This week was a bombshell week for football. Eleven of Europe’s biggest clubs, along with Tottenham, decided they'd had enough of having to qualify for Europe every year. They are sick of having to prove they are better than West Ham. Their solution? A European Super League. This new European tournament would give these twelve clubs guaranteed entry, huge additional income, and a handful of other clubs would join them based on their domestic success.
The proposal (though most of the clubs have since pulled out) drove a coach and horses through the whole idea of competitive domestic football, where clubs are rewarded for success and not rewarded for their failures. Fans were not consulted. Players and managers had no idea about the proposals until they were announced. And, despite not one owner publicly supporting the proposals, the football community was expected to accept and back it. But it only confirmed what every supporter suspected - the big clubs are in it for themselves, and their owners are only interested in raking in the cash.
The situation was so pressing that at 4:55pm on Monday - just hours after it was announced - Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced in a statement to the House of Commons (available here) a wide ranging fan-led review into English football and how it is run. The Terms of Reference of that review - to be chaired by Conservative MP and qualified football coach Tracey Crouch - was published on Thursday and makes hugely interesting reading.
While it is not possible to clearly predict the findings, plenty of points stand out and means there could be wide-ranging changes on the back of the move to create a Super League.
So, going through these terms one by one, what can football fans expect from this review? And what is likely change on the back of it?
1. Consider the multiple Owners’ and Directors’ Tests and whether they are fit for purpose, including the addition of further criteria
The root cause of the European Super League is greedy owners who do not understand the responsibility of running a football club in the English pyramid. This flagship proposal is designed to ensure they understand that and are ready to run the club properly.
One of the more interesting suggestions is that this could work as a licence system - meaning it can be revoked at any time. How revoking a licence would work, as a revoked licence could essentially leave clubs without recognised owners, remains to be seen.
But the current system clearly does not work. Wigan and Bury fans - among many, many others - will tell you the existing Owners’ and Directors' test (also known as the Fit and Proper Person test) is not worth the paper it’s written on. It’s about time something happened to change this.
2. Assess calls for the creation of a single, independent football regulator to oversee the sport’s regulations and compliance, and its relationship with the regulatory powers of The FA and other football bodies
A new regulator has been mooted by the government and was referenced in Oliver Dowden’s statement to the Commons. Why this can’t simply be a beefed up and reformed FA (which probably should perform this role) is not clear, but what is clear is that the existing structure is not providing fans with the security that their club will always be there.
3. Examine the effectiveness of measures to improve club engagement with supporters, such as structured dialogue, that were introduced on the back of the Expert Working Group
The long and short of this is your club’s Supporter Liaison Officer (which is required for all clubs in the EFL and above) is going to become a much more important figure. As is the way they interact with your official (and unofficial) supporter groups. Clubs are far more likely to need approval from fans to make key decisions at their club, and fans are expected to feel more involved in how their club is run.
4. Investigate ways league administrators could better scrutinise clubs’ finances on a regular basis
As it stands, clubs release their accounts on an annual basis and submit these to the league. This is scrutinised to ensure they fit with Financial Fair Play (which restricts club spending based on income). It is not clear how scrutiny of accounts - which of course may or may not be considered a separate issue to Financial Fair Play - could change while keeping clubs treated similarly to other businesses in the UK. What could happen is for clubs to release accounts each quarter, but this would add a huge administrative burden for essentially zero gain. One to watch.
5. Examine the flow of money through the football pyramid, including solidarity and parachute payments, and broadcasting revenue
The long and short of this is simple. The days of the top clubs hoarding all the wealth could be coming to an end. Expect the professional game to invest far more in grassroots sport, and for the wealth to be redistributed down the leagues so the whole pyramid can benefit from English football’s global appeal. As this review will “cover the financial sustainability of the men’s and women’s game", there could even be greater parity in pay between men and women players.
6. Explore governance structures in other countries, including ownership models, and whether any aspects could be beneficially translated to the English league system
The big suggestion here is the system used in Germany (the 50%+1 rule) where half of all club shares (plus one) have to be controlled by fans.
This move could be key to many other aspects proposed in this review. It would mean an owner who has their licence revoked would not leave a club in the lurch without recognised owners, and ensure fans can block club relocations and changes to club badges.
While fans would technically be the majority shareholder, and as a block outvote a billionaire ‘owner’ (who would now be a ‘part owner’ or an ‘investor’), anyone who has spent any time with football fans know that getting fans to completely agree on anything is very difficult. But this is something which would be hugely popular among football fans, so is one that will at the very least be considered.
An alternative proposal - suggested by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in an interview to Football Focus - involved both fan and player representatives on the club boards. This would at the very least get input at the top level from players and fans, and could be a compromise which would be easier to implement.
7. Look at interventions to protect club identity, including geographical location and historical features (e.g. club badges)
This is something I was not expecting and is particularly interesting. Football badges, club names and locations are so important for fans. What this means the appalling situation which saw Wimbledon move from South London to Milton Keynes and re-brand as MK Dons would not be able to happen. But also other moves such as the proposed renaming of Hull City to “Hull Tigers”, and potentially even moves by many clubs to develop new stadiums, may not be able to happen without fan approval.
8. Examine the relationship between club interests, league systems and their place within the overall football pyramid.
This is an incredibly vague way of saying “we want to stop clubs from being able to go and form a European Super League” - which I guess is the point of the whole Review.
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