The Scottish Mail on Sunday

It’s our beautiful game... we must have regulator to take back control

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FOOTBALL isn’t just another business. It can’t be treated like any other business. Football clubs are constituen­t parts of our communitie­s. There is such a thing as society and the national game is a vital part of what makes it up. We discovered during lockdown that we need our regular meeting points, our communitie­s, our places to gather. Those institutio­ns are the glue that binds us together.

So let’s put aside all talk of football being left to find its own way in an unregulate­d free market. To deal in the new football market, you will have to respect the new rules that will set it apart from supermarke­ts or other such businesses.

I believe you can be a capitalist and have compassion. I also believe you can be a socialist and believe in business.

And I think football is a good vehicle to demonstrat­e what a regulated, fair and rule-based free market might look like.

We need an independen­t regulator for football which is:

● truly independen­t of the game;

● empowered to reform and modernise the Football Associatio­n;

● equipped with financial and regulatory expertise;

● can work closely with the game’s stakeholde­rs but empowered to broker and or step in to impose solutions where necessary;

● tasked with handing back football governance to the FA in the future once they have been modernised, reformed and are sufficient­ly independen­t.

It is clear to me that football can’t regulate itself, particular­ly in moments of stress. The game is so riven by conflicts of interest.

Football’s regulator should be wholly independen­t and insulated from the influence of the elite. However, it should work to reform and modernise the FA. It would have financial and regulatory expertise, similar to the Financial Conduct Authority. It should work closely with the game’s stakeholde­rs but should also have the power to step in and make decisions when shareholde­rs are left paralysed by self-interest.

At some point in the future, I would hope it would be able to hand back the governance of football to an FA properly resourced and empowered. But, for now, that isn’t possible.

We need a referee to take control and hand the ball back to the people and a new independen­t regulator is a must. The future of our game, which is part of our nation’s heritage and history, cannot be controlled by oil-rich nation states or American investment funds.

It’s our game, our beautiful game.

 ?? ?? HUGE PRICE TAG: Jadon Sancho cost £73m but it’s been far from plain sailing at Old Trafford
HUGE PRICE TAG: Jadon Sancho cost £73m but it’s been far from plain sailing at Old Trafford

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