The former chairman of the Football Association, David Bernstein, has warned that the government will “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” if it waters down plans for a regulator.
A reading of the Football Governance Bill in Parliament is believed to be imminent after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed off the plans, which include an independent regulator, this week.
But Bernstein, who chaired the FA from 2011 to 2013, fears that the watchdog will not be given the power it needs to protect the financial health of English football.
“That bill needs to include, we believe, the regulator to have the authority or the power to deal with a lot of financial issues, as well as everything else,” he told City A.M. in an interview to be published tomorrow.
“If I have a concern about all this, it’s that the government will compromise and the regulator will not be given sufficient power to deal with what is absolutely key: the money side of all this.
“For the government to pull back and compromise, if that’s what they do, I think is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
“You’ve got something here that’s really radical and needs to be dealt with properly. If we end up with a compromised situation, I think it’ll make the whole thing a bit of a damp squib.”
Bernstein says a regulator should have powers to decide how money is redistributed, amid a long-running stand-off between the Premier League and the English Football League.
“To expect a reasonable dialogue between the Premier League and Football League is like expecting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate on an equal basis,” he added.
Sunak signed off on plans for a football regulator this week