Professional Football (Regulation)

Many of these ideas obviously ought to be on the table. I can think of arguments for and against such revenue sharing; as a Manchester United supporter, my instinct is to say no to it. However, the reality is that football needs to see itself as a totality. No one club can compete against itself. I am sure that I will not be popular in my own constituency for saying this, but if Liverpool FC was to go out of business, it would actually not be in the interests of Manchester United or Manchester City, because we need quality teams to play against, however frustrating it is on those occasions when the wrong result emerges from those contests with Liverpool FC—they emerge less now than they did previously. Another issue is almost bizarre, and I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to look at it. Tax relief is available for those who buy football clubs with leveraged bids. It is preposterous that we are allowing rapacious corporate raiders to come in and use tax relief as a way of gearing their acquisition of otherwise financially sound clubs. Quite frankly, we ought to get rid of that tax relief in this industry. Across the board, let us go back to the football taskforce and its majority report and to the all-party group on football's recommendations. Let us consider those recommendations and that report quite seriously, and let us begin to say that we will implement them. I want to conclude with a couple of specific propositions. We have got to look at the models for protecting supporters' interests that exist elsewhere. In Germany, for example, a club's supporters have the golden share, which prevents abuse by the German football clubs against the interests of their natural support base. That makes a real difference. Germany has bigger crowds and lower ticket prices than this country does. Ticket prices come up, time after time, among ordinary fans here, because they feel that they are being ripped off. We also need to look at the Barcelona model or, if people prefer, the John Lewis model of share ownership, which establishes ownership among the ordinary supporters. [Interruption.] I will not venture further down that path. However, it is important that we look at the different models that exist. Whatever happens, we must ensure that the supporter can be included. I was once a shareholder of Manchester United; that shareholding was liquidated, under company law, when the present owners took over the club. I had a nominal shareholding as a matter of tribal loyalty or tribal support, not because I wished to take over the club or run it.