Independent Football Regulator

[Piethagoram]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64536218

 

[liampie]

these things tend to be a joke though, someone will get the higher up job and just be a stooge for the fa or whoever.

we need football minds coming in and helping, with people who understand business. its about time english football acted on the amount of shoddy owners clubs have had but it needs to be carefully planned out. with people who are unbiased and care about football, not hidden agendas.

[Chris]

The main purposes of the proposed new regulator will be:

• Stopping English clubs from joining closed-shop competitions, which are judged to harm the domestic game
• Preventing a repeat of financial failings seen at numerous clubs, notably the collapses of Bury and Macclesfield
• Introducing a more stringent owners' and directors' test to protect clubs and fans
• Giving fans power to stop owners changing a club's name, badge and traditional kit colours
• Ensuring a fair distribution of money filters down the English football pyramid from the Premier League

I especially like the outlined points.

No English club should be allowed to join any competition which the FA/Clubs don't approve.

The financial side needs exploring more. I personally think it will be hard to completely get rid of, so having some kind of fund collected maybe through TV rights or annual fees could go towards building such a fund to provide some kind of security.

Vetting owners is a difficult one. It's one thing checking if a potential owner has the money to fund a club - I don't think they factor in what happens if a smaller club grows too quickly without the right backing. Yet someone may have the funds for 3-5 seasons and bankruptcy is another obstacle to navigate. My point is, whatever is done needs to apply common sense and at least factor in the worst case scenario.

I am all for giving fans the power to have a say within their club, but I wonder how this would be handled.

If you gave season ticket holders a vote, you would make those overseas or otherwise unable to attend to vote disgruntled. Public voting also has the risk of being hi-jacked by nefarious people. If you create a committee or operate it through a fan group, it's not really fair either. Proving to be something with good intentions, but ultimately difficult to apply practically.

This for me is the easiest and most practical point, how money filters down the football pyramid.

Even to the grass root levels, if we as a nation are to compete with other developed nations - we need to do more in this area to ensure success. There's been striving for at least a decade with the likes of Basford and Anorld Town - yet it doesn't quite filter below.

If we're just speaking about 'Football League' I would be disappointed.

A percentage should be assigned to funnel down, guaranteeing a certain amount for the lower tier teams. I don't think Championship teams are hard off; it's League One and Two that suffers the most.

[TheSkipper]

Achieving this goal is a challenging task, whether it is done by a single person or a committee. Nonetheless, I hope it can be accomplished.

[Robbie]

This is a very important piece of news and should be a really good topic for discussion.

This topic could be linked to several other discussions covering the problems within English football at this time, the big clubs getting richer and all the other clubs in the football pyramid being left behind, the lack of money filtering down from the Premier League.VAR not yet perfected, and last but not least, the Fair Play Rules that don't seem to be fair at all, if your not a rich club.

Personally, I think these proposals are more for preventing the rich clubs leaving to join a Super League, rather than fixing problems within the game.

I don't think the authorities will want to change much apart from preventing a Super League. The FA will want the PL to remain the top league in the World and it needs to generate money to remain at the top. So I believe the status quo will remain for the foreseeable future, with smaller clubs continuing to struggle.

It's a sad conclusion to come to, but who is going to stand up to the big clubs and their owners and make the changes that would make the game fairer & much more competitive?