Public scrutiny heaped on football clubs is forcing their finance directors to pay more attention on corporate governance than if they worked outside the sport, the recent report by BDO has shown.
According to the ‘A New Dawn for Fair Play?’ report, nearly two thirds of the 66 finance directors surveyed said they are more focused on their corporate governance than if they were to work in the same sized business outside of football.
Public scrutiny heaped on football clubs is forcing their finance directors to pay more attention on corporate governance than if they worked outside the sport, the recent report by BDO has shown.
According to the ‘A New Dawn for Fair Play?’ report, nearly two thirds of the 66 finance directors surveyed said they are more focused on their corporate governance than if they were to work in the same sized business outside of football.
Almost all of those surveyed said they regarded their club as a public interest business, with a third of English Premier League respondents having a remunerated non-executive on their club’s board.
‘To some extent, the perceived higher than average level of public interest faced by football clubs manifests itself in a focus on good corporate governance, as reflected in the relatively high number of paid non-executive directors,’ says Trevor Birch, insolvency partner at BDO, and lead practitioner on the Portsmouth FC administration.
Against that one could argue that there have been plenty of examples of poor governance, both in the club level and in the game as a whole. Many clubs no doubt follow best practice, but the overall standard remains uneven.