State of The Game

Once in a lifetime events are rare in everyday life, but even rarer in football.
Some that spring to mind are an 18 year-old Pele inspiring Brazil to their first World Cup, Johann Cruyff unleashing Total Football in 1974 with The Netherlands, Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup and of course England winning the World Cup.

Now we are bearing witness to another, the creation of an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) for the top 5 divisions on English Football.

The IFR is being set up by the government with the aims: ‘to protect and promote the financial soundness of regulated clubs, to protect and promote the financial resilience of English football and to safeguard the heritage of English football’.

The majority of their job appears to hinge on ensuring that owners of football clubs are more like Brentford’s Matthew Benham and a lot less like the messes that have happened recently at Charlton, Reading and Hull.

The IFR will have no influence on the ‘on-pitch’ side of football, but will be introducing financial regulations that will aim to stop any more clubs going the way of Bury, including the ability to include parachute payments in any solutions to the financial stability of clubs in dire need if necessary.

They will hope to avoid the use of those payments through the regulations they will implement, including a new owner’s and director’s test to ensure clubs are in the care of people who deserve to protect these most important of community assets. Lets hope this new test is more effective than the EFL’s current one.

Fan engagement is another big focus of this bill and the IFR, with clubs now to be required to ‘consult their supporters on ticket prices as well as any proposal to relocate their home ground’. That requirement to consult supporters on ticket prices will be welcomed across the country with the current cost of living and the long standing ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign.

How many of the other innovations of the new IFR will be similarly welcomed remains to be seen, but for anyone hoping this announcement will bring swift and sweeping changes to the financial structure of English football will be disappointed.

The first substantial regulation changes won’t come into effect till 2027 as the IFR has been given till the end of 2026 to compile and publish it’s first ‘state of the game report’.

Once that report hits then the real work begins and it’s on contributing to that report and ensuring it reflects the true experience of the everyday fan and not just the prawn sandwich brigade that should now be our focus.