Crouch: Football is drinking in the last-chance saloon

of the money at the top of the game filters down to the bottom of the pyramid – via a 10 percent tax on Premier League transfers.

Government schemes like this have been tried before but after the collapse of Bury, the Covid crisis and the European Super League saga, this time Crouch feels there is a will to make it succeed.

“It has universal support, that’s the main difference,” she said.

“Football has had too many last-chance saloons and people have just got fed up of watching football lurching from crisis to crisis and nothing being done about it.

“There are few sectors of business now that are not regulated and this is English football’s chance to grasp the nettle.

“France and Spain have legislative issues around football and it won’t be the Government interfering – it is about making sure there are the right legislative controls.

“A lot of this is down to the Government in terms of its implementation but we do recommend a shadow independent regulator for English football (IREF) board is established to start giving guidance.

“In my mind, and it might not be the same as that of the Government, I am thinking about the start of season 2023-24. But a lot could begin now.” Crouch’s fan-led review of football governance involved listening to more than 20,000 voices over 100 hours of evidencegathering, with the report running to 162 pages.

But not everything will be black and white under the new regulations.

Crouch refused to say how Newcastle’s new Saudi owners, headed by Mohamed Bin Salman, below, would have been assessed under the new regulations.

But she hinted even more stringent financial controls might eventually have been passed.

“The integrity test would have stress-tested the character aspect and the relationship aspect more than the current test,” she said.

“It would’ve been more transparent. The personal element is something the regulator would look at more closely.

“But business regulations did not stop PIF buying a stake in Disney, did it?”

Of wider importance is the need to spread finances more evenly. One proposal is to replace the parachute payments with something more even-handed and make top-flight clubs pay a form of “stamp duty” on transfer dealings.

A 10 percent levy in the last five years would have set up a £160million fund to prop up the rest of the

pyramid, the report found.