Last month, King Charles III outlined the new UK government’s key priorities to a joint session of Parliament.
Among promised measures on housing, workers’ rights, and transport, one line likely caught the attention of football enthusiasts.
Towards the end of his speech, after a section on leasehold and commonhold reform, the monarch announced that a bill would soon be introduced “to establish an independent football regulator to ensure greater sustainability in the game and strengthen protections for fans.”
The road to an independent football regulator
This brief sentence no doubt raised a cheer at the headquarters of the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), which had spent years tirelessly campaigning for such an outcome.
Indeed, the Football Governance Bill has been a long time in the making. Its roots arguably go back to the birth of the Premier League in the early 1990s, when fans’ groups began to demand greater transparency and accountability from clubs and leagues.
The idea of creating an independent regulator to achieve this goal — and, by extension, to protect clubs across the pyramid — emerged gradually over the next three decades as the game weathered a series of economic crises and the influence of fans’ organisations increased. Policymakers started to take it seriously after the collapse of Bury F.C. in 2019 and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, both of which exposed the precarious state of many clubs’ balance sheets. However, the widespread backlash to the proposed European Super League in April 2021 finally prompted the government to take decisive action. Just days after the breakaway six revealed their plans to the world, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport commissioned a review of the English game.
Chaired by respected MP and former minister Tracey Crouch, the ‘Fan Led Review of Football Governance’ issued its final verdict in November of the same year: the nation’s favourite sport was in danger of eating itself and thus required “radical reform” overseen by an independent regulator.
Thanks to the persistent lobbying efforts of fans’ groups and a select cadre of forward-thinking clubs, the powers that be eventually agreed.
Safeguarding the future of English football
But what exactly did they agree to?
In short, the regulator will have authority over clubs in England’s top five divisions, operating independently from the government and existing football authorities such as the Football Association (FA), Premier League, and EFL.
It will be responsible for devising and enforcing rules on financial sustainability, club ownership, heritage protection, fan consultation, and competition integrity, including measures to prevent the creation of another super league. What’s more, the regulator is expected to be granted “backstop powers” to impose a funding deal on the Premier League and EFL if necessary.
The ultimate aim of this ambitious new settlement is to improve the fiscal resilience of clubs and give fans a bigger say in how the game is run.
What’s missing?
So far, so good. But what’s missing?
The head of the club-led campaign Fair Game, Niall Couper, thinks the bill doesn’t go far enough to resolve the gap between elite clubs and the rest: “At the moment, for every £1,000 given to a Premier League club from the current broadcast deal, just 14p goes to a club in the National League North or South.
“But the devil will be in the detail. The concept of backstop powers needs to go further. The new regulator must also have the power to ensure any new deal between leagues addresses football’s flawed financial flow.
“Without it, football will be doomed to repeat the failures of the past.”
There’s also the question of environmental sustainability, which has become a more pressing concern for clubs and fans alike in recent years. To be sure, ever-expanding competitions, extreme weather events, and rising energy costs have taken their toll on already stretched finances and infrastructure. Unfortunately, as things stand, the regulator does not appear to be tasked with coordinating football’s response to this mounting challenge.
And if not them, then who?
As Pledgeball founder Katie Cross points out, this is a potential missed opportunity: “We know the changing climate is having an increasingly disruptive impact on all levels of football, from amateur and semi-pro teams to Premier League and WSL sides.
“The new football bill represents a chance for the English game to lead the way in financial, social, and environmental sustainability.”
She argues that the regulator could embed environmental sustainability into its club licensing criteria: “Introducing criteria that require clubs to make decisions that benefit their communities — from more efficient stadia and usable green spaces to better transport options and shorter supply chains — will go a long way to securing the future of the game we all love for decades to come.”
Learning from Germany
This wouldn’t involve reinventing the wheel. England would simply be following the precedent set by the German Football League (DFL), which in 2021 added mandatory sustainability criteria to its licensing regulations for Bundesliga clubs.
Reflecting aspects of the English experience, their inclusion was recommended by the summary report of the ‘Future of Professional Football’ task force, which included representatives from the fan umbrella group Unser Fußball. The guidelines, which came into effect in the 2023/24 season, require clubs to monitor their energy usage, measure their carbon footprint, designate a sustainability officer, and develop a sustainability strategy.
Although some concerns have been raised about the stringency of the standards and the extent of clubs’ compliance, on the whole, they represent a step in the right direction — one we would do well to follow.
Read about Pledgeball’s Travel Charter here.
Further Reading
4. Fair Game UK. ‘Fair Game welcomes revamped Football Governance Bill’. 17 July, 2024.
5. Met Office. ‘Football and climate change: Is the game we love at risk?’. Accessed 15 August, 2024.
