Can a football regulator save the beautiful game?

English football will soon have an independent regulator, with the power to block clubs from joining breakaway leagues and also try and prevent teams from going out of business. The football watchdog is part of plans set out in the government’s white paper, published today. For a struggling Tory party, this presents a golden opportunity to stand up for the game’s working-class supporters in provincial towns and post-industrial communities. It will also spark much-needed life into the Tories’ flagging levelling-up and social-cohesion agendas.

Plans for a regulator to protect the beautiful game are overdue. Following the August 2019 expulsion of Bury FC and the High Court’s winding-up of Macclesfield Town in September 2020 – two clubs in north-west England formed in 1885 and 1874 respectively – it was clear that English football’s fragmented system of self-governance was not fit for purpose. Financial mismanagement has been allowed to fester in the game, with local clubs all too often reduced to the playthings of irresponsible owners and reckless directors.