will be impossible as a result of this Bill going through, as it will prevent the removal of a club to a new location against the wishes of its supporters. Wimbledon supporters’ ability to start a new club—which has been extraordinarily successful and, indeed, was promoted from the Second Division of the Football League to the First Division at the end of last season—is a testament to their resilience and skill in making the case.

Above all, I congratulate the Minister in this House and the Ministers in the other place on producing a Bill that even the Premier League is now willing to accept and work with, and that is very commendable.