Another victory for the regulatory state?

Sports lawyer Daniel Geey provides excellent in depth analysis of developments in football and his latest post looks at the efforts of the Premier League to move towards its own financial regulatory framework. He identifies a number of unanswered questions relating to their proposals.

Sports lawyer Daniel Geey provides excellent in depth analysis of developments in football and his latest post looks at the efforts of the Premier League to move towards its own financial regulatory framework. He identifies a number of unanswered questions relating to their proposals.

He identifies three main drivers of this trend in what was formerly a competition dedicated to a laissez-faire, free market model.   First, clubs don’t want to see all the money from the new television deal going into the pockets of players and their agents.  Second, at least half the clubs in the top flight may be aiming to get into a Uefa competition and therefore need to comply with their financial fair play rules anyway. Third, there is the general mood of prudence and austerity.   You can’t binge when everyone else is being asked to tighten their belts.

Over a decade ago Manchester University’s Mick Moran wrote a book called The Regulatory State.  He traced the inexorable growth of regulation, a trend the Manchester City supporter saw as positive: he has since modified his stance.   He thought that sport was a bit of a stand out area, but EU regulation, government regulation and self-regulation as a more palatable alternative to the first two is on the increase.