EFL writes to Badenoch to question Tory U-turn on football regulator
The EFL has written to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to express surprise at the party’s U-turn on support for an independent football regulator.
The Football Governance Bill was first introduced by the last Tory government but has faced growing opposition from Conservative peers in the House of Lords.
Badenoch, meanwhile, has described the proposed football regulator as “a waste of money” and said that she is “opposed to it personally”.
It comes as the bill continues its passage through parliament, with a third reading in the Lords believed to be pencilled in for the end of the month.
“We’ve written to the leader,” said EFL chair Rick Parry, “to say we were surprised that she’d come out against the bill having said that she’d spoken to people in football who thought it was a waste of time.
“We did point out that she hadn’t spoken to anybody at the EFL so she hadn’t taken our views on board and that we would like a meeting to explain our perspective, so that she could take a more balanced view.”
Parry said the EFL, which runs the three professional divisions below the Premier League, was still awaiting a response from Badenoch and added that the degree of resistance from Tory peers had also taken them aback.
“I think some of the stuff in the Lords has been surprising with the strength of Tory opposition, remembering that it broadly was a Tory bill,” he added.
“Whether that would have happened last time when it got to the Lords or not, who knows? That’s entirely hypothetical but I think we have been a little surprised. Whether it makes a major difference, we’ll know in due course.”
Opposition to the bill has ranged from concern that it may weaken the Premier League to attempts to make it a hybrid bill, potentially stalling it for years, which Parry called “chilling” and “dangerous”.
Badenoch’s camp said that the letter had been received at the end of February and that one of the shadow sport team would take the meeting.
A spokesperson added: “Kemi ran for leader of the Conservative Party on a platform of ‘governments should do fewer things but better’ and she is instinctively opposed to new regulation when she believes government should be deregulating more.”
The EFL has been encouraged by the government’s refusal to backtrack over issues including parachute payments and a backstop to resolve the deadlock over a new financial redistribution deal, and Parry insisted some Tories still supported it.
He added: “There’s a few former Tory MPs who were backing the bill – their bill – last time, Tory MPs from the Red Wall, from Northern towns that recognise the value of clubs to their communities – Accrington, Carlisle, Grimsby, Middlesbrough, etc.
“I think they are making the point that they have, perhaps, to be re-elected one day, and they actually understand why they were backing the bill in the first place, and perhaps think that it’s something the Tories might want to revisit.”