It would be foolish in the extreme to believe that just because the Commons Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport has given the football authorities a bollocking, things will change in the national game. This may be the second verbal lashing the MPs have administered football in two years but just because the MPs wave a big stick it does not mean they will follow up by using it to whack the football authorities if, as so often in the past, football does nothing.
Here it is worth recalling what John Whitingdale, chairman of the committee, told me back in July 2011 when the committee looked at the bidding for 2018 World Cup. His words were: “I am instinctively against government intervention. The government has an awful lot on its plate, the state of English football is a lesser priority than improving the welfare state and the NHS. I don’t think there will be a great wish for legislation.”
Yes, this time round the MPs have warned that if the football kicks these proposals into the long grass then 12 months from now the government will be forced to step in. Football’s failure to do anything following the earlier report does mean there is now more of an appetite for legislation. But that means making time available for legislation against a crowed parliamentary timetable.
Apart from the economic problems, the House of Commons will have to consider legislation for a referendum on Scottish independence (the Scots might argue that FIFA is more equitable in this area). David Cameron could also be well into his own plan for a referendum on whether Britain should seek freedom from the European Union. There might also be the little matter of press regulation. Against all this I would not rate very highly legislative changes on how football is run being given much time before the elections of 2015.
However, if this makes the football authorities feel they can play their usual game of delay and pass the buck as they have done for much of the last decade, most effectively with the Burns report, they should be warned that there is now real anger among parliamentarians about football governance. In particular the strong feeling is that it just does not meet the needs of the game in the second decade of the 21st century.
This anger goes all the way up to Cameron who was bruised by the inept way the Football Association handled the bid for the 2018 World Cup. There can be no denying the humiliation he was put through at Zurich during the vote. A humiliation made worse by the fact that while the British Prime Minister was made to court the FIFA warlords in Zurich and succeeded in getting only two votes – and one of them by the then English member of FIFA, Geoff Thompson – Vladimir Putin, made a public show of keeping away from Zurich, yet won handsomely. Then he rubbed salt into British wounds by flying into Zurich and holding a conqueror’s press conference, one where he made sure all his minions attended including a certain Roman Abramovich. Indeed much of the attention the MPs have paid to football in the last two years has been driven by this anger emanating from No 10 and to which High Robertson, the Sports minister, has also given voice.
One area where legislation could come is football’s wretched creditors rule. No playing field could be less level and more skewed. The result is that football is allowed to get away with behaviour which would not be acceptable in any other walk of life. Football creditors’ rule states that a club which cannot pay its debts can default on the money it owes all types of creditors including St. John’s Ambulance. However, one lot of creditors rank above everyone including the taxman and must be paid. These are payments to players, coaching staff and any transfer fees due to other clubs. Note this applies only to the wages for players and coaching staff, wages to a club’s administrative staff, the tea lady, or the coach driver are not covered. The football authorities say that if a club does not pay its football creditors it cannot play football. This applies to all football in this country whether organised by the FA, the Football League or the Premier League.
The rule goes back to the time when there was little money in football and when the maximum wage still applied to footballers. It is easy to see why the rule came in. It was not only meant to make sure that the game goes on, it was meant to protect players who, at that time, were not paid a lot of money. It was also intended to make sure that well managed clubs did not suffer as a result of mismanagement by a few club directors and owners. Then, football was not a business but a cottage industry. That it operates when it is a huge industry is an absurdity. Or as Whitingdale put it, is unfair to the many people who service the football industry.
But apart from the creditors rule it is hard to see any other football legislation. And in one area, that of ownership, the MPs have not even dared to venture. That means that anyone can just jet in and buy an English football club in the way that Germany, or even America, that bastion of free enterprise, would never contemplate.
Indeed one reason why Americans have been so keen to buy English clubs is because as the American owners of Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa know very well, in England they do not have to worry about the sort of regulation that makes it hard for them to make money in their own domestic market. As Majid Ishaq, the Rothschild adviser who helped the Glazers get United put it: “If you speak to the Americans they say, ‘We understand how to make money in a very regulated industry in the States, within our territory, within our geography.’ The Henry’s of Boston who own Liverpool can’t sell outside Boston, can they? They are regulated. Then all of a sudden you say to them, ‘You can come over to England and you can sell Liverpool shirts in London, you can sell sponsorship in the Far East.’ They say, ‘My goodness. I can make money out of this.'”
No wonder they love it. But should the English football authorities and the British government allow such a free-for-all? The American sporting scene with no promotion or relegation is different and cannot be imported into this country. However some aspects of what the Americans call sporting socialism could be looked at. In particular the belief that the NFL clubs have. This is that they are a chain of restaurants where every restaurant in the chain must be given equal rights to prosper.
In recent years voices have been raised ranging from Alan Sugar to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Players Association, suggesting that English football should look at foreign ownership and if not ban it like the Germans, at least regulate it. But for the Premier League with its belief that they are owner neutral, in other words, anyone can own a Premiership club, such ideas are anathema.
The British belief in a free for all without any restrictions has also helped Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City. The Ethiad stadium where City play was constructed for the 2002 Commonwealth Games with public money: £78 m from Sport England and £49 m from Manchester Council. But the authorities, anxious not to have a white elephant on their hands after the Games, decided the best option was to rent the 48,000 seat stadium to Manchester City. In return for that Manchester City give Maine Road to the council. They also paid £15m to rip off the running track and convert the Commonwealth Games arena for football. But the best part was the outrageously favourable deal on the rent: a small yearly rent which only became substantial if more than 36,000 turned up for a match. This meant that the club paid between £1.4 m and £2.5 m a year in rent for seven years between 2003 and 2010.
For this the club got a state of the art stadium. Arsenal’s Emirates stadium cost £440 m and landed the Gunners with debts of £250m. Manchester is not London, but a new stadium of the standard Manchester City got could well have cost the club a few hundred million, if in the first place they could have managed to borrow the money. As Francis Lee, who was running City then, has since said, “The new stadium made it attractive for people to buy into it.” This resulted in first Thaksin Shinawatra, the disgraced Thai Prime Minister, buying the club then selling it to another foreigner, Sheikh Mansour of the royal family of Abu Dhabi for a reported £150m, making a profit of £90m.
The new owner had pots of money but he also knew he would not have to build a stadium, unlike rivals such as Liverpool. The rental agreement Mansour has since entered means paying more but nevertheless it is a fraction of what a new stadium would have cost. He has been able to lavish his riches on players making City a giant and further distorting the Premier League playing field. It is a pity the MPs sighed away from looking at ownership and asking the question whether British free for all is really good for the game.
Mihir Bose’s latest book: Game Changer How the English Premier League Came to Dominate the World has been published by Marshall Cavendish for £14.99
Follow Mihir on twitter @mihirbose