The Times - UK (2021-11-25)

76 Thursday November 25 2021 | the times

SportFootball

Crouch will begin to

enact her plans in 2022

Salute Crouch for standing

Henry Winter

Chief Football

Writer

T

he timing is so right for the

fan-led governance review

published by Tracey Crouch

MP last night. English

football urgently needs

Crouch’s calls for greater tests on

owners’ integrity and funds, for a

transfer levy to transform the

pyramid’s finances and also for the

appointment of an independent

regulator, a sheriff with legislative

weaponry to bring some order to the

Wild West of English football.

The timing is right because the

Covid-19 pandemic has sent

footballing finances further into a

tailspin, communities need their clubs

even more and clubs are threatened

by unscrupulous or hapless owners.

The timing is right because it comes

in the year that the European Super

League (ESL) plotters — Arsenal,

Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City,

Manchester United and Tottenham

Hotspur — tried to destroy the

English pyramid. It highlighted the

need to face down the enemy within.

The footballing authorities have

traditionally proved masters of time-

wasting to frustrate past Westminster

attempts to introduce proper

governance and prudential financial

management. The initially promising

Burns review in 2005 died a death by

a thousand FA committee-room

cuts. Crouch’s report feels

different. It has more

thought and more teeth,

for a start.

Even though Crouch

is standing up to the

likes of Stan Kroenke,

the Arsenal owner,

John W Henry, of

Liverpool, and

Manchester United’s Joel

Glazer by trying to bring

them into line with the

introduction of an

independent regulator,

she knows she has

formidable powers on

her side: parliament.

Crouch was asked

yesterday what would

happen if Glazer and

Henry, two of the owners

whose contempt for the

pyramid was shown by the ESL,

“stuck two fingers up” to her

review. “They can stick their

fingers up,” Crouch replied,

“but there would be a

parliamentary process that sees

legislation enact an

independent regulator.”

She will willingly,

calmly, take on the

Americans, but wants to

work with them. She

does not want this

episode to become a

Boston (Lincs)

tea party. “I

actually don’t

think that

anything in this

report stifles the

growth of English

football; if anything

it puts it on a

more secure

footing,” Crouch

said. “If I was somebody looking to

invest in a football club, what I would

want is proper regulation, proper

controls, proper tests.” The

Independent Regulator for English

Football (IREF), in effect an “OfFoot”,

offers all that and more, a timely

exercise in introducing sustainability.

If clubs shut their doors and their

books to the regulatory body, it will

send administrators in “to obtain

information, even if a club is reluctant

or not co-operative”.

Sanctions will be the “teeth” of the

regulator, including fines, points

deductions and relegations, transfer

bans, and bans on owners and

directors. Regulatory officials will

have the power to take over control

of clubs deemed guilty “at the most

extreme end” of excesses. Crouch is

not messing.

The timing is right because the

review offers a tap-in for Boris

Johnson. The prime minister

understands football’s appeal enough

to realise how well this pyramid-

supporting curbing of the plotters’

ambitions and stunts will play in the

Tory Red Wall constituencies. Even

the review’s “fan-led” title played to

an audience.

During a meeting at

Downing Street with the

Arsenal Supporters’

Trust, Johnson said that

he saw fans and their

clubs as part of the

country’s “social fabric

that needed

protecting”. Now is the

time for him to turn

words into deeds.

Planned legislation

should be in the next

Queen’s Speech in May.

“I’m optimistic,”

Crouch said. “I would

suspect that we could

get this operational by

2023. But there is no
      reason why establishing
      the shadow regulator
      cannot begin early in the
      new year.” She expects cross-
      party, cross-chamber support.
      The timing is also
      right because Crouch’s
      announcement comes the
      week after the Premier League
      announced a £2 billion
      television rights deal with
      NBC in the United
      States. And that is
      only one territory,
      however large
      and lucrative.
      The time is
      right with
      community
      clubs
      threatened.
      “The last two
      years have
      seen collapses
      at Bury,
      Bolton
      Wanderers,
      Derby County,
      Macclesfield
      Town and Wigan
      Athletic,” Crouch
      writes in her review.

Now is the time, she argued, “for an

independent regulator to take on the

reform that fans have been crying out

for but which the authorities have

failed to deliver”. She invites the FA to

sit in on regulator meetings with

“observer status”. The FA is being

marginalised further. “Fans have lost

faith in the football authorities,”

Crouch added.

The timing is right as it comes a

month after the Premier League

allowed Saudi Arabia’s Public

Investment Fund to take over

Newcastle United, triggering a tense

debate about the owners’ and

directors’ test given the Saudis’ poor

human rights record. Under Crouch’s

tightened rules, there would have

been greater scrutiny on them. “The

integrity test would certainly have

stressed it a bit more than what

happened,” Crouch said.

Crouch’s owners’ test will be tighter,

with stipulations against “offshore

hedge funds with unclear ownership

acquiring clubs” and having finances

and character regularly reassessed

after they have passed the test.

The timing is right because the

pyramid craves more help from the

Premier League. The report suggests

a 10 per cent levy for Premier League

clubs on buying players from overseas

or from other clubs in the elite

division. If applied over the past five

seasons, this would have raised

roughly £160 million for redistribution

down the pyramid — each year.

One year’s payments could fund “a

grant to ensure that League One and

League Two clubs broke even” as well

as 80 full-size 3G pitches, 100 grass

pitches, 100 small-sided grass pitches

and 30 two-team changing rooms

(including referee facilities). Just think

of that. Crouch’s list will play well to

the pyramid and put pressure on the

Premier League.

There is bound to be resistance

from the elite, given that they feel

they already contribute handsomely

to the EFL in solidarity and parachute

payments. Premier League clubs give

4 per cent of transfer fees to the

Professional Footballers’ Association

pension scheme and, soon, 6 per cent

to Fifa in solidarity payments (up

from 5 per cent). Add in 10 per cent

for IREF and a £20 million transfer

in effect becomes £24 million.

Premier League clubs are certainly

justified in wanting their money to go

to better-run EFL clubs. The Premier

League welcomed the “significant

work” of Crouch and her panel but

warned: “It is important to everyone

that any reforms do not damage our

game, its competitive balance or the

levels of current investment.”

Much of football’s problem lies with

players’ wages. The average percentage

of wages to turnover is 73 per cent in

the Premier League, and 120 per cent

in the Sky Bet Championship. The

EFL’s flagship is a basket case woven

from an obsession with promotion.

The issue is ordinary players

receiving extraordinary salaries,

the crazy sums on offer in the

Championship, with one player on

£93,000 a week, the need for more

contracts to contain wage-related

relegation clauses and the fear that if

the Premier League introduces even a

soft salary cap, European rivals will

commandeer all the elite players.

“I had no intention of putting a cap

on the Premier League when it would

distort international competitiveness,”

Crouch said, “but if Uefa did it, and it

was a cap that was applicable across

all European competitions, it would

be something that would work.” The

timing is right for change.

Our radical proposals are

E

very member of the Crouch

review panel will have their

own view of the most impactful

moment during our collection of

evidence. But for me there were two.

The first was talking to Gary

Neville and his mother, Jill, the

former club secretary of Bury FC.

The story of how Bury foundered

was a scandal, but just as much, it

was a tragedy. It was moving to see

what it meant to the family. And I do

not get the impression that the

Nevilles are overly sentimental.

The other was talking to

supporters of Blackpool FC. Perhaps

I should have been aware that the

Premier League told the club in 2010

it would have to get a new owner,

because it was owned by a rapist.

And that it had then failed to enforce

the decision before the club was

relegated. Maybe I once knew but

forgot. In any case, it hit me with

great force. How could such a

regulatory failure have been allowed?

Not all the evidence we gathered

was like this, but there was enough of

it to make the point. We need a new

system of regulation. We have an

amazing national game and the

Premier League is one of Britain’s

most successful businesses. But

change is needed.

The panel was determined that the

review would be what had been

promised: fan led. We conducted

hours and hours of meetings with fan

groups. Holding the sessions online

Daniel

Finkelstein

Three crises

that triggered

MP’s report

Review panel

member and

Times columnist

“

This report is different. It

has more thought, more

teeth and a formidable

ally: parliament

73

Percentage of turnover

spent on players’ wages

by Premier League

clubs on average

120

Percentage of turnover

spent on players’ wages

by clubs in the Sky Bet

Championship on

average