Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 15 July 2021 to Question 31400 on Monopolies, what assessment (a) his Department and (b) the Competition and Markets Authority has made of (i) the level of competition in the Premier League and (ii) the barriers to entry for new owners of football clubs.

An Independent Fan Led Review of Football Governance chaired by my Hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch MP) is underway with its work. It is a root-and-branch examination of football in this country, looking at the financial sustainability of the football pyramid, governance regulations, and the merits of an independent regulator. It will also consider the current Owners’ and Directors’ test, and the transparency and accountability of that process.

Responsibility for investigating individual and market-wide competition issues falls to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s competition authority. As an independent authority, it is for the CMA to decide which cases to investigate, which it does according to its prioritisation principles. The CMA may also carry out detailed examinations of why particular markets may not be working well and take remedial action to address features of markets which restrict competition. It is for the CMA to determine the information to be published regarding the discharge of its regulatory functions.