FairSquare has offered its full support to proposed amendments to the Football Governance Bill, formulated by the Fair Game organisation, ahead of the bill’s formal second reading in the UK House of Lords on Wednesday 13 November.

Fair Game is an initiative composed of English football clubs with the aim of improving the governance of national football. Their proposals on the Football Governance Bill would significantly strengthen the bill and address a wide range of critical issues, not least state ownership, multi-club ownership, the women’s game, and the environment. The recommendations include:

• Explicitly ruling out state ownership of football clubs;
• Ensuring clubs have a “corporate responsibility requirement”, which would require clubs to incorporate considerations of the society and the environment into their decision-making processes;
• Mandating the regulator to conduct an examination into the financial consequences of multi-club ownership and its impact on the integrity of competitions.
• Providing the regulator with the power to look at potential regulation of the Women’s Game;
• Ensuring that the Regulator’s board, its expert panel and its employers are all devoid of any influence and vested interest

FairSquare co-director Nick McGeehan said:

“Fair Game’s proposed amendments would turbochage the effectiveness of the Football Governance Bill. Their recommendations on state ownership align with our key concern, but they go much further on multiple issues of critical concern and we have no hesitation in endorsing them in their entirety.”

FairSquare concerns on state ownership and multi-club ownership

FairSquare has consistently advocated for the prohibition of state ownership of football clubs, and in March 2023 wrote to the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport setting out the case for outlawing it, in response to the previous government’s White Paper on the reform of club governance in England, which did not address state ownership. The letter outlined four key concerns: states’ use of force and aggression; the prospect of multi-club ownership and ramifications for competitive integrity; the financially destabilising impact of state ownership; and the use of clubs as branding vehicles for abusive states.

In April 2024, along with the Saudi Arabian human rights organisation ALQST for Human Rights and NUFC against Sportswashing, FairSquare called on the previous government to drop Clause 37 from the bill – which would have required the football regulator to take into account the UK’s foreign policy and trade objectives when carrying out its mandate with respect to football club ownership. The groups argued that the Clause could have the effect of increasing state ownership of English football clubs, and would likely “politicise the independent regulator and leave English clubs inextricably entwined with the UK’s foreign policy.”

It was reported in October 2024 that Clause 37 had been dropped from the bill.

In February 2023 FairSquare wrote to UEFA urging them to enforce their rules prohibiting multi-club ownership in the context of a proposed takeover of Manchester United by a Qatar-based consortium.