[Football] The Football Governance Bill

[Nobby Cybergoat]

i dont understand why anyone thinks redistribution would solve anything. financial mismanagement causes collapse, more money just means more spending before that point.

The single biggest driver of stupid salaries and transfer fees beyond the means of the club paying them is the difference in prize money between divisions. It works up and down the leagues and with getting into Europe but the best example is the clubs trying top get into the PL from the Championship.

Think about 50 years ago (or 30 or 60 or whatever). Clubs still wanted to be promoted to be in a division higher, but there was no incentive to spend 100%+ of turnover to get up a division and so clubs didn’t do it. (clubs still went bankrupt of course, but that was more down to general mismanagement than the chairman betting the whole farm on one promotion season).

My view is that greater redistribution will reduce the massive financial disparities between divisions and thus the likelihood of clubs going under. I’m not sure this regulator will achieve it, but it’s the outcome we should be looking at.

There’s also some real, there but for the grace of god stuff with us as well. We spent way more than we could afford to get up 6 years ago. We gambled and were one of the winners, but had Knocky done his cruciate at the start of the promotion season or some other misfortune befell us, we could have ended in a very deep financial hole, as some of the other clubs who couldn’t get up have done.

I'm not really comfortable with us as PL fans, when we were division 4 fans, looking down the leagues saying, no point in giving them any money, they will just waste it.

 

[Albion in the north]

Great. Independent regulation. Because all those other independent regulators are doing such a great job.

 

[beorhthelm]

Think about 50 years ago (or 30 or 60 or whatever). Clubs still wanted to be promoted to be in a division higher, but there was no incentive to spend 100%+ of turnover to get up a division and so clubs didn’t do it. (clubs still went bankrupt of course, but that was more down to general mismanagement than the chairman betting the whole farm on one promotion season).

so they did have incentive to overspend, to get up a division. as the old joke goes, how do you make a small fortune in football? start with a large fortune.

what you're talking about is wanting a more level playing field, that wont stop clubs overspending what revenue they have whether its gates or sprinkled from the league above. too easy to conflate financial mismanagment with a lot of money at higher levels and wanting a piece of that. thing is some clubs are larger than others, will have more revenue. where should we end up, all clubs gate receipts pooled and divied out?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

so they did have incentive to overspend, to get up a division. as the old joke goes, how do you make a small fortune in football? start with a large fortune.

what you're talking about is wanting a more level playing field, that wont stop clubs overspending what revenue they have whether its gates or sprinkled from the league above. too easy to conflate financial mismanagment with a lot of money at higher levels and wanting a piece of that. thing is some clubs are larger than others, will have more revenue. where should we end up, all clubs gate receipts pooled and divied out?

No.

Whatever seats you sell great. If you can shift a load of shirts and pies you get to keep the money. What should be different is that much more the massive broadcasting money that comes into football should go to looking after it's long term sustainability rather than going to agents or ultimately to Lamborghini salesmen

 

[Icy Gull]

Did you have the same view when we were in fifth place?

I’d have the same view if we were top of the table! Moneyed sportswashing twats, who we’ll never compete with over a season

 

[Zeberdi]

 

[beorhthelm]

its very simple, if Mr Saad can show a business plan and probably a few professional credentials, the regulator will not look into whether the fund he manages is truely arms length from Saudi government. because we dont do that anywhere else, there's no legal basis to make it so in football clubs.

on which note, why isnt this across all sports? a couple of cricket and rugby clubs have gone bust too, and they have their major income from the international game.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

If David Sullivan is scathing about it, it must surely be a good thing?

 

[amexer]

Don't see point in governments whatever party getting involved. Whether we like it or not PL players earn huge incomes because all the clubs have huge incomes. I heard spokesmen saying how many clubs have gone into administration. Many reasons for this including too many clubs close to each other. I think over 10 league clubs within a few miles of Bury for example.. But main problem is player wages throughout EFL. Only few years ago somebody I know was very involved with a Div 1 club. and he seemed to be proud to tell me that his club refused to pay any player more than £5k a week. They had gates of 6/7k just madness. I often hear Accrington Stanley owner saying they should get more money from PL. To me they with gates of under 2k like many clubs hardly justify full time players.
I remember in early days of watching Albion players income was very much based on size of crowds.

 

[Zeberdi]

Here’s the BBC story (Athletic is paywalled / subscription, no idea why the OP picked that to share).

Here are the bullet points …
Every single one of those is a very good thing and what many on here have called for. Perhaps this much maligned government have finally got something right?

I think this Government are absolutely horrific in so many ways. However, I have to applaud them on this even if they do sell the ‘anti-super league’ bit as ‘anti-EU’. Well done Tracey Crouch.

interesting full response from PB - and I am inclined to agree re. protecting football against Gvt interference and the lack of consultation with PB by Tracey Crouch.

EDIT - the key would be scrutiny and ensuring political impartiality I would think.

Full comment here

“Football regulator. Our club is not in favour of a regulator. For a long time, FIFA’s rules have maintained there should be no government interference in our sport. This now looks set to change in our country. Whilst we must accept there will be a reform of football governance, it’s disappointing to think our Government doesn’t believe there is enough high quality people within The FA, Premier League, EFL and 92 fully professional clubs for us to regulate ourselves. We’ve done so for 160 years and although there have been some very tough periods and, like in any complex, diverse and competitive industry, mistakes have been made along the way, the football industry has largely grown and flourished throughout this time to the point where the Premier League is one of our country’s most popular and famous exports.

Sadly, some clubs have, however, also gone out of business over this time, and of course, ideally, this should never happen. Clubs play huge, important roles in their communities and mean so much to their fans, but more often than not, the failures have been down to bad ownership, not systemic malfunction. The English football pyramid and the
meritocracy that underpins it is precious to us all and we accept that looking at an improvement to financial distributions may help those smaller clubs with much lower incomes, but not without some clear guardrails on how this money is used.

It’s very important an independent regulator does not hamstring what is, overall, a very good industry, or damage our ability to compete with European counterparts, or discourage those people like Tony Bloom who are willing to invest in our national sport, supporting thousands of local jobs in the process; plus, let’s not forget English football (and ultimately fans) will end up paying for independent regulation, so the process itself needs careful scrutiny too.

It seems particularly harsh that a transparent well-run club like ours, and many other clubs like us, must now pay for regulation of the much smaller number of clubs that are less well run. We are, however, also very mindful that we weren’t always well-run, and that we haven’t always benefited from Premier League revenues. In this regard, we have certainly experienced the lows and highs of football in the past 25 years, so we were very surprised that Tracey Crouch and her team didn’t talk to us at any point. You would have thought our experience of how our fans and our wider community fought to save the club when it was close to extinction, and how it has subsequently been rebuilt on solid financial principles and high standards of integrity, might have been valuable input on such an important topic as the future of our sport.

We’re equally concerned at the limited amount of time that has now been set aside for consultation on the White Paper, not least as it contains a number of ambiguities and associated risks for our sport.

Having said all of this, we must also acknowledge that the ill-conceived nonsense of things like the European Super League and Project Big Picture haven’t helped football’s case, and maybe we should have been stronger and sought tougher action against those behind such schemes.

Ultimately, however, our club will work with the regulator positively and constructively whenever it is finally
established.

English football is loved by tens of millions of people. All of us, our club included, have a responsibility to ensure its continued success.”

 

[Guinness Boy]

"it’s disappointing to think our Government doesn’t believe there is enough high quality people within The FA, Premier League, EFL and 92 fully professional clubs for us to regulate ourselves."

Sorry Paul, but if that's the case why are some clubs going to the wall every year while others are owned by murderous petro-states and, when the ESL was mooted it was not the FA or Premier League that turned the tide but the fans.

Perhaps this government regulator is proposed because not all clubs are as well run as ours. In fact, most of them aren't.

 

[GT49er]

interesting full response from PB - and I am inclined to agree re. protecting football against Gvt interference and the lack of consultation with PB by Tracey Crouch.

EDIT - the key would be scrutiny and ensuring political impartiality I would think.

Full comment here

“Football regulator. Our club is not in favour of a regulator. For a long time, FIFA’s rules have maintained there should be no government interference in our sport. This now looks set to change in our country. Whilst we must accept there will be a reform of football governance, it’s disappointing to think our Government doesn’t believe there is enough high quality people within The FA, Premier League, EFL and 92 fully professional clubs for us to regulate ourselves. We’ve done so for 160 years and although there have been some very tough periods and, like in any complex, diverse and competitive industry, mistakes have been made along the way, the football industry has largely grown and flourished throughout this time to the point where the Premier League is one of our country’s most popular and famous exports.

Sadly, some clubs have, however, also gone out of business over this time, and of course, ideally, this should never happen. Clubs play huge, important roles in their communities and mean so much to their fans, but more often than not, the failures have been down to bad ownership, not systemic malfunction. The English football pyramid and the
meritocracy that underpins it is precious to us all and we accept that looking at an improvement to financial distributions may help those smaller clubs with much lower incomes, but not without some clear guardrails on how this money is used.

It’s very important an independent regulator does not hamstring what is, overall, a very good industry, or damage our ability to compete with European counterparts, or discourage those people like Tony Bloom who are willing to invest in our national sport, supporting thousands of local jobs in the process; plus, let’s not forget English football (and ultimately fans) will end up paying for independent regulation, so the process itself needs careful scrutiny too.

It seems particularly harsh that a transparent well-run club like ours, and many other clubs like us, must now pay for regulation of the much smaller number of clubs that are less well run. We are, however, also very mindful that we weren’t always well-run, and that we haven’t always benefited from Premier League revenues. In this regard, we have certainly experienced the lows and highs of football in the past 25 years, so we were very surprised that Tracey Crouch and her team didn’t talk to us at any point. You would have thought our experience of how our fans and our wider community fought to save the club when it was close to extinction, and how it has subsequently been rebuilt on solid financial principles and high standards of integrity, might have been valuable input on such an important topic as the future of our sport.

We’re equally concerned at the limited amount of time that has now been set aside for consultation on the White Paper, not least as it contains a number of ambiguities and associated risks for our sport.

Having said all of this, we must also acknowledge that the ill-conceived nonsense of things like the European Super League and Project Big Picture haven’t helped football’s case, and maybe we should have been stronger and sought tougher action against those behind such schemes.

Ultimately, however, our club will work with the regulator positively and constructively whenever it is finally
established.

English football is loved by tens of millions of people. All of us, our club included, have a responsibility to ensure its continued success.”

Man at the top of the tree and doing very nicely doesn't want the branches shaken. Quelle surprise ...................

 

[Zeberdi]

I wonder if PBOBE will be attending this?

Much to discuss …

Frazer to meet Premier League clubs amid New Deal impasse

Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, will attend a dinner with Premier League and club executives to be held in London on Thursday night, Sky News learns.

news.sky.com

 

[Zeberdi]

Football Governance Bill will be published today and will likely be met with a mixed response from the Premier League

English football regulator close as government confirms ‘historic’ bill

An independent regulator for English football is imminent after the government confirmed plans to put a bill before parliament

www.theguardian.com

Loading…

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Guinness Boy]

Football Governance Bill will be published today and will likely be met with a mixed response from the Premier League

English football regulator close as government confirms ‘historic’ bill

An independent regulator for English football is imminent after the government confirmed plans to put a bill before parliament

www.theguardian.com

Loading…

www.bbc.co.uk

If it does as promised and the regulations are both tight and well written in law then the Conservatives will have delivered one piece of legislation that I fully agree with.

 

[GloryDays]

Ah, like the way it regulated Newcastle United’s Saudi transaction behind closed doors so no one could intervene.

Not much I trust this government with and football isn’t one of them. Just another bad actor.

Edit - There is nothing I trust the government with.

 

[rippleman]

Ah, like the way it regulated Newcastle United’s Saudi transaction behind closed doors so no one could intervene.

Not much I trust this government with and football isn’t one of them. Just another bad actor.

Edit - There is nothing I trust the government with.

The proof of whether the Regulator is likely to be of benefit will be how quickly they determine that the murderous bloody regime of Saudi Arabia is not "fit" to own an English football club.

Kick the Saudi's out by the start of next season and the Regulator will have started to do the job and will have my support. (I'll not be holding my breath though).

The other "day 1" job is to speed up the sanctions for breaches of FFP. The way the crooks at Man City are able to drag out the imposition of sanctions is a joke. I heard a DULLARD on R4 this morning saying that nothing would be likely to be resolved before the end of NEXT season. That's a joke.

 

[beorhthelm]

If it does as promised and the regulations are both tight and well written in law then the Conservatives will have delivered one piece of legislation that I fully agree with.

what is actually promised, what are the expectations from this regulator?

 

[studio150]

If it does as promised and the regulations are both tight and well written in law then the Conservatives will have delivered one piece of legislation that I fully agree with.

A Big if

 

[Guinness Boy]

what is actually promised, what are the expectations from this regulator?

I bullet pointed it on post 4 which is linked to on this page.....