Professional Football (Regulation)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I saw that work when I watched my local club at Aldershot, where perhaps it is understandable to see Help for Heroes, and Dagenham and Redbridge in recent months. I vouch for that being a tremendous initiative. Those who do not subscribe to the obsession that we football fans share will perhaps fail to understand the passion and growing concern that many of us have about the game and its future. There are serious questions to be asked about the morality and values underpinning the game, particularly in the premier league. The people's game has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past 18 years since the formation of the premier league and there is an unprecedented and probably unbridgeable gulf between the top clubs and the run-of-the-mill premiership teams, let alone clubs playing outside the top flight. I fear that is partly due to the lack of competition that has been referred to. It is the direct result of lax governance and an absence of effective regulation. There are no wage, squad size or registration restrictions—a state of affairs unknown in other sports around the world, from Aussie rules football to US baseball, as the hon. Gentleman said. Before discussing the potential reforms that could improve the situation, we must take a step back and consider how we got to this point. A key contributor to the radical change in English football is the huge revenue incomes of premier league clubs, in comparison with their Football League counterparts. To indicate the scale of that revenue, premiership clubs receive £2.8 billion, split between 20 teams over a three-year contract. In stark contrast, the Football League's latest contract is worth £88 million annually, divided between 72 clubs. Crystal Palace, here in London, are the latest club to enter administration. They join a host of clubs that have experienced that traumatic fate in recent years, including Leeds, Southampton, Rotherham United, AFC Bournemouth and Luton, which is no longer in the league. Premier league clubs have hitherto only flirted with that prospect and we all await the fate of Portsmouth today. The sole difference is that the premiership clubs, by virtue of the vast sums of TV money, tend to have a greater ability to attract some form of bail-out. One of the few pieces of regulation that premier league clubs adopted from the Football League is the fit and proper persons test. However, that is more honoured in the breach and is in urgent need of attention. Half of premiership clubs are foreign owned, often involving dubious investment made by cagey consortiums. It seems that the need for immediate cash-flow relief renders the test optional rather than compulsory. Even at home, it is noticeable how much money talks. Last month, David Gold and David Sullivan completed their takeover of West Ham United. Twenty years ago, a similar approach by the same duo was rejected out of hand because they were regarded as below the salt, their money having been made in soft porn publishing. Today, they are rightly perceived as transparent and legitimate investors in football and as preferable to the many foreign and shady owners.