Football doesn’t need flop like Dido

SUCH is the impasse between football’s factions right now, it is increasingly tempting to entertain the calls for an independent, Governmentappointed regulator. Until, that is, one considers how this has worked for other sectors. Does football really need its Dido Harding? Just think. If that is the person ministers put in charge of test and trace at the NHS, imagine who would be lined up for football? Last week, former FA chairman David Bernstein led a reform group calling for independent regulation. Among their number was Helen Grant, Sports Minister under David Cameron from 2013 to 2015. Around that time she featured in a Dispatches investigation, catchily titled: MPs — Are They Still At It? The programme concluded that, in Grant’s case, she possibly was. In 2012, she charged the taxpayer the full £1,666.67 monthly expense for a London residence, despite living in Reigate where 58 trains left each day for central London, taking as little as 39 minutes. Is this an example of the governance football requires? And who would Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden nominate for the job, given that he put Alex Scott on his renewal task force, to address how sport bounces back, or even survives, during the present health and economic crisis? Given that this problem is now a matter of life or death for many clubs, with enormous diplomatic complexities, might it not have been better to have appointed an individual who had owned a club, run a club, brokered a major commercial deal or in some way explored the logistics of football’s business and politics. You know, rather than someone who was on television. We can all see how politicians view football, because their ideas invariably involve giving the product away, or endangering its revenue streams, while demanding more of its money. Most recently, Dowden thought the Merseyside derby should be offered freeto-air, which would have no doubt triggered another sizeable rebate for the broadcasters. Other plans advanced by Dowden or colleagues have included wage cuts, wage caps, levies on television money and restrictions on shirt sponsorships and advertising by betting companies. Would Government appoint a regulator in its own image? One that makes endless demands while offering zero solutions?

No thanks.