The Government and football – strong words need to be followed up with action

Sports Minister Hugh Robertson had some harsh words to say about the governance of English football yesterday:

"If you look across sport, it is very clear to me that football is the worst-governed sport in this country, without a shadow of a doubt. The levels of corporate governance that apply to football, a point often addressed by [Labour], lag far behind other sports, and other sports are by no means beacons in this regard."

Not only did Robertson (correctly) identify the problem, he promised action.

"So, action is needed and the Government will take it, but it wants to see the results of [the Department of Culture Media and Sport] select committee first."

That's quite a bold statement, and also very clear. Football supporters need to hold that promise to account. Here is my list of what's wrong with football. Others may agree or disagree and no doubt views on the relative importance of each problem will differ:

Debt and financial mismanagement

How is it that no Bundesliga club has ever gone bust or into administration yet dozens of English clubs have?

Leveraged buyouts

Impossible in most European leagues, banned in the NFL(!). Adding debt to a club for the privilege of having new owners. Nothing added, nothing invested. 

Supporter ownership

Why is there no help (or even preference) for the most natural owners to take a stake in their clubs? Instead we end up with the crooks, carpetbaggers and dodgy dealers who have ruined so many.

Ticket prices

Record income flows into our game and yet prices rise inexorably upwards with supporters priced out. £100 for a non-executive ticket at Arsenal? Laughable.

The FA

Responsible for the debt ridden shambles of "Nu Wembley", the decline of the FA Cup and the shambolic England team and its manager. Not fit for purpose.

Financial inequality in the game – Champions League qualification makes you rich, PL mid-table makes you worry, relegation could send you broke. Lower than that clubs fight for scraps.

Standing

Why hasn't there been a proper debate on this? Visit a German stadium and see how they do it (no doubt they would sell us some of their highly engineered safe standing barriers).

You may have your own issues you would add to the list. Some, such as the level of player wages, seem to me to stem from the no. 1 problem, financial mismanagement.

I believe that if Hugh Robertson is serious about taking action on football "governance", these are the issues and benchmarks against which he and the government must be measured.

Over to you Hugh.

LUHG

Politicians watch no.3

Who are you going to vote for in the forthcoming general election (apologies to those too young or too foreign or too incarcerated to vote in this exciting poll)?

Many people say the big parties are all the same with pretty similar plans for cuts, tax rises and promises to clamp down on bankers.

But what if politicians started taking a look at that other example of get rich quick capitalism gone mad, English football?

Sounds fanciful?  Well yes and no.  The Taylor Report led to legislation that governs aspects of the game so the precedent is there.  The Labour government has considered regulating football in the past but was convinced by the Football authorities that "self regulation" worked.  Now we know it really doesn't.

Take the travails of United, Liverpool, Pompey, West Ham and Hull (just to focus on the Premier League) and that's a lot of unhappy voters looking for something to be done.

So I was pleasantly surprised by this article in the Telegraph suggesting a football regulator is being discussed in Whitehall.  To quote the Telegraph:

"In what would be one of the most controversial political interventions into sport in history, football could effectively lose the right to run its own affairs in the wake of a string of financial crises that have hit a number of leading clubs.

Instead the game would be effectively run under licence from a regulator similar to watchdogs which currently oversee the communications industries and privatised utilities."

Now with an election coming, thoughts being mulled in Whitehall now will probably be of no relevance in the summer, but the subject is something for politicians and voters to consider.

This is our national sport, it is a disgrace and its administrators and owners have proved themselves incapable of reforming it.

If I was a parliamentary candidate I'd be wondering why my party didn't adopt such a popular and cheap policy. And as a voter, maybe it would become harder to dismiss them as "all the same".

LUHG

Politicians watch no.2

"Gordon, I've got these bonds I need to shift...."
"Funny you should say that Alex...."

So there you are, waiting for a major politician to step in and apply themselves to the debt crisis in English football when suddenly the Prime Minister himself gets involved.


At his No. 10 press conference the PM, when questioned by lifelong red, Newsnight Political Editor and mercilessly effective biographer Michael Crick (himself nudged into it by a certain Red Issue Sanctuary agitator) had this to say:


"There is an issue here for football supporters, that over the last few years a number of football clubs have become highly leveraged and therefore they have far higher levels of debt than the income they are able to generate from the footballing activities and the television activities,"


Now for some clubs that is no doubt true, but for United (and Liverpool), the real issue is debt piled on by leveraged buyouts and the subsequent asset stripping.  Gordon Brown went on:


"Of course, in many cases there are very simple ways that they can deal with these problems. In other cases, football clubs don't have the income that is necessary to deal with the leverage that they have.


The Prime Minister didn't expand on these "very simple ways" to "deal with these problems".  Perhaps this is where the asset stripping comes in.  Don't worry about those horrible PIKs, the Glazers will have pillaged enough from the club to pay them off in a few years.  Problem solved.  Anyway, there was more:


"But this is an issue and it's an issue football clubs are facing and it's a worry to supporters and I think the management of football clubs have got to look very seriously at their responsibilities to their supporters, that they have high levels of income from the supporters but the debt levels have been at a leverage level that is too high."

Quite.  Sentiments we can all agree with, but if the management of the club you support doesn't just not "look seriously at their responsibilities to their supporters" but puts in place a mechanism to cream off 50% of the profits that the "high levels of income from supporters" generate, what happens then?  Could someone in charge do something?

"It's an issue for the clubs themselves, they have got to deal with this issue."

Oh dear.  Well it was all going so well wasn't it?  Haven't we learned that letting industries prone to excessive debt and greed and that impact the lives of millions, regulate themselves isn't always the best idea?

Now I know the problems of professional football clubs doesn't compare to the banking crisis in either impact or importance.  What I do know however, is that the mindset that allows rich men to dazzle politicians into leaving well alone is just the same and just as wrong.

LUHG

Politicians watch no.1

Following on from "Football authorities watch", it occurred to me that it would be useful to do the same monitoring with the key politicians who might be in a position to protect English club football.

On several occasions since 1997, the current labour government has considered a move away from the current system of "self-regulation" by the FA and Premier League to a system where a "Football Regulator" would be given statutory powers over the game.

Political regulation of football already happens in some areas (such as the legislation enforcing some of the recommendations of the Taylor Report, the ones about sitting down, not the ones about not letting all-seater stadiums be an excuse for higher ticket prices).

Even though there is already political input into some areas of the game and despite numerous reports and enquiries, the current government has always shied away from direct intervention. In my opinion, this stance is looking increasingly untenable. Self regulation has seen not only the problems at United develop over the last five years, but similar issues at Liverpool, Portsmouth, Leeds, Notts County and Chester City, to name five clubs where out of control owners have pushed their clubs close to or over the edge.

Would this government or a future one have the guts to regulate Britain's most popular sport for the good of supporters? Probably not at the moment, although something tells me that if United or Liverpool went bust the mood would change very quickly.

In the mean time, here are five politicians who should have a view on what is being done to our club:

Gerry Sutcliffe MP - Minister for Sport

John Whittingdale MP - Chairman, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee

Jeremy Hunt MP - Conservative shadow Minister for Sport

Don Foster MP - Liberal Democrat shadow Minister for Sport

Alan Keen MP - Chairman, All Party Football Group

So once again using the power of Google, here is what they've been saying about the tragedy at United and debt in football since 11th January 2010:

Sutcliffe - nothing (although he did have time to tell the House of Commons that Bradford Council made a “big mistake” in excluding Ilkley Lido from its free swimming scheme for under-16s and over-60s. So well done him).

Whittingdale - nothing (he has also been busy, arranging for Biffy Clyro to be the first "rock" band to perform at the Houses of Parliament).

Hunt- nothing (not even anything funny).

Foster - nothing

Keen - nothing

LUHG