A football regulator is bad news for the beautiful game

It will stop shady oligarchs and brutal autocracies buying up clubs simply to whitewash their reputations. It will ensure financial stability and fair play between the teams. And it will protect local fans, many of whom have been standing on windswept terraces for years, from seeing their teams turned into mere units of anonymous global corporations. In the wake of the Super League fiasco, and the sanctioning of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, it is not hard to understand why the government has today announced the creation of an Independent Football Regulator with sweeping power to oversee the national game. But hold on. Like all regulators, while it is no doubt well intended, it will have unforeseen consequences. This plan risks destroying one of the UK’s few booming global industries. 

Boris Johnson’s government has shifted so far in favour of state control, intervention, and busy-body rule-making that a regulatory body for football was probably only a matter of time.