The coming revolution in English football: Real or aesthetic?

There is plenty of movement in the Premier League. The British government is expected to publish a reform plan for English football next week.

The Sun has previewed what some of those changes are: more scrutiny of new club owners, giving fans a greater say in decision-making, the creation of a body to oversee financial transactions and a ban on joining outside leagues such as the European Super League.

“After the Super League ordeal, a report was commissioned from a Conservative MP, Tracey Crouch. She made a report that had many recommendations, the main one being the introduction of an independent football watchdog. The report was stopped because the Premier League and the top clubs opposed it but the fans have kept pushing and it looks like it will now go ahead,” journalist Ilie Oleart of the English media tells MARCA.

“We need more transparency, and this will come with the new regulation,” said Tracey Crouch, former Minister for Culture and Sport. “It is important to know where the money comes from. That’s why there were always doubts about Roman Abramovich, for example.”

This is the theory, of course. “When they say they will give more of a say to the fans, it will be a veto on changes of name or badge, for example,” Ilie said. The rest of the measures will not be so easy to implement.

Control body

“The independent body, for example… we have to see exactly what its powers are and, above all, how it can force clubs to follow its rules. The Premier League, for example, has not been able to sanction Manchester City for all its accounting tricks,” Ilie Oleart explains to MARCA.

According to the document to which The Sun has had access, the new regulations will prevent new owners from entering the league who are unable to prove where their wealth comes from. On the other hand, a new test will be introduced that will take into account aspects hitherto unheard of, such as respect for human rights… a subject much discussed in the Premier League when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought Newcastle United.

Voice and vote for fans

But one important point that seems likely to go ahead is that of giving fans a voice and a vote, something that until now has hardly been a reality. Fans will be able to stop moves such as changing the design of the shirts or the crest.

They will also have the backing of an independent regulator, funded by the clubs’ own taxes, which will be responsible for deciding whether new owners are suitable for a club, whether fans are having a say and for preventing teams from joining new competitions.

However, “many of these measures are ‘aesthetic’. The licensing of clubs or the control of the owners, for example. And we’ll see what happens with financial control…”, says Ilie Oleart, who is not very convinced.

Measures such as these are partly intended to avoid the economic collapses that the English football pyramid has been suffering since it was updated in 1992. Since then, citing data from ‘EFE’, 60 clubs have gone bankrupt. The idea is to put this new regulation in place for the start of the 2024/25 season.