From the future of the global economy to energy security and defence spending, the shock of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is provoking a dizzying rethink of policy priorities and assumptions. The Roman Abramovich-related crisis at Chelsea FC might seem a minor subplot when tectonic plates of such magnitude are shifting. But football’s global reach and modern geopolitical dimensions make it much more than that. The perfectly timed spectacle of last week’s fixture between sanctioned Chelsea and Newcastle United – owned by Riyadh’s sovereign wealth fund – marked a moral nadir for the game, coming one day after Saudi Arabia executed 81 people. It was also shaming for this country. In football, too, a paradigm shift is needed.
The tools to effect this – or at least start the job now – are within the government’s grasp. Last April, six leading clubs attempted to join the reviled European Super League project; the horror of their own supporters demonstrated an underlying outrage among fans at the direction the sport has taken. The government set up the fan-led Crouch review on football governance. (As the review panel deliberated on where the game had lost its way, the Premier League waved through the takeover of Newcastle by the fund, chaired by the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.)
Published in November, the review calls for the establishment of an independent regulator of the game. The independent regulator for English football (IREF) would be able to examine new potential owners according to various criteria, including an “integrity test”; the judgment would be one of whether prospective buyers would be “suitable custodians of vital community assets”. Tracey Crouch, the Conservative MP who is chair of the review panel, believes that had an integrity test been in place at the time of the Newcastle takeover, better “stress-testing” would have taken place.
The Premier League has resisted the proposal (one club director denounced it as “Maoism”). But oligarchs, authoritarian states and – in the case of the Glazer family at Manchester United – asset-strippers, have run rings round the league’s own “fit and proper” test for ownership. This was originally designed to weed out small-time fraudsters and charlatans at lower league level, but has merely operated as a fig leaf of respectability while the game changed beyond recognition. The extraordinary influx of wealth has been amorally treated as a boon for everyone lucky enough to be associated with the richest league in the world.
The unprecedented turmoil of the last fortnight should strengthen the government’s resolve to follow up on Ms Crouch’s recommendations. They should be in the next Queen’s speech, and a specific human rights dimension should be incorporated into the IREF’s role. Legislation to introduce a regulator would help to ensure the kind of protection appropriate to cherished national institutions. Politicians often talk about footballers’ responsibility to be role models; what about the clubs themselves? Other Crouch measures – such as a fans’ golden share giving a veto over matters vital to the identity of a club, including the stadium’s location and team colours – would begin to restore a democratic balance between the aristocrats who run clubs and the serfs who fill them.
The fate of Chelsea is now subject to a bidding war. But all the focus has been on the wealth of the various corporate entities and hedge funds involved rather than what is best for the fans and the wider game. All but a few hundred Chelsea supporters were excluded on Saturday from attending a classic English football occasion – the FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough – because their sanctioned club is for the time being unable to sell tickets. The ultimate outcome of the deeply unedifying episode that began when Mr Abramovich bought the club in 2003 must be a moral recalibration in the governance of the game.
