By: Callum McGoldrick, researcher
We have been told that the ‘adults are back in the room’ now that we once again have a Labour government, but who exactly are these adults? In the two months since Keir Starmer received the keys to No.10 we have seen the announcement of GB Energy, the creation of a new Sovereign Wealth Fund and, continuing on from the last government, a new independent football regulator.
The announcement of the new football regulator came with all of the usual buzzwords associated with a regulatory quango. It will be an ‘independent watchdog’ promoting ‘fairness’ and operating on a ‘sustainable footing’. Questions must be asked as to what this means in practice though, namely who will the regulator be independent from? Calls for the regulator stem from the belief that the ‘big six’ premier league teams have too much influence over football and the current leading body in the UK, the FA.
Some think then that the regulator should be independent from teams. Would this then mean that the body is unable to cooperate properly with the teams it regulates due to fears at being seen to be too influenced by big clubs? FIFA requires governments to stay out of footballing associations; they have even suspended entire nations from FIFA competitions for government interference. It is therefore quite concerning that the draft bill requires the regulator to consult the relevant secretary of state before taking any decisions involving the enforcement of its rules.
It is particularly worrying that there are so many calls for a new regulator in football, especially given the success of the premier league. While there are some notable examples of clubs failing, the premier league has operated exceedingly well, generated billions of pounds each year for the UK and has consistently been ranked in the top ten most valuable sports leagues in the world.
Some of the regulator's new powers will see the wealth generated by the premier league distributed further down the footballing pyramid, as it will have oversight of the top five tiers in English football. This already exists in the form of parachute payments and could be amended by existing bodies to better suit all of the competitions though, without the need for a new regulator. Given the existence of FIFA, UEFA, the FA and all of the respective leagues, what could one more regulator possibly achieve? Additionally, what do civil servants know about regulating football?
The proposed football regulator is just the latest in a very long line of regulators many of whom have the exact same questions looming over them leading to no desirable outcome ever being reached. Currently the UK has over 90 regulators, controlling every sector from fishing to television. It is worth noting that some regulators are needed, such as those that ensure safety in medicines and standards in schools, but even with these excluded we have seen an explosion in regulatory bodies. This explosion included the morphing and merging of some existing organisations into ‘independent’ regulators, such as the Bank of England and OFCOM, as well as the creation of new regulators from whole cloth, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
The rise in these regulators is predominantly due to two reasons.The first is that politicians want to shirk responsibility. Keir Starmer has repeatedly said that “tough decisions must be taken” in the course of repairing the damage he claims was done under the last government. Most of his policy announcements though have focused on increasing the cost of public sector workers and creating new quangos to perform functions previously done by governments.
By outsourcing, government officials believe that they can avoid public scrutiny and the public backlash that accompanies tough decisions. The latter will be particularly pertinent to Starmer following the hostility to the cutting of the winter fuel payment. When a regulator makes an unpopular decision, ministers can simply say “well WE didn’t want this to happen, it wasn’t US but the experts say we must do this.”
In practice, we know that regulators are often far from impartial and far from independent. From alleged targeted attacks on GB News to the revolving door between the regulators and government positions, such as Mark Carney being chosen to work on the new British wealth fund, the links run deep between regulators and the government. It is no surprise that the proposed football regulator will be accountable to the secretary of state then.
The second reason is the belief that more regulation is the solution to failing regulation. This is a highly pernicious idea and will only lead to more expensive regulators who fail on an even grander scale. The proposed budget for the new regulator is around £10 million, when looking at the cost of court proceedings to the premier league, this budget could be used up in a matter of weeks.
Currently, regulators cost billions with the largest ones costing hundreds of millions on their own, but what do we have to show for this? People are still unhappy with the services they regulate and more regulation will not solve the problem. While there is a need to ensure laws are followed, bloated and costly regulators seem to only fail.
Unfortunately there only seems to be one direction of travel under the new government. Difficult decisions are often unpopular, at least in the short term, and outsourcing these decisions to quangos and regulators appears to be the preferred method for Starmer. While the new government rarely lasts five minutes without reminding us of the failures of the previous 14 years, they seem all too keen to keep some of its worst ideas, the football regulator being a prime example.