Professional Football (Regulation)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is absolutely the case. A football club represents something of enormous importance to its fans, but it is important also to the wider community in cities such as Manchester or Liverpool. It is probably not well known that Manchester has the highest number of day visitors anywhere in the nation outside London, and one driver for that is certainly the Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs. People come from all over the world to take part in acts of reverence at Old Trafford or—I say with a certain degree of irony—at the City of Manchester stadium. Both are important for our city. Liverpool and Everton are both important for the city of Liverpool, and one could go around the whole footballing family and say the same thing. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christine Russell) tells me that Chester City, which was once a Football League club in its own right, is in danger of being thrown out of the Blue Square league. That is a tragedy. It is unable to field a team because it has not paid the players' wages for some weeks, and that is not untypical.