Football Governance Bills [Lords]: Second Reading

Proposed by The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Today is a day of celebration for football fans in towns, villages and cities across England. Football would be nothing without the fans, and today we put them back at the heart of the game, where they belong. Football is genuinely our national… I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Today is a day of celebration for football fans in towns, villages and cities across England. Football would be nothing without the fans, and today we put them back at the heart of the game, where they belong. Football is genuinely our national game—it is the beating heart of our communities, a core part of what it means to be British, and one of our greatest exports. English football lights up the world through the premier league, and it lights up lives in every community through the magic that clubs bring, from the biggest in the world to our smallest grassroots clubs. However, while we celebrate the global success of the premier league, there is deep concern at every level of the footballing world about the fragility of the wider foundations of the game, which threatens its global success and the success of the whole game itself. Since 1992, 60 clubs in the top four divisions have been plunged into administration, and behind that is the stark reality that fans have lived with for too long: that of being just one bad owner away from collapse. In my town of Wigan, we are no strangers to that; in recent years, we have fought two long, lonely battles to save our club. What I saw and learned over those long and difficult months appalled me, with rogue owners, asset-stripping administrators, and fans who were put last when they should have been first. In Reading, Fleetwood, Derby, Morecambe, Macclesfield, Chester and Bury are fans who have lived with a daily drumbeat of anxiety as leagues failed to come to agreement, owners came and went, and the systems set up to protect the fans failed one by one. We promised those fans that we would put an end to that. Today, we make good on that promise by bringing to this House a historic piece of legislation that has been far too long coming and putting fans back at the heart of the game, where they belong.

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