The idea of a football regulator is back on the agenda, and from a rather unlikely source, Conservative shadow culture minister Hugh Robertson. He advanced the idea on a ‘sports ministers special’ on Radio 5, citing problems such as the burden of debt and the inadequacies of the fit and proper person test. The idea was originally advanced by the Football Task Force set up by New Labour when it came into office, but was not taken any further.
The idea of a football regulator is back on the agenda, and from a rather unlikely source, Conservative shadow culture minister Hugh Robertson. He advanced the idea on a ‘sports ministers special’ on Radio 5, citing problems such as the burden of debt and the inadequacies of the fit and proper person test. The idea was originally advanced by the Football Task Force set up by New Labour when it came into office, but was not taken any further.
It doesn’t fit well with Conservative ideas of rolling back ‘the nanny state’ and having less regulation, but it may simply be an exercise in populist vote seeking. Sport is the area of modern society where self-regulation is most prevalent. It may be that any government elected in May will simply use the threat of regulation to encourage the FA to get its own house in order, although that hasn’t been very effective as a tactic up to now.