There is a round of Premier League fixtures this midweek but, all the same, the powerbrokers of English football will have one eye on the House of Lords on Wednesday. The debate over an independent regulator for the game has heated up again after it appeared to be done and dusted; what once commanded cross-party support is starting to look, ahem, like a political football.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas a series of lengthy debates were held in the Lords over the Football Governance Bill and its provisions. A remarkable 375 amendments were proposed, addressing everything from state ownership of clubs to replacing use of the word crest with badge “to avoid the incorrect use of heraldic terms”.
A substantial number of these amendments were tabled by senior Conservative peers who have, it appears, taken a keen and often sceptical interest in the contents of the bill. Led by – among others – Lady Brady, the vice-chair of West Ham, and Lord Moynihan, a former sports minister, there has been lengthy and strongly held criticism of legislation originally proposed by a Conservative government. Occasionally this has been bolstered by interventions from others, including Lord Pannick, the barrister currently representing Manchester City against the Premier League, who has largely supported the government but also backed some of the Tory amendments to the bill.
Many of the concerns echo those of the Premier League: namely that the regulator will inhibit the ability of England’s most successful clubs to compete against their rivals; that it will inevitably expand its remit; and that, in the words of the Tory peer Lord Maude, the biggest clubs are “there to be plucked” for its costs. But government sources are concerned that one objection, apparently stumbled upon by accident, may give a chance for parliamentary critics to kick the regulator into the long grass.
The question relates to whether the bill should be reclassified, from one that is “public” to “hybrid”. The change would mean that the bill, as well as applying generally, had been adjudged to affect certain groups more directly – ie football clubs – and that these groups would therefore require extra periods of consultation. These consultations could take years. In discussing whether the bill should be made hybrid the Tory Lord McLoughlin observed that he had brought one such bill through the Commons “dealing with a rail link from the West Midlands to London”. That was the HS2 bill which took more than three years to pass through parliament and has been the subject of controversy ever since.
Any vote on hybridity would take place during the “report” stage of the bill in the Lords, which is likely to come in February. Government sources believe they have the votes to stop such a measure, by forming a coalition between Labour, Liberal Democrat and crossbench peers. But there is frustration at what are perceived to be delaying tactics. One voice described the attempt to make the bill hybrid as “disrespectful to supporters” who were the focus of the original review into football governance by Tracey Crouch, published more than three years ago. The argument is also made that the Lords is breaking a tradition that is does not disrupt the passage of legislation promised in a government’s manifesto (it was in the Labour manifesto, and the Tories’).
What has prompted these Lords to rise up? Publicly the position of the Conservative party towards the bill has not changed, but its new leader, Kemi Badenoch, has previously described her “intense” dislike of “burdensome, arcane and quite often needless regulation” which like-minded Lords may have taken as a cue to be more critical. There is also an argument made that while the Labour party has picked up the regulator bill from the Tories, it has been changed sufficiently to make it materially different. What is more, Lords are traditionally more likely to act independently of their party’s position than MPs and are in the unusual position of debating the contents of the legislation before the Commons has (it will get its chance later in the process).
The Premier League has also raised the volume of its objections to the bill in recent weeks. Last week it sent a message to its clubs encouraging executives to “engage” with the media to articulate their feelings on the bill, describing this as a “critical” time for shaping the bill. Lawmakers appear to have had access to significant figures in the game at this important time. The Tory Peer Lord Markham said in December he had recently corresponded with the chief executives of Brentford and Brighton, whom Markham described as “model” clubs, and who shared his fears that attempts to create financial stability could create a “closed shop” that limits competition in the Premier League.
On Wednesday, members of the group Fair Game intend to pack the viewing galleries of the Lords to make a contrary point: that the future success of English football depends on closing the financial gap between the top flight and the rest. They too argue that Wednesday is a “really crucial day” for the bill. But while top-level issues such as hybridity are on the table, the grittier detail – such as how to approach the thorny issue of parachute payments – is also still to be fully dealt with. Like a league season, the road to a regulator is again looking more like a marathon than a sprint.
