The interim boss of the incoming football regulator has eased fears of a legal clash with Fifa that risks England being banned from the World Cup following talks with the governing body.
Fifa has suspended nations from international football when their governments have sought to unduly influence the running of the game, and sports law experts have warned that it could take England’s Football Association to task over the regulator’s remit.
But Martyn Henderson, COO of the future independent regulator for English football, said Fifa had given assurances that it would not step in – as long as the watchdog did not interfere with sporting decisions.
“I know Fifa relatively well, I worked closely with them in my previous role,” Henderson, who was previously chief executive of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, told the Fair Game conference in London on Tuesday.
“There’s a cartoon image of Fifa and they’ve earned that to some degree, but nonetheless, actually, they also do a lot of really important, useful and constructive development work and that’s where we collaborated with them.
“I know Fifa relatively well, I’ve been to the headquarters, and I’ve met them in this role. I think I can be relatively reassuring on this.
“What they don’t want is a regulator interfering in sporting competition. They do however recognise there’s a case for regulating what is a very big and successful industry.
“And I’ve found that they have a very constructive attitude. I don’t think you’d see the same provisions in the [football governance] bill had my colleagues not been able to achieve a settlement with them.
“It’s a really important principle for everyone to bear in mind when they’re thinking about their wish list of things that the regulator could do, some things are for the competition owners to do, and if you cross that line, we will have Fifa for Uefa say ‘hang on’.
“The FA is the regulator here. The impact football regulators should be focusing on are financial sustainability, systemic resilience, fan engagement, not getting into sporting matters. I hope I’ve been reassuring about that, but it is a really important line that we can’t cross.”
Henderson was the first senior appointment to the football regulator and started work earlier this year on building out a team that will eventually have around 100 staff. His speech and brief Q&A at the Fair Game event at AFC Wimbledon’s stadium was his first public appearance.
He said he hoped to choose the chair of the regulator before parliament’s summer recess but warned that it would be someone with regulatory expertise to handle anticipated legal challenges rather than a high-profile name from football.
“There’s been a lot of speculation about who might become chair and I won’t add to that here,” Henderson added.
“If you’ve heard of them, I’ll be surprised, because I think a lot of skills, experience and knowledge that we need sits within regulators, within the world of law, and they might not necessarily be household names. They might be, we’ll see.
Fifa has given its blessing to England’s football regulator powers, says interim boss Martyn Henderson
“It will probably be somebody quite surprising. But their appointment will be absolutely key to unlocking the next steps.
“Whatever we determine will be highly contestable, and so there may well be legal challenges ahead for the regulator.
“It’s important to me that we can withstand those challenges. The way we do that is by robust process in terms of how to get those solutions.”