Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters, National League General Manager Mark Ives and Dagenham & Redbridge CEO Stephen Thompson MBE addressed Members of both Houses to state their concerns about the Football Governance Bill, which will be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday 23 April as it receives its Second Reading.
Both the Premier League and the National League - the top of the football pyramid and the essential foundation of the professional game - urged MPs to give the Bill full scrutiny. The organisations issued a stark warning about the potential negative impacts a heavily amended Bill could have on the continued dynamism, competitive balance and success of the English football pyramid, as well as ongoing investment at all levels of the game.
'A big risk with a successful industry'
“Very few industries welcome additional regulation but it is here and we will continue to engage with it positively,” Masters said. “By any yardstick we are an incredibly successful industry. But it is not just the Premier League, right down through the pyramid, we have got fantastically successful leagues. It [a regulator] is a first. We can't look to Germany or Spain or France and say, ‘Well, we can see it working.’
“We are taking a big risk with a very successful industry and so we're asking MPs and Peers to look at the Bill very carefully and to look at it with a dispassionate head on and make sure that all of football benefits from it, and we don't bump into unintended consequences.
“Football is successful because it has had investment, investment from all over the world coming into this country and investing on the pitch for fans to really enjoy. We don't want that to be choked off, we want that model to continue.
Ives and Thompson both warned of the potential for the Bill to create “onerous” consequences for National League clubs, not only financial but bureaucratic.
“We are concerned about the costs,” Ives said. “The expectation of how much it is going to cost clubs at a National League level is a huge concern – it may be a small amount of money, but it is a lot to the clubs.
“We are worried about mission creep within the Bill and the additional bureaucracy. There is a lot of duplication of work, such as the licensing system - there’s an expectation for clubs to do two lots of licensing.”
Thompson warned of the impact this could have on small clubs.
“We are worried that the Bill will be so onerous,” he said. “Some National League clubs work on two or three people and some volunteers.
“It does really worry me that some of our small clubs will not survive with the regulation and the reporting that is required.”
Ives also questioned those who saw regulatory intervention as necessary to improve football.
“People are talking about the need for a regulator because of the mess the game is in,” he said. “The game is not in a mess. All the competitions – the Premier League, the EFL, the National League, The FA – they are obviously all doing something right.
“So allow the people to deal with it appropriately and if we are not doing it in the right way, then let the regulator step in. Otherwise, you will put too much bureaucracy, too much burden on the clubs and it will be damaging to them.”
Masters echoed this sentiment, highlighting the redistribution of Premier League funds down the football pyramid as a result of this success.
“In our current three-year cycle, £1.6bn is being distributed – 16 per cent of our revenues - all the way down to the National Leagues and grass roots,” he said.
“We support just about every aspect of the men’s game. The EFL are doing well commercially with new broadcast deals both domestically and internationally. We believe their revenue will increase substantially in 2025/26, and we think that’s positive.
“There are lots of great things happening in the game and I would much prefer if the Premier League and EFL could come to an agreement itself without the use of the backstop power.”
As for what sort of regulator they want MPs to consider with the reading of the Bill, Masters, Ives and Thompson were keen to stress the protection of the opportunity for people to invest at all levels of the game.
“We are asking for light-touch, proportionate regulation,” Masters said. “The backstop power needs to remain as it is. We need long-term certainty - you cannot underestimate how important that is. If the backstop power was to be renewable every three years, we would be in a perpetual state of negotiating and nobody would know where they stand, which could be deeply damaging to the game.”
Ives called for politicians to put more trust in the leagues to run things themselves.
“If we carry on with the Bill as the way it is, it is going to put all of that burden on our clubs instead of actually having an advocacy-first approach,” he said. “Let the leagues take control of it. My desire is for the leagues to do their piece first and if we fail to do our piece then regulate us.
Thompson expressed concern about the regulator adding constraint to the Owners’ and Directors’ Test affecting the attraction of people looking to invest in the game.
“There is not a queue of people wanting to buy National League clubs,” he said. “If the Bill makes it too onerous then people won’t invest in our clubs, and we need people to invest in our clubs.”
