FOR ONCE, I AGREE WITH LINEKER

IT’S not often I agree with frightful Gary ‘fill your boots with licence-payer money’ Lineker, but his suggestion of an independent regulator to ensure a ‘fit and proper person test’ for football club owners strikes me as very sane. The Government has finally deprived Roman Abramovich of control of Chelsea Football Club. But let’s not forget Everton and Arsenal also have Russian links in the recent past (via sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov). Newcastle Utd, meanwhile, is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund – chaired by Mohammad bin Salman, who presides over a regime guilty of a host of human rights abuses, not least abducting and killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. It’s time British football took a long, hard look at itself – and cleaned up its act once and for all.