Whether it’s the gambling white paper putting advertisers off snooker or plans for a new football regulator, our favourite sports risk being legislated out of existence, says Emma Revell
When it comes to my two favourite sports, this week has been a game of two halves. On one hand, I’m a long-suffering Sunderland fan. With yet another defeat at the weekend and play-off hopes long since vanished, I’m just keen for the season to end.
On the other hand, for snooker fans like me, all eyes have been on the World Championships in Sheffield – the hallowed ground that is the Crucible Theatre.
There are many contradictions between my two favourite sports. For a start, football has an increasingly female fan base – with the highest levels of the women’s game selling out the biggest stadiums whenever they are given a chance. Female snooker players are unheard of at the very top level; female fans in their early thirties aren’t rare, but we’re not exactly commonplace.
Football is best enjoyed out loud and at scale – as part of the throng in the away end of a rival’s ground, singing the same songs, chanting the same names and cheering the same goals. Snooker, on the other hand, is enjoyed in rigidly enforced silence and often alone. In-person crowds are small, even for the major events, and the lucky few will be rapidly shushed if they cough, wrinkle a sweet packet, or – god forbid – forget to put their phone on silent. For most fans, snooker is something they watch on TV, not in real life.
But one thing they both share, like so many other things in Britain today, is the very real chance that government regulation could do them real harm. Snooker history is littered with sponsors long-since shunned when fashions, tastes, and government regulation drove them out of the game. The 2005 ban on tobacco advertising nearly pushed snooker to the edge, with prize pots obliterated and tournaments scarce. While the gambling white paper published last year raises the very real prospect of a gambling sponsorship ban, the lack of government action and limited time before the election mean that worry has been kicked into the long grass.
A more immediate concern is the Football Governance Bill and the proposed Independent Football Regulator (IFR). The Bill was introduced to Parliament earlier this month and comes off the back of recommendations made by the independent fan-led review of football governance, which was commissioned in the fallout over the European Super League and following concerns over a small number of clubs entering administration.
Setting aside the fact that administration is rare in English football, and that in any other walk of life we accept failure as a natural potential outcome of running a business, there are several fronts on which the IFR as currently proposed is open for criticism.
Firstly, it’s far from clear that English football needs a new regulator. The government claims the Bill is a response to concerns over the financial mismanagement, the European Super League, and “changes to club names, badges and colours against the wishes of fans”. Now financial mismanagement, fair enough, but the ESL? As much as I hate the idea, I’m not sure it should be illegal. And concerns over club colours and badges? Talk about a hammer to crack a nut – the market should be enough to see most of those ideas dead on arrival! Indeed Cardiff City, the club this most prominently applies to, ditched their red kits and dragon emblem after just three seasons, such was the anger from fans and resulting negative press. And yes, the Premier League and EFL have yet to agree changes to the agreement which sees 16 per cent of PL revenue cascaded down to lower leagues, but the EFL are pushing for 25 per cent.
Secondly, there is a real danger that the Bill as currently drafted will actually make investment in the Premier League, and their resulting investment in the rest of England’s football pyramid, less appealing and less likely.
The Bill proposes the new regulator publish a ‘state of the game report’ – basically a review of main issues affecting English football alongside proposals for further reform – every three years. Most regulators operate on a five- or ten-year cycle, giving certainty to the sector for a reasonable period of time and allowing any changes time to bed in so their impact can be properly assessed.
Without a longer review cycle, clubs and investors are likely to hold off on any large financial transactions like buy-outs, signing new players, investing in stadium upgrades, and crucially investing in the broader game, in case new, tighter financial regulations are coming soon. If you’re an outside investor facing such uncertainty, you might be better off turning your attention towards Serie A or the Bundesliga
The impact of regulation on sports like snooker and football is hard to pinpoint, not least because successive governments have done such a terrible job of conducting the basic impact assessments which are supposed to provide evidence that the full costs and benefits have been considered. In this case, the government has only published the impact assessment for their preferred, heavy-handed regulator. No counterfactual exists to show much different, and potentially better, a lighter-touch regulator could be.
I’m sympathetic to concerns that dyed in the wool fans have less and less influence over the direction of their beloved clubs but that is a consequence of the success of English football. Gone are the days when a club’s main income came from tickets sold to fans who lived within a mile or two of the ground. Football is a global game now. The beautiful game is one of our most successful exports – it’s too important to let a fading government desperate to pass one last piece of legislation take it down with them.
Emma Revell is external affairs director at the Centre for Policy Studies