Football Regulator

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It’s needed but it’ll have to show it’s got teeth early on given the way too clubs have flouted the rules in recent years. It’ll also have to show it can take a case to CAS and win against the worlds top lawyers but it’s a promising start.
 
It’s needed but it’ll have to show it’s got teeth early on given the way too clubs have flouted the rules in recent years. It’ll also have to show it can take a case to CAS and win against the worlds top lawyers but it’s a promising start.
If FIFA/uefa regularly lose the argument at CAS I am not expecting this government to be particularly successful.

Personally I believe the best way to solve the issues in the game is to reunite the football league and Premier league under one umbrella again with the same aims and goals. I don't see how that happens though.
 
It’s needed but it’ll have to show it’s got teeth early on given the way too clubs have flouted the rules in recent years. It’ll also have to show it can take a case to CAS and win against the worlds top lawyers but it’s a promising start.
Not sure why it's needed. The PL is a massive success story in the world and by far the most popular league in the world.
The Premier League is so powerful that clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus feel they are being left behind and won't be able to compete in future,
hence why these clubs are desperate for a European super league. The proposals for a regulator are from certain EFL clubs who also feel they are being left behind.

Here are their basic proposals.
1: Stop English clubs joining other closed shops leagues (Super league) that are judged to harm domestic competition.
2: Preventing a repeat of a Bury or Macclesfield
3: Introducing a more stringent owners and directors test.
4: Giving fans the power to stop club name changes, changing club colours and badges.
5: Ensure a fairer distribution of wealth where the PL receive less money and EFL clubs receive more money with the intention of stopping parachute payments.

Comments
1: In theory seems reasonable, however what if the Champions League and Europa cups are replaced by a closed shop European super league.
The regulator would prevent Man Utd, Liverpool from entering meaning they finances and reputation suffers. So all the best players in the world will join other leagues and not the PL.
2: Again good idea but how do you exactly stop this? The best way is the make new owners leave a large deposit with the league so this can be used in emergencies.
However you'll then find very few people affording to or waiting to own a football club.
3:Again, not sure why. Whilst there are 3 teams relegated every season then there will always be 3 terrible unfit owners every season.
4: Seems a good idea and needs to be voted through.
5: This seems a bit like jealousy, the PL have built up their brand to be so fantastic that the EFL want a bigger share.
However WHY is the PL so popular around the world? The reason is due to completion in that league. In other countries clubs are allowed to negotiate their own TV deal
so in every league there are some real dross teams near the bottom, where the bigger clubs don't need to try.
However in the PL even clubs near the bottom are still rich and powerful with top players.
Also the PL currently encourage all promoted clubs (like Nottingham Forest) to spend big in order to compete.
and the reason is due to parachute payments. If Forest were relegated this season, they know they have financial protection to keep some of their players.
Without parachute payments, most promoted clubs will hardly spend because they would fear immediate relegation, so those clubs have no chance of staying up.
The PL would suffer as a spectacle as promoted teams from the Championship would be getting beat 6-0 most weeks.

Having an indépendant regulator can offer advantages but there also disadvantages too, it's generally a bad idea to have any regulator or government intervention.
In 10 years there could be less billionaires wanting to own English football clubs, instead they'll prefer to own Spanish and Italian clubs where there's more freedom.

For example if the regulator had more teeth it would see that Sheff Utd were heading towards financial ruin this season.
So they would have forced us to sell N'Diaye and Berge before this season started. Imagine our fans reaction to that. Then you would find complaints where the independent regulator are not independent as they interfere in the running of some clubs and not others.
 
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If FIFA/uefa regularly lose the argument at CAS I am not expecting this government to be particularly successful.

Personally I believe the best way to solve the issues in the game is to reunite the football league and Premier league under one umbrella again with the same aims and goals. I don't see how that happens though.

There are 3 organisations running football, Premier League, FA and EFL

and guess what? They are all totally selfish and only focus on their own clubs, they aren't interested in the general picture of progressing football.
The Premier League is the massive success story, that is becoming too big for the EFL because the gap is enormous.

So what do the EFL do? They try to stop the PL and call it "for the good of football" but it's actually "for the good of the EFL" rapped around jealousy.

Agree that football should really come under 1 umbrella but now the big are getting bigger and the small or getting smaller.
Do you try to intervene or just class it as the natural progression of the game.
 
I thought it was a White Paper to be published, which is a long way off appointing a Regulator
Don’t hold your breath !!
Good call. I saw the BBC article and thought it was happening now-ish.

"On Thursday the government will present its white paper on football governance in the men’s elite game to the House of Commons. Its plan is to create a regulator “established in law to oversee the financial sustainability of the game and put fans back at the heart of how football is run”. Following a period of consultation, those plans will be the turned into legislation “as soon as parliamentary time allows”, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport says."

Let's wait and see. I reckon 2026
 
I thought it was a White Paper to be published, which is a long way off appointing a Regulator
Don’t hold your breath !!

Agree....also the devil is in the detail.

The general aim of the proposals make sense and are beneficial to football.
However when you start trying to put in the fine detail.....then all sorts of problems arise.

The EFL are jealous of the Premier League and have been asking for government regulation for years and they've not done anything.
Still don't think the government want to get involved. They are just hoping to put pressure on the PL to voluntarily implement changes.
 
It’s needed but it’ll have to show it’s got teeth early on given the way too clubs have flouted the rules in recent years. It’ll also have to show it can take a case to CAS and win against the worlds top lawyers but it’s a promising start.
Could they not do what PL does and not have that as an avenue? For example, if City are finned/docked points etc for the FFP scandal they cannot go to CAS as per PL rules
 
David Gold has a had a rant about this, its on sky sports I'd anybody wants his views, very strongly against it.
 
Yeah that's just what we need for what is one of Britain's most successful industries. Premier League grounds sold out every week with matches beamed all around the world. Half the Championship clubs getting more than 20k every week. Half the League One clubs getting 15k plus. Even National League has many teams on 5k plus. No sign that I can see that this popularity waning.
Bury are cited as an example of what can go wrong. Well sure, they had a knobhead in charge. But when he was spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, Bury fans had no problem. It's just when it went tits up, that they were up in arms. Blackpool fans were happy when Oyston got to the Prem, but less so when they tumbled down again.
So a wealthy fan of, let's say Bristol City takes over the club and promises investment, that he's always been a fan blah blah. They'd love him. Then he puts his missus in charge of the first team and down they go. No amount of regulation can stop that.

Fans on the board? Half of us think Sander is the messiah and the other half think he's a waste of space. Depending which persuasion gets a vocal representative on the board, his decision on selling/keeping Berge will piss off the other half. Keep fans away from the board. Objectivity is needed. And as for changing identity, well Leeds United were called Leeds City until the 1960s and played in blue and yellow. Nobody would think that was their identity now. (Leyton) Orient have had both names, and I don't think many cared. Swansea City were called Swansea Town etc etc....

But the best of the lot is the idea that this (or any) government are capable of appointing a regulator that could improve things. Let's look at some of them. OFGEM - did a great job in regulating supplier entry into the market didn't they? Fuck knows how many many have gone bust in the last year. OFWAT - still 50+ litres of water per person per day leaking under ground. FCA - well everyone still has a bank nearby don't they? And we're still subsidising Lloyds TSB after they were bailed out 12 years ago.
Tosspots like Gary Neville only whinge because Man Utd. aren't winning everything like they did previously. Note that he played for the club under the Glazers ownership for 6 years but never uttered a peep 'cos they were successful and he was getting big bucks. Now he suddenly thinks it's all wrong.

And where does regulation stop. I know 2 blokes in our village pub who have supported Penistone Church FC in the NECL League for 40 years, and travel to every away match. Like we can name all old Blades players, they reminisce about old PCFC players. If someone took them over and screwed up, would the regulator have been responsible for that failure? After all some of their players are semi-pro. PCFC matter to these 2 guys just as much as the Blades matter to us......

The last Sports Minister, dopey Nadine Dorries, talked of 'tennis pitches' and gave a speech to the Rugby Football League commenting on how exciting it was when Jonny Wilkinson kicked the last minute drop goal to win the World Cup. And we seriously think this lot can 'regulate' football? Do me a favour.....
 



Yeah that's just what we need for what is one of Britain's most successful industries. Premier League grounds sold out every week with matches beamed all around the world. Half the Championship clubs getting more than 20k every week. Half the League One clubs getting 15k plus. Even National League has many teams on 5k plus. No sign that I can see that this popularity waning.
Bury are cited as an example of what can go wrong. Well sure, they had a knobhead in charge. But when he was spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, Bury fans had no problem. It's just when it went tits up, that they were up in arms. Blackpool fans were happy when Oyston got to the Prem, but less so when they tumbled down again.
So a wealthy fan of, let's say Bristol City takes over the club and promises investment, that he's always been a fan blah blah. They'd love him. Then he puts his missus in charge of the first team and down they go. No amount of regulation can stop that.

Fans on the board? Half of us think Sander is the messiah and the other half think he's a waste of space. Depending which persuasion gets a vocal representative on the board, his decision on selling/keeping Berge will piss off the other half. Keep fans away from the board. Objectivity is needed. And as for changing identity, well Leeds United were called Leeds City until the 1960s and played in blue and yellow. Nobody would think that was their identity now. (Leyton) Orient have had both names, and I don't think many cared. Swansea City were called Swansea Town etc etc....

But the best of the lot is the idea that this (or any) government are capable of appointing a regulator that could improve things. Let's look at some of them. OFGEM - did a great job in regulating supplier entry into the market didn't they? Fuck knows how many many have gone bust in the last year. OFWAT - still 50+ litres of water per person per day leaking under ground. FCA - well everyone still has a bank nearby don't they? And we're still subsidising Lloyds TSB after they were bailed out 12 years ago.
Tosspots like Gary Neville only whinge because Man Utd. aren't winning everything like they did previously. Note that he played for the club under the Glazers ownership for 6 years but never uttered a peep 'cos they were successful and he was getting big bucks. Now he suddenly thinks it's all wrong.

And where does regulation stop. I know 2 blokes in our village pub who have supported Penistone Church FC in the NECL League for 40 years, and travel to every away match. Like we can name all old Blades players, they reminisce about old PCFC players. If someone took them over and screwed up, would the regulator have been responsible for that failure? After all some of their players are semi-pro. PCFC matter to these 2 guys just as much as the Blades matter to us......

The last Sports Minister, dopey Nadine Dorries, talked of 'tennis pitches' and gave a speech to the Rugby Football League commenting on how exciting it was when Jonny Wilkinson kicked the last minute drop goal to win the World Cup. And we seriously think this lot can 'regulate' football? Do me a favour.....

Good points.....there's alot of hypocrisy in this.

Also there was a problem 10 to 15 years ago where generally 3 clubs every season would go into admin.
Since the latest profit and sustainability rules have been in place, clubs going into admin has become relatively rare, so what exactly is the problem?

The real problem is that those clubs in the lower divisions feel they can't compete and believe the system is unfair.
However whatever you do to change the system...there will always be teams struggling in the lower divisions....so fans of those teams will still say the system is unfair.

The bottom line is, where ever you find money..there's often corruption....the more money then the bigger the corruption and tricks.
If people want true fairness.....then we need to copy the US system....where the league has a massive input into the running of clubs.
So every club has equal finances with spending and salaries controlled and paid by the league.

You hear the common saying.....the Premier League have ruined football, it's not like it used to be, when it was a true sport.
However the only people who say this....are fans of clubs outside the PL. Fans of clubs in the Premier League think it's brilliant.

If you want to be accurate....football has arguably, never been the same since it turned professional over 100 years ago.
You only need to think back to Sheffield FC. They foresaw the dangers of turning professional thinking it would ruin football and they decided to stay amateur.
Wonder if Sheffield FC ever regret their decision to turn their back on the professional game? and has making football professional ruined the sport?
 
Good points.....there's alot of hypocrisy in this.

Also there was a problem 10 to 15 years ago where generally 3 clubs every season would go into admin.
Since the latest profit and sustainability rules have been in place, clubs going into admin has become relatively rare, so what exactly is the problem?

The real problem is that those clubs in the lower divisions feel they can't compete and believe the system is unfair.
However whatever you do to change the system...there will always be teams struggling in the lower divisions....so fans of those teams will still say the system is unfair.

The bottom line is, where ever you find money..there's often corruption....the more money then the bigger the corruption and tricks.
If people want true fairness.....then we need to copy the US system....where the league has a massive input into the running of clubs.
So every club has equal finances with spending and salaries controlled and paid by the league.

You hear the common saying.....the Premier League have ruined football, it's not like it used to be, when it was a true sport.
However the only people who say this....are fans of clubs outside the PL. Fans of clubs in the Premier League think it's brilliant.

If you want to be accurate....football has arguably, never been the same since it turned professional over 100 years ago.
You only need to think back to Sheffield FC. They foresaw the dangers of turning professional thinking it would ruin football and they decided to stay amateur.
Wonder if Sheffield FC ever regret their decision to turn their back on the professional game? and has making football professional ruined the sport?
Yeah, clubs in the lower divisions do complain that they can't compete etc. But we seem to have Brentford and Bournemouth currently in the Prem instead Of Sunderland, Wednesday, Stoke, Bolton etc. They seem to be competing OK. And they'll probably come down in the next couple of years. But that's always been the way.
 
Who’s getting the CEO gig? Dorries?
I'd guess at Tracey Crouch if it's a government appointee.

David Gold has a had a rant about this, its on sky sports I'd anybody wants his views, very strongly against it.
Think you mean David Sullivan. Quite difficult for David Gold to rant about anything given that he's been dead since January.
 
I think the main overriding issue in football is the distribution of wealth.

There's far too much at the top and nowhere near enough at the bottom.

wage caps need to be in place. Paying footballers £200k per week is ridiculous and clubs (like City) scam any fair play rules in place. Other clubs obviously take the piss.

FFP rules need to change to stop driving the ridiculous behaviour in the EFL where clubs purposely break rules banking on getting promoted.

It's ok saying most of the interest is in the big clubs but the big clubs essentially steal players from smaller clubs one way or the other. Sure, there's compensation but it's bollocks.

You can't have a system which wants to encourage the development of young players and yet punishes 98% of clubs for doing so.

But mostly, it's ok for the Premier League or Football League to talk the talk but they have to actively be more involved and put a lot more work into ensuring clubs are run sustainably. They only seem to get involved when there's a problem but they need to stop these problems happening.
 
Yeah, clubs in the lower divisions do complain that they can't compete etc. But we seem to have Brentford and Bournemouth currently in the Prem instead Of Sunderland, Wednesday, Stoke, Bolton etc. They seem to be competing OK. And they'll probably come down in the next couple of years. But that's always been the way.

They've just been taking about this on the news bulletin saying "it's a fan lead review".

Always makes me smile...as almost all fans are totally bias towards their clubs and have zero interest in the future wellbeing of the game.
A common scenario is fans equate "investing/spending money" as "showing ambition".

So almost every fan wants their club to overspend and build up debt
Remember when we bought Brewster, loads of fans on here said "pay him whatever he wants", we need to show ambition .
Fans always want their club to keep their best players even if they can't afford him.

So the irony is that fans need protecting from themselves....a fan lead review....by definition is a bad start.
What next? You must have fans on the board who are allowed to make decisions in how to run a club. There would be chaos.
 
Football as it was known before the PL even started was way more balanced as a whole. For me it's the PL that has ruined it.
 
Good call. I saw the BBC article and thought it was happening now-ish.

"On Thursday the government will present its white paper on football governance in the men’s elite game to the House of Commons. Its plan is to create a regulator “established in law to oversee the financial sustainability of the game and put fans back at the heart of how football is run”. Following a period of consultation, those plans will be the turned into legislation “as soon as parliamentary time allows”, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport says."

Let's wait and see. I reckon 2026
I made a detailed report for a consultation on leasehold/freehold ownerships about 8 years ago as part of my job. I have been retired 4 years and to the best of my knowledge there is still no legislation before Parliament despite it being of importance to many people.
 
I made a detailed report for a consultation on leasehold/freehold ownerships about 8 years ago as part of my job. I have been retired 4 years and to the best of my knowledge there is still no legislation before Parliament despite it being of importance to many people.
Just goes to show what a crap report it was ;)
 
Hopefully, this will put teams on a more level playing field, the gap in wealth is ridiculous, and if we don’t go up this season we’re gonna feel this bite hard, it will also see teams with bigger support who generate more income rise up the leagues, whereas as we’ve seen larger clubs languishing in the EFL for years as smaller southern clubs have attracted wealthy benefactors which has propelled them to the PL.

Devil is in the detail of course and the regulator won’t be in place for at least another 2 years as the white paper goes through consultation and parliament to make it law.
 
I'd guess at Tracey Crouch if it's a government appointee.


Think you mean David Sullivan. Quite difficult for David Gold to rant about anything given that he's been dead since January.
Yep hard to be heard from the grave 🤦‍♂️
 
Football was still dominated by the same small number of clubs before the Premier League as it is now. At least since the 50s anyway.

Unfortunately we aren’t one of them, and never will be.

And the idea that the Premier League is a closed shop is equally ridiculous. I cannot remember a single season on its 30 year history they didn’t have one or two clubs at the very least that wouldn’t look out of place in the Fourth Division.
 
And something being missed is just how good top flight football is now. I can go back to watching a terrific Blades performance to comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Goodison in 1975 to just about deny Everton the title, and spanking Arsenal 5-0, Spurs 6-0 at The Lane, but the style of football was nothing like as good as today. We all love muck and nettles and battling Blades from yesteryear, but what we watch now in terms of skill, athleticism and fitness is far better. Mainly due to the foreign players attracted by the Prem.
 



Populist bullshit.

I'd bet that far fewer football clubs go out of business than in the vast majority of other sectors.

Football's problem is that player's who're slightly too good for the Dog and Duck earn "£250K" a year. Those who play for the Dog and Duck pay for the priviledge. I don't see why the premier league should fund this.
 

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