Sport governance

We welcome the Government’s commitment to establish an Independent Regulator. Introducing a Shadow Regulator as soon as possible to recruit staff and begin engagement and preparatory work is invaluable for clubs, leagues and other football stakeholders might help avoid unintended consequences in the new regime that could lead to dissatisfaction with IREF in the coming years. The final statutory powers, procedures and institutional location of IREF can be changed at a later date.

We recommend that the Government should establish the Independent Regulator for English Football in a shadow form by the end of 2023 to ensure that it can begin initial engagement and preparatory work before waiting for legislation to be passed. The Government should ensure the legislation needed to give statutory powers to the Independent Regulator are included in the forthcoming King’s Speech and ensure that legislation is passed in this present Parliament. (Paragraph 13) Fan engagement

We welcome the Premier League’s fan engagement standard and commend the Premier League for acting prior to the publication of the White Paper. However, the level of fan engagement from Premier League and EFL clubs still varies wildly and we are surprised at the Government’s acceptance of the internal standard as a baseline for fan engagement across football. We do not believe that IREF enforcing an equivalent of the measures in the Premier League Fan Engagement Standard will be enough to formalise consistently high-quality engagement in clubs.

The introduction of IREF remains a great opportunity to increase the pace of the important work that is already underway at football clubs consulting and engaging with their fans. Whilst clubs should be encouraged to exceed fan engagement standards and pursue best practice, this should be underpinned by the backstop of a strong, independent regulatory framework.

IREF, beginning in shadow form, should ensure that its licencing conditions regarding fan engagement are set independently of the current Premier League Fan Engagement Standard. Unless there is immediate and significant change from leagues and clubs, we expect that IREF will be required to set and enforce a substantially higher level of fan engagement for clubs to meet than the Leagues have set themselves, in order to ensure all clubs work to meet the needs of fans. (Paragraph 23) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The inclusion of concrete, universal EDI measures in the new Football Governance Code is a necessary step to address the significant concerns about a lack of EDI oversight in football. The work on EDI done by the leagues to date has not been undertaken collaboratively and opportunities to pool resources to avoid duplicating work have been missed. We welcome the acceptance from the football authorities Football Governance 19 that they should be doing more to improve EDI outcomes across football. However, while we welcome the standards that organisations have introduced since 2014, the limited progress on EDI outcomes over the past decade means we are sceptical of the claims that this work will now suddenly be done collectively without the need for an industry standard through the Football Code.

We recommend that, while in shadow form, IREF should look to existing corporate governance codes and work with stakeholders to ensure that substantive EDI measures are included in the new Code for Football Governance.

We are concerned that the Government has ignored recommendations to include EDI Action Plans for clubs and oversight of these plans within IREF’s remit. We believe that IREF would be well placed to receive and publish standardised data on compliance with EDI requirements in football, as well as monitoring and enforcing compliance with equality standards through EDI Action Plans. We recommend that the Government should give IREF the authority to mandate EDI Action Plans as part of its threshold licence conditions for clubs. Clubs’ performances against these Action Plans should be assessed regularly by IREF as part of its routine licence reviews. (Paragraph 36) The role of Football Authorities

The financial sustainability of the football pyramid is the responsibility of football itself. Football organisations can, and should, be the ones to find a solution to the current deadlock of revenue distribution. We welcome that progress seems to have been made on a “New Deal” for football and a new revenue sharing model. However, it is clear that there is still distance between the Premier League and EFL. If this distance is not bridged soon, more clubs will be put at risk of collapse. It is right that IREF is given the powers to intervene in the interests of the wider game as a last resort, but football organisations ought to prove that these powers are not necessary. There is still time, before the establishment of IREF, for these organisations to get their act together to secure the financial future of the sport.

We urge football authorities, including the Premier League, EFL and the FA, to urgently reach an agreement on sharing a higher proportion of revenue with clubs down the football pyramid before the establishment of IREF. This should include no increase in the current level of parachute payments from the Premier League but should include an increased, strategic redistribution of income from all Leagues down to the grassroots of football.

If there are no immediate signs of progress on revenue sharing, the Government should expedite its plans to establish the Independent Regulator with the power to mandate a solution. (Paragraph 44) 20 Football Governance