Will Keir Starmer get me banned from football games?

Last Saturday, I made the 400-mile round trip to Burnley with my 16-year-old son Charlie to see Queens Park Rangers play the Clarets. Quite a long way to go, given that Burnley was one of three teams relegated from the Premier League last season and are expected to go straight back up, while QPR are struggling to remain in the second tier. Nevertheless, we managed to hold them to a goalless draw, which the visiting fans celebrated as if we’d just won the FA Cup. ‘Worth the trip,’ declared Charlie as we embarked on the four-hour train ride home.

I treasure these day trips with my youngest, crisscrossing the country to watch our beloved Rs, but there may not be many more. I don’t just mean that he’s getting older. I’m also thinking of the Football Governance Bill, resurrected by Sir Keir Starmer after falling by the wayside in the last parliament. Among the reams of red tape it will impose is a requirement that all clubs submit a ‘corporate governance statement’ to the newly created Independent Football Regulator that will explain ‘what action the club is taking to improve equality, diversity and inclusion’ (EDI). All this in the name of ‘protecting’ fans, if the government’s rhetoric is to be believed.

Judging from the behaviour of Newcastle United, this clause will do everything but protect fans. In fact, it could result in tens of thousands being banned from attending games because their political views put them at odds with their club’s EDI policy – which I imagine will include me. Last year, Newcastle slapped a two-season ban on a fan called Linzi Smith because she’d expressed her belief in the biological reality of sex. Now, if she’d marched up to a trans woman at a football match and told them that trans women cannot be women, perhaps the club might be justified.