Leading sports lawyer Nick De Marko has delivered his verdict on the latest update on the New Football Governance Bill, which will impact Premier League outfits including Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham. A new strengthened bill has been announced and is set to return to parliament on Thursday.
The changes to the original bill include the inclusion of parachute payments. There will also be greater fan engagement, with clubs requires to engage more effectively with fans on ticket prices.
The bill, however, will not be involved in the league’s financial control regulations, including the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSRs) that have been in the headlines over the last 12 months. Everton and Nottingham Forest received points deductions last season after being found guilty of being in breach of the regulations.
Newly promoted Leicester City also faced a charge for an alleged breach of the rules. But they won an appeal due to their relegation in 2023 and the rules not applying to them. They will therefore now not receive a points deduction.
The lawyer who represented Leicester in the case against the Premier League, Nick De Marco KC, has now taken to social media to deliver some strong thoughts on the new Football Governance bill. He pointed out the positives from the bill, including the parachute payments, the fan engagement and the regulation of equality, diversity and inclusion in football.
However, De Marko has also pointed the ‘elephant in the room’ in the new regulations as being their reluctance to be involved in the financial controls put in place by the Premier League.
“The (understandable) reluctance of the regulator to get involved in the league’s various financial control regulations is inconsistent with the key justifications for the independent regulation in the first place for three main reasons,” he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
“First, the main justification for the Independent Regulator is to promote financial sustainably. That is also the main justification for the various Profit & Sustainability rules now in place, and those the leagues are considering replacing them with. To have at least two entirely different financial regulation regimes operating on clubs at the same time is irrational and wasteful, may lead to contradiction, and does not address some of the key problems of existing and proposed league financial control schemes.
“Second, the justification for staying out of league financial controls, that the leagues must be responsible for competition rules, does not withstand scrutiny when the existing financial rules are justified on sustainability and not competition grounds, and in many respect can be seen as anti-competitive, where they discourage investment and re-enforce the status quo in terms of bigger established clubs against others.
“Third, most of the significant problems with self-regulation involve those financial rules - including the recent ATP issues, issues arising in the various PSR cases, and the non-alignment of financial rules between the PL and the EFL. There is always a risk that where clubs make the financial control rules in their particular league they shall vote based on individual self-interest, which may involve attempts to hold back competitor clubs. An independent regulator capable of making rational and fair financial control rules to be applied across the leagues, in an aligned and proportionate way, that reflect the Bill’s “light touch” approach seeking to take preventative steps to protect vulnerable clubs from overspending when they cannot afford to do so, rather than seeking to punish clubs with points deductions at the end of every season, would be in wider interests of football.”
He ended with a clear warning to the Premier League over the self-regulation way that rules are currently made. “Despite my reservations, and the concerns others have expressed about the Independent Regulator having the resources to do much in what has become such an expensive business, I remain of the view that the idea of independent regulation has become even more of a necessity today than when the proposals were first discussed,” De Marco added.
“Don’t get me wrong, the Premier League in particular ought to be heavily praised for the commercial product it has developed, one of the best UK exports there is, the richest and most popular football league in the world. Regulation that interferes with that commercial success should be avoided. But the league, its success, and the English pyramid system of football are all threatened by the increasingly abject failure of self-regulation.”