Draft Football Governance Act 2025 (Specified Competitions) Regulations 2025

Louie French Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 General Committees

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Today’s statutory instrument prescribes the top five flights of the men’s English football pyramid as “specified competitions” for the purposes of the Football Governance Act, and brings them into the scope of the Government’s new regulator. Although I think we all understand and support the desire for stronger governance and transparency across football and sport more broadly, I and many others have concerns about the impact that the statutory instrument will have on smaller clubs. Last week, I spoke to the National League and some of its clubs about their 3UP campaign and their broader concerns about the state of the game. Many were concerned about their ability to comply with the new regulatory demands and paperwork that will soon be coming their way.

The Premier League and its clubs, and, to a certain extent, the Championship and its clubs, can meet the new burdens of red tape the Government’s new regulator will bring, but the smallest clubs—those closer to the foothills of the football pyramid—will struggle. The truth is simple: many of these teams just do not have the capacity, the officials or the financial resources to cope with the new layers of bureaucracy and the increase in costs that the Government’s regulator will bring. That is something I warned the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), of during Committee stage of the Football Governance Act.

In that Committee and in the Chamber, I have said that football is one of England’s greatest success stories. From grassroots pitches to packed stadiums, it embodies our values of teamwork, fair play and community pride, but it is also a fragile ecosystem. If the Government keep layering on costs and compliance demands at the bottom of the pyramid, the Government risk hollowing out the very base that sustains the sport. Every £1 spent on regulatory compliance is £1 not spent on improving an ageing stand, an overgrown pitch or introducing a new generation of local youngsters to the game. It is an evening of paperwork instead of an evening coaching the under-12s, potentially depriving us of the next Harry Kane or Jordan Pickford.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend strongly that the regulation will impact clubs both large and small, such as Bromley FC in my constituency. The financial impact will be quite onerous, with very little benefit. Would my hon. Friend agree that we should have a review of the impact of the regulator on smaller clubs such as Bromley?

[Mr French]

My hon. Friend is right that we should have a review of the impact on smaller clubs. He will know from his club, Bromley FC, just how difficult it is to get out of the National League and into the English Football League. Bringing these clubs into scope will make it even more difficult for teams seeking promotion—especially to the National League, and then on to the English Football League—as they go from a successful but unregulated club to a heavily regulated club at the bottom of a higher division in fewer than 60 working days. Clubs already struggling to balance the books could find themselves in breach of regulations simply because they do not have the manpower to meet sudden new obligations placed upon them.

I would also like to talk about the timing of the statutory instrument. First, it has come months into the current season, and will come into force in less than a month’s time—not the Christmas present that many lower league clubs were looking for. Secondly, and most importantly, the Government have laid the statutory instrument before us in the full knowledge that there is an ongoing investigation into the Secretary of State’s decision to appoint a Labour crony to the chairmanship of the regulator. Will the Minister tell us why the Government think it is appropriate to appoint their Labour crony to the chairmanship of the regulator while there is an ongoing investigation into the process? Will the Minister also please tell us why he thinks it is appropriate to lay the statutory instrument while that investigation is ongoing?

The Football Governance Act was thought up as a way of protecting football clubs as community assets, not just businesses. We all know that these clubs are organisations that do so much more. They give young people a sense of belonging and purpose, provide an economic boost to local businesses and, most importantly, bring entire communities together. If the Government, however, make it too difficult for smaller clubs—such as Bromley FC, in my hon. Friend’s constituency—to operate, we risk losing them forever. As we know from recent memory, when a club disappears, it does not just take the team with it; it takes away an often major piece of local identity, history and pride.

It is because of the Government’s gung-ho attitude to the burdens it is placing on the smallest clubs—I warned it would—that we will vote against the statutory instrument today. As we have set out previously, we welcome stronger tests for owners, and I am grateful to the Sports Minister’s letter to me yesterday outlining some of the steps being taken on this. We support giving fans more of a say over their clubs, but we do not support state interference in our sports or burdening them with more red tape.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am astounded by the shadow Minister, or perhaps I am not—I have heard it all before from him. Let me make this clear; I chaired a meeting two weeks ago with the National League on its 3UP campaign. One thing that it wanted to talk about was the football pyramid, and how the “State of the Game” report would then determine the strength of the pyramid in future with the proper distribution of resources, which is a key role that the regulator will have. The National League actually welcomed a possible meeting with the regulator that the football group will have, and the National League will be there to influence the regulator as far as possible to ensure that the bottom of the pyramid, where it sits, is sustained going forward. I think the Act has the potential to strengthen those clubs, rather than weaken them.

Of course, there are two fundamental parts to the Act. The first part is the distribution of resources, the “State of the Game” report and the powers that the regulator will have. The second part is the fit and proper person test for owners. I will just say this to the shadow Minister: bad owners do not wait until the end of the season to destroy their clubs—they can do it at any time. He suggested that we should have postponed all this for a few months and hoped that everything would be alright in the meantime. I would just tell him to look at the mill we have been ground through with Sheffield Wednesday over the last few months.

The EFL has been good; it has been constructive in speaking to MPs and supporters, and it has had meetings with the Supporters Trust to keep it updated. In the end, however, it admitted that it could not deal with an owner who failed to pay the taxman five times, who did not pay players or staff at the club on five occasions, and when part of the ground was closed down because it was not safe. This is a man who waited in his office in Bangkok to sign cheques for a leaking roof in the training ground, or to give the manager the money to buy straps to put on the players’ socks. How can he run a football club like that? This is not a fit and proper person, but the league had no power at all to intervene.

[Mr French]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s passion as a fan of the club, and we all sympathise with the situation of Sheffield Wednesday. However, his point also highlights the fact that we must reflect on the original test of this individual and whether such tests were strong enough at the time. That is why the Opposition have said that we support strengthening ownership tests, but we need some honesty from the Government in saying that they cannot stop a bad owner from turning up any time in the future for any club.

[Mr Betts]

The problem with strengthening ownership tests is that, in the end, it is a members’ club that currently imposes them—it is the league. Owners do not want to come out strongly against other owners, as they worry that they will be the next ones to be caught. That is why we need an independent regulator to do tests of not just new owners but existing owners, which is a key part of what the Bill does. Yes, owners can pass the initial test, and they can even lie about their circumstances. They can claim they have money, or they might even have had money when they began. The owner of Sheffield Wednesday, Chansiri, did have money, but he ran out of money to the point that the club almost collapsed.

If we had a regulator in place, we could have ended this farce at Hillsborough quite a long time before. In the end, we came very close to the club completely collapsing. Ultimately, it got so bad because of the strength of the fans’ boycott. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will also have had a history of this, given his own connections with Hearts. The fans standing together in a boycott drove the source of income down such that the owner had to go through administration. That was a long, horrible process, and it has not ended yet.

The prospect of the regulator being in the background was always there as a safety net for the fans. Ultimately, they knew that something could be done, even if it could not be done immediately. I think it is an incredibly good step forward not just for football generally but for fans who see their clubs in distress. We have seen fans at Morecambe, Derby and Reading go through the mill on these issues in the past, where a regulator could have stepped in much earlier and helped fans through that process.

I ask the shadow Minister: do I tell my fans at Sheffield Wednesday that a Tory Government would have let Wednesday go under? I am sorry, but that is entirely a possibility. I know there are not many Conservatives in Sheffield who have to worry about their seats in that regard, but nevertheless, that is entirely a possibility that could have happened. The regulator could have stepped in earlier, and been the backstop.

The powers are very clearly set out in the Act—you will be pleased to know I am not going to go through all of them today, Ms Lewell. Part 4 clearly sets out the new tests for owners and officers of football clubs, which are reasonable and proportionate. I draw hon. Members’ attention to an important one, which probably has not had a lot of attention. Section 51 talks about insolvency proceedings, which Sheffield Wednesday is now going through, and states that the administrator and regulator

“must take reasonable steps to keep…fans informed about the progress of the proceedings.”

That is sensible. Currently, they do not have to; an administrator does not have to liaise with fans at all— I am told by colleagues that that happened at Derby. The administrator and the regulator will have to keep fans informed during insolvency proceedings.

The administrators at Hillsborough are doing a good job. They are talking to the Supporters Trust and liaising with it. They do not have to, but the Act means that in future they will have to. I give credit to the Supporters Trust, which has done a brilliant job. On Wednesday night last week, we had an almost complete boycott of a game. By Friday, when the club went into administration, there was a queue along the road to the club shop, and £500,000 was spent by supporters who wanted to keep the club, without Chansiri involved, afloat and alive. That shows the strength of supporters.

I also give great credit to the players. Barry Bannan, the club captain, turned down £20,000 a week—probably not enormous sums of money for some—and is playing for Wednesday for £7,000 a week, for his love of the club. We give awards to players for being good footballers; how about giving awards to people who are just good people and who have that loyalty and commitment to a club? Barry Bannan is there, along with Liam Palmer—great credit to them. Also, the office staff have worked without pay for some weeks—great credit to them as well.

The spirit of this statutory instrument and the Act is about fan involvement. The Act came from the fan-led review—that was its essence. We must make sure that the administrator, the English Football League—which is currently the regulator—and the regulator that will take over, probably in December, bake into any agreement with a new owner the right of fans to be involved in their football club. That is the essence of what we are debating today. This instrument will put the basis of that in place. I just ask that the administrator, the EFL and the regulator ensure that fan involvement and engagement are baked into the administration and running of Sheffield Wednesday football club and any other clubs that they may have involvement with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

I will take your guidance, Ms Lewell. In response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East, I will say that when the Opposition lose the argument, they do not take the ball, they take the man. I think that that is what we are seeing.

[Mr French]

A strange dynamic is going on here: we seem to be pretending that the Secretary of State and the chairman of the new Football Regulator are not under investigation. That is what is happening. That is not my investigation; that is an investigation that is taking place. That brings the whole regulator into question, and its independence. That is the point.

[The Chair]

Order. The hon. Member is aware that that is not in the scope of the draft statutory instrument before us.