"We can force an owner to sell" - Gary meets the Independent Football Regulator

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2:13Dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Football with me, Gary Lineker. And today, Alistair Campbell from The Rest Is Politics. We have a special episode for you. The Independent Football Regulator has published its first State of the Game report, and its findings are a stark warning to the Premier League and the whole football pyramid. Joining us to discuss the report is the chair of the independent football regulator, David Kogan. David, thank you very much for joining us. You've been pretty busy this last

3:12week or so. I think the first question should be, what is the independent football regulator and what is the core purpose of what you want to do. The obvious idea of it coming through was when a group of owners decided to get involved in the European Super League and there was an immediate reaction from fans and from others against this kind of extreme use of power, which then failed. The other was the failure of Bury. And failure of Bury triggered, in most people I think in football, the realisation that the economics of football have always been crazy. And failure of Barry triggered, in most people, I think, in football, the realization that the economics of football have always been crazy.

3:48It's always ridden massively on debt. And there's always been this belief there was always a tomorrow. There'd either be a new owner coming through, new money coming through. You could trade a player, make money. But actually, football has radically changed. The financing of it's changed. All the money is bigger. All the risks are bigger. All the risks are greater. All the issues are greater. And that led to the regulator being created. And we've got powers that allow us to get lots of information from clubs, get ahead of the game, start getting involved in clubs which are in trouble, and then intervene if they really get in trouble before they go under. So we're about resilience and we're about security. And we're there really to make sure that towns like Bury, towns like Leicester, actually survive with a football League and the EFL, technically insolvent.

4:46And yet, if you look at football's history, all the founder members still there. Just. Still going. So Phil Wednesday got very close. Okay. But I get why you have to write a report that sets out the facts, but is there something about football that actually will allow it to survive for the long term? Well, you would hope so. I mean, I've spent 15 years of my career selling the Premier League's media rights and indeed the EFL's media rights to global markets and to UK broadcasters. And you always say the product is the thing, the clubs are the thing. This is an extraordinary product. You should invest more and more money in it. And it's always going to be that money that will save football going forward. Football today is a £9 billion a year industry. Yet, as you say, 60% of the clubs in the NFL and

5:30the National League are actually facing what would, in a normal business, be serious trouble. So, while the sun is shining, what we want to do is get in there and start fixing the problems. And those problems aren't so much about debt, they're about liquidity. And just to explain what I mean by that, the really stark statistic in this report is that 32 clubs owned by serious owners are trading on 30 days cash cover or less. Now, if you're running any sort of business, if you're running your own household economy and you can't plan your money beyond 30 days, what happens if that owner decides to walk away, as happened with Chancery at Sheffield Wednesday, where he stopped paying players, stopped paying the water bill?

6:09You know, the water pressure at Hillsborough dropped to the point where toilets couldn't be used. So what happens if owners start to withdraw funds or they get hit by a bus? Those clubs immediately are in peril. Football's constant ability to reinvent itself is about having security and planning to allow them to get away from that sort of problem. And that's what we're there to do. So two things. What could you have done to stop Bury suffering the fate that it suffered? Although Bury in a form is still going. Sure. And what could you do to get the water pumps going again? Well, within the report, we look at three specific examples of where you could see at least two seasons prior to the collapse, trouble already building up.

6:49And the fact is that the EFL and the Premier League, but particularly the EFL, obviously had the ability to intervene with those clubs. And what it doesn't have the ability to do, and we do, is get those clubs to give you information every year that's sufficiently detailed, sufficiently early, that you spot trouble before it happens. A lot of what we're going to be doing in the next- But hasn't all the trouble really happened already? No, because what happens is you get an owner that comes in, and I'm not going to, you know, the examples we, Wigan is one example. Actually, Sheffield Wednesday is actually quite a good working example. You know, Chancery brought in Sheffield Wednesday, I think I'm right in saying,

7:22in 2015, and he put a lot of money in, as owners do, trying to win the golden ticket to get into the Premier League. And as a lot of owners do, they discover it's not as easy as it looks. And he failed. Not his fault, not his players' fault. They just were up against better teams who got promoted. And the moment they started to fail, and we see this a lot, the money started to dry up. Now, because we are licensing every club from November, every club in the 116 clubs, we'd be licensing all of them, we have the power to look at a club like Sheffield Wednesday every year, look at its finances, look at its business plans, look at where the cash is going. So we'd be a very early detector of trouble. The PFA and I were talking about this and somebody at PFA said,

8:06you know, we know from our players that when we suddenly see that the form of travel in the club has radically been downgraded or there isn't tape for socks, which actually was an indicator. Well, even when Manchester United was cutting meals for the staff. These actors' amber warning lights that the Eiffel and the Premier League were never going to pick up, we are picking them up all the time. And without going into detail, we have a watch list of clubs. There's a constant watch list where we're getting these indicators. We believe that we will have sufficient knowledge, sufficient insight, and sufficient detail from our team of supervisors. We have one supervisor for seven clubs. That supervisor's job is to be in daily contact

8:45with his or her seven clubs and be an early warning system, get the data we need, and we will then intervene. And that's the big difference. Are you confident of getting everyone on board here? Football in this country has the Premier League, the EFL, it has the FA. The National League. There are so many different bodies and now we've got an independent regulator do you think you will have the power to make a difference actually I do and I so let's talk about first of all there being lots of bodies some of them didn't want us to exist including the Premier League certainly including the Premier League I think now if you were to talk to Richard Masters as I did only this morning at the Premier League at the Premier League. Certainly including the Premier League. I think now, if you were to talk to Richard Masters,

9:26as I did only this morning. At the Premier League. At the Premier League, I'm sorry. And you talk to Rick Parry at the EFL, they will tell you that they think the year and a half that we've been in existence, we have had a reasonably potent impact. And actually, we have been extremely active behind the scenes, dealing with clubs from the National League upwards. And all the bodies who run those leagues now are aware, not only that we're present, but that we're being very active. And we have powers they don't have. Most people did not expect this report to be quite as detailed, quite as long, and quite as effective in identifying real facts and data. And therefore, I think our credibility is pretty high now. But the problem with this job

10:06is every day, every hour of every day, and every week, there is something new. And that credibility so far is okay. We'll see where we are in the course of the next few months. You say you'll intervene. But so for example, your own report, 17 EFL and National League clubs are technically insolvent, even if players weren't being paid. Right. So that is not a feasible business. And that's now. Come back to your earlier question. You're the person who said in football, people always survive, right? Exactly. Who knew there were 17 clubs in that state until this report was published? Good point. Okay. The fans wouldn't have known. So what do you now do about that? So what we're going to do in the case of those clubs,

10:48actually, I think the 32 clubs that are trading on 30 days cash cover, that's an equally big issue, actually. All of those clubs will have to get a license to continue operating as a club. What does that mean? How do you give a license? So if a club comes to you, take my club, Leicester City, a bit of trouble at the moment. They're trying to sell, obviously. So what does that actually really mean, they have to get a license? So the way this works is that from November, we'll go to all 116 clubs. We've got three fairly simple questions. Do you have a business plan? That's a pretty straightforward question, right? You would think they would, wouldn't you? They don't. 60% don't. The second question is, do you have a plan if you're relegated? Any plan. A huge number don't. 60% don't. The second question is, do you have a plan if you're

11:26relegated? Any plan. A huge number don't. And the third one is, do you have a plan if your owner chooses to leave? What is your plan then in terms of your cash so you can survive long enough for another owner to buy you? You could end up in a position where you, the regulator, are the person doing the thing that you were created to help football stop which is places losing their clubs no i don't think so i think what we will be doing is helping those clubs actually find solutions to problems they're not trying to face up to at the moment but what if they don't we will then work with them in terms of knowing what their cash flow is because we will know knowing what their owners plans are which in itself would be a breakthrough in quite a lot of clubs because owners work in a pretty

12:08opaque way in many clubs. And thirdly, we will lay license conditions there. So if the owner wishes to go and own the club, they're going to have to meet our license conditions. And if at that point the owner chooses not to, we will then, and this is part of the new deal that's being discussed between the Premier League and the EFL, there will be access to funds to allow liquidity to be built up so a new owner can be found. So unlike in Bury, where basically the owner just basically wanted to get rid of the club, sell off the ground. And by the way, one key element in all of this is we have powers to stop clubs selling grounds from under the fans and under the club, which is normally the key asset of that club.

12:42Where do these funds come from, Premier League? In the current relationships being discussed between. Where do these funds come from, Premier League? In the current relationships being discussed between the Premier League and the EFL, one of the new components of it is what will be known as a liquidity fund. And that is sufficiently large to allow an independent body, it won't be us, nor will it be the Premier League and the EFL, an independent body to allocate funds to clubs that are on the point of going under, on the point of seeking a new owner. So they've got a landing zone, they've got a breathing space to survive, which is actually the case again from Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield Wednesday got very, very close

13:14when the administrator moved in and not surviving because it didn't have enough funds simply to keep going until a new owner came. So we are going to be dealing with all of these issues, but with enough safety nets built in, that I think our job is to preserve clubs. My job is not to close football clubs down. My job is to help football clubs survive. But Gary's question, are we talking there about government money? Are we talking about money that's going to come from within football? No, from within football. So that's mainly going to be the Premier League. The negotiations have been going on now for five months. So just to go back a step. So four or five months ago, I gave a speech in which I basically said to Miss Queer,

13:50Tony Crossland in 1973, you and I are probably the only people I'll have to remember, the party's over. And the party's over in the sense that the Premier League and the EFL last negotiated a relationship in 2019. And that ran out in 2024. They were due to renegotiate it. They had two attempts to renegotiate it and completely failed. Again, one of the reasons we were created was to actually get the world of football to work with itself to find solutions. So we rock up and I basically said, if you do not find a solution now, we will use the powers in the act that I've got on what is known as the backstop. And the backstop essentially in its final extent is that the regulator can impose a new financing

14:30deal on football. And it is absolutely not my desire to do that because it would be absolutely wrong for a regulator to come in and tell the world of football how to spend its money to help itself. The world of football needed to find its own solutions. And it's been actually an extremely pleasing thing. I've sat in every negotiating meeting for the last five months between the two parties, all of which has been conducted in complete secrecy until recently. And the Premier League is now talking about more than doubling the amount it pays every year in what are known as solidarity payments, money flowing down to the other leagues. And the and is sort of pretty much an agreement on this uh it has put

15:10forward a large fund for redevelopment um which can be spent on anything that clubs in the lower leases spend on either grounds or on youth development or a whole series of other issues so there's a genuine development fund there that clubs can call on. And it has within it a liquidity fund that is there for clubs that get into trouble and need money that will pave their way from the point here under one owner to a brighter future under the next owner. That next owner being, of course, people we have to approve. The key thing about it is the big row between the Premier League and the NFL has been about parachute payments and the gap between those clubs who get rele big row between the Premier League and the EFL has been about parachute

15:45payments and the gap between those clubs who get relegated from the Premier League into the championship and those other championship clubs that don't have it and the huge difference in finance the two have had. Under this arrangement, the amount of money paid in parachute payments will reduce and the amount of money going into the championship will vastly increase. But more than that, there will be what is known as a merit rate. So the top clubs in the championship, just like in the Premier League, get most of the money. As you go down the championship, the amounts of money go from the person who's first to the person who's 24th will start to drop. So basically, the clubs at the top of the championship and the clubs coming down from the premiership, the delta between them,

16:26between parachute payment clubs and non-parachute payment clubs, is going to significantly reduce, which makes the championship a much more competitive league. And to answer Alice's point, none of that money is coming from government. None of our costs come from government. Next week, we'll be putting out the levy where we tell football how much our costs are and how much it has to pay. Everything is paid for by football. You mentioned there, which I found quite interesting, is that you will have a say on new owners coming in. Two questions. One, if the clubs run badly, can you force an owner to sell? Yes. You can. Yeah. And secondly, you mentioned there you have a say on the new owners that come in.

17:04Is this a new fit and proper person test that no one's ever failed? Actually, that is not true. Has someone failed? I mean, I can only talk about our regime, but there's certainly been people who have wanted to buy clubs who have not actually got to the point of being able to do so. But I'm not going to go into any detail about that. But would that have been forced by the fit and proper persons or would that have been the clubs themselves? No, no. Every judgment we make is based on fit and proper person test. So the difference between what the Premier League has and the EFLs and ours is that ours is backed by statutory powers, number one, and ours is much broader. So we look at owners. We look at directors.

17:43We look at senior executives. That's a far wider group of people in any club. And we also have far greater powers of removal and indeed of approval. And indeed, 90% of the times we approve people automatically. What about state-owned football clubs? I mean, it's a train that's left the station, obviously. But at the same time, if another club wanted to do that, would you now stop that? Not as a matter of course. I mean, I think we would be looking at any company, country, individual who wishes to buy a club against the criteria laid out in the legislation that created us. That legislation does not allow for us to block something just because it's a Norwegian sovereign fund, as an example. And actually, we have a

18:25pretty good, strong, mixed economy of different types of owners within the five leagues. And I'm not sure it makes sense for us to do that. But it'll come down to the circumstances in which they apply and the guarantees they want to give. But we're bound very much by the way the legislation has been written, which doesn't preclude that from happening. If you had been in existence at the time that Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea, do you think he would have, with proper due diligence, been passed as a fit and proper person to run a Premier League football club? Well, I think, you know, and it's an answer that I think I understand people find fairly unsatisfactory, but it's the answer I give,

19:05which is we look very closely at the legislation I understand people find fairly unsatisfactory, but it's the answer I give, which is we look very closely at the legislation and what we can and cannot do in terms of taking a view on any individual. Clearly, when he tried to buy Chelsea, which was in 2004, Richard Scudamore then at the Premier League would regard him as being a fit and proper person. He obviously had the money to buy it. He obviously had the money to keep it going. Whether in the context of 2004 he'd have been regarded as a fit and proper, he probably would have passed that test. Would he today, as someone who's been sanctioned? Absolutely not. And Manchester City, if their appeal fails, and we'll see,

19:43but I mean, I read the judgment. It seemed pretty compelling to me, then it's hard to make the case that they are currently being run by fit and proper people. You know, I'm happy to have this conversation with you once we know the result of the appeal. Can I ask something about this? Because I find this- I absolutely can't comment on that. No, I find this quite odd that we have to wait for the appeal. Now, if you're sentenced to murder, you're put in prison. You don't then go, well, we're waiting on appeal, even wait for the appeal. Now, if you're sentenced to murder, you're put in prison. You don't then go, well, we're waiting on appeal, even if you do appeal. Man City are murderers, says Lilycutt.

20:15Well, no, I think you're slightly taking it out of context there. I was just using an analogy. So I don't quite understand because they have been found guilty at present. Yes. Yes. By the initial commission, yes. By the initial commission, yes. By the initial commission. But for some reason, in this sense, we have to wait for an appeal and then there might be sanctions and then they'll appeal the sanctions and we have to wait for that appeal as well. Okay. Obviously, I'm not going to... I think this is just a frustration of fans. This is a... Well, I completely understand that. I mean, this is clearly a Premier League process, which is then going through a second independent panel. I mean, I'm not sure people quite realise

20:50they're two different panels. They've obviously got a timetable they're working to, and we're not aware of that timetable. We don't see it. We have a reasonable idea that the Premier League would like this to all be done within this season, and you can understand why they would wish that to be and what is it they have to do they have to first of all judge the evidence for the appeal and i'm not a lawyer and nor either of you two and obviously man city believes with its extremely high class group of lawyers that it's got grounds for appeal irrefutable evidence irref evidence. And secondly, there are two other elements that might come out before the appeal, but we don't know. One is, what are the sanctions?

21:31What would the Premier League sanction it? Nobody knows this yet. And the other is, of course, we've only seen a redacted version of the findings. We haven't seen an unredacted. And the point about the unredacted is the evidence behind the unredacted. And that, of course, may throw up any number of things. I am not going to get pushed into making any judgment on this until we've seen all of those questions being answered. And then we will have to decide whether we're going to mount our own investigation and come to a conclusion on that and what we're going to do. And preempting that would be a colossal mistake. Does there come a point at any point in this process where you do have a role? Ultimately, we do have a role, yes. What were your role?

22:05We would judge against the tests of ownership and senior directors and executives. We would judge the actions of those individuals. We're not there. We can't, unlike the Premier League, who obviously can take action against the club in terms of fines or points, deduction or whatever it may be. You can't do that? No, because that's about the competition. What can you do? We can, as you were asking me be. You can't do that. No, because that's about the competition. What can you do? We can, as you were asking me earlier, we look at the individuals. We will look at the individuals who've given evidence. We will look at the individuals involved with the club and we will take a judgment call. And you could conceivably force them to sell?

22:37We have the power to ask an owner to step away from a club if we believe that they run a club in a way that is neither fit, fair or done with probity. And can they refuse? No. No. No, we've got absolute power to do so. Let me just say something about this. Unusually, I actually have time to get really possibly too long answers. You should tell me if they're too long. Yeah, get on with it. I don't have any desire. I mean, let's forget Man City. Let's just talk about any theoretical club, right? Where I think things slightly get lost in all of this is a club that has been in existence for 100, 120 years, wherever it may be, which is the depository of the generations of fans supporting it, of the city or the town from which it comes

23:22actually supporting it. A club is an institution that is absolutely critical and has to be supported. Absolutely. The ownership of a club can change. I mean, look at Everton, which is now potentially, well, third owner in five years, six years, one of your former clubs. I mean, the fact is the ownership of a club and the club itself as an institution are not necessarily the same thing yeah okay well i don't think anyone would want manchester city to be completely expunged well from football that well some united fans might use and let's hope you're right because the fact is um clearly you could get potential sanctions or actions by the other clubs in the premier league or indeed actions by us which which might have unintended consequences.

24:06So part of the reason why I am not going to get dragged into a view about what we might do is we're trying to look at all the consequences of what we do alongside the consequences of what everyone else may do. And that may include the HMRC. It may include UEFA. It may include God knows who else. And the important thing, of course, to remember in this is that the fans are always a constant. And they're the ones ultimately course, to remember in this is that the fans are always a constant. And they're the ones ultimately that suffer the most. And this is part of the problem for you and everyone else in terms of punishing football clubs that are in the wrong way or they break the rules. Take, for instance, Leicester.

24:39So they get points reductions because they didn't do things properly. And then ultimately that costs them relegation. Now let's take it back to clubs that get in a mess financially and then are punished by points reductions, which sends them down. Which we don't do. Just to be clear, we don't do points reductions. That's not part of our power. No, I'm just saying generally in football at the moment. So that might send a team down when they've got financial problems, which obviously exacerbates their position. So it's always a difficult one because football is not just about the game. It's about the community and the people. And so it's quite hard to get a balance between who you're punishing

25:20and who you're not punishing. Well, okay. I mean, I actually completely agree with you. And I mean, I think just stepping back a bit, when I started work at the Premier League in 1999, and I was selling television rights, I looked around that room. One of the things that marked the Premier League then was most of the owners in that room had been the owners who'd created the Premier League. So you had Ken Bates of Chelsea sitting next to David Dean of Arsenal. Personally, they did not get on. But when it came to a consistent view about how the Premier League should be operating, essentially as a commercial operation, my job is just to make it more money, there was a pretty broad consensus among those owners about the forward direction of where the league

25:58should go. Today, Richard Masters, unlike Richard Scudamore, has a much more difficult job because what he's got are a group of owners who are individualists. There isn't the collective sense of driving forward. And the result of that over the last 10 or 15 years is both the Premier League and the EFL have come up with a rule book that has massively expanded because they're acting as a regulator of those clubs. And once you start regulating your clubs and getting into points deductions, as we've seen, then you get cases of clubs, Burnley suing other clubs, Everton, actually, here I am in front of the two of you. You would know this better than anybody. I'm not saying that Premier League was wrong to do any of that.

26:39I'm saying it becomes ever more complicated. It becomes ever more tricky. And the consequential effects of doing that stuff are very hard to judge. What's the answer? Well, the answer is that in the case of how you regulate, there needs to be a much more clean and consistent approach. I think what the Man City case might show everybody is that you've got to have some really deep long-term thinking about the way you handle your shareholders as an institution, as the Premier League and the EFL do. And from our point of view, as a new institution with the powers we've got, I'm not there to punish, you use the word punish clubs, I'm not there to punish clubs, I'm there to help clubs survive. You mentioned the Burnley Everton situation. And if you think about that, so we got relegated

27:26and then turns out Everton have been a bit dodgy on something. And we got compensation for that. You did. Right. So the Manchester City situation could result in virtually every club in the pyramid deciding we were one lower than we should have been. And indeed, therein lies the law of unintended consequences. At what point is a line drawn on my club, which is Tottenham, who I think I'm right in saying five times in the last 10 or 15 years came fifth and therefore didn't get into the Champions League? I mean, listen, I'm not saying this is a fact. And could have won a title. And could have won a title because they came second. And the point is, trying to manage the effect of all of this, which is the job of the Premier League more than me,

28:14is going to be very, very complicated. And I don't think actually in a lot of the discussion about whether Man City is found innocent or guilty, a lot of consequential effect of all of this has yet to really, really even begun to be seen. In a curious way- There must be a role for you in that. Well, there is a role with us, but our role is primarily about the individuals on the owners, directors, and senior executives test. Just to add one last thing, because people keep asking me this, but in the original legislation to create us, there was a clause that said we had to take into effect British trade, not diplomacy, but trade. That clause was removed when the legislation was reintroduced by the Labour government.

28:54That was originally the Conservatives' bill and Labour then changed it. The considerations I have to bring to this, much to everybody's disappointment, I think think are purely those of football Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck and the person who drives it well that's a Chevy person you probably know one your buddy your sister ones who always show up they're the first to rise the last to leave they always have that little extra something, and maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet, together let's drive. Visit chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup. Discover the new Myself Eau de Toilette Intense A masculine and long-lasting fragrance for every day A bold scent with sensual musk and woody notes

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30:48tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor. Feeling stuck with EOE? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at Dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT. There's always a link to politics in everything. Andy Burnham's asked about it and he sort of answered it and he got quite a bit of stick for that and then had to come out and kind of change his statement slightly. Obviously, you've been part of the Labour Party a lot down the line, and people will ask the question, don't they, that how much are the government themselves involved in this?

31:34And people say, well, you've been part of the Labour Party for a long time, and the Labour Party are now in power. Just to put the record straight, is there any kind of interference from government at all? None. Or could they? No. I never made it a secret. I've been a supporter of the Labour Party since 1970. I had written two books on the Labour Party. I was chairman of a thing called Labour List, which was a Labour Party website. And I was a donor to various people, two of whom fought the 2020 Labour leadership election. And the reason I donated to both Keir Starmer and to Lisa Nandy, and she was then a backbench two of whom fought the 2020 Labour leadership election. And the reason I donated to both Keir Starmer and to Lisa Nandy,

32:08and she was then a backbench MP, was actually to prevent another candidate from winning. So, you know, I'd actually never met Lisa Nandy. Was it a concern of yours when you were given the role, the fact that you'd been associated so much with Labour? I pity your poor listeners having to listen to this, but let's do it anyway. So I was first approached by the Conservative government because of my long history in football. I said to the Conservative government at the time, are you really sure you want me as a candidate? Because as soon as he goes to Downing Street, when I just get vetoed, because although the Dean Doris had appointed me to be on the board of Channel 4, I am known to be a Labour donor and I'm known to be a Labour Party supporter.

32:47It was never a secret. And in fact, the Conservative government said, no, that's fine. Apply. Then the election gets called. Five days later, Labour win the election. I was asked to reapply. And I withdrew after six months of not hearing a word, pretty typical of government, because I was too busy doing other stuff and then they came back to me again four months later out of the blue asking if I was interested in doing it and the thing is how could I not be interested in doing this I spent what 20 years of my career working in football I'm an unbelievable believer in football as a as a sport and as something to protect and the fact is I didn't expect £3,000 donations that I'd made six years before to be part of the attack on me. Conservatives then attacked me for being a

33:31crony and stooge. And all I will say about that, and the question you're trying to ask me now about Andy Burnham and others is, since one, nobody who has ever met or worked with me would regard me as being subject to pressure. I don't really react well to it. People are trying to pressurize me into doing anything. I have not had any pressure from anybody in government to do anything other than what I regarded as being this job in the right way. And what I've said this week is if there is any political pressure, because as you said earlier, football and politics go, and the Man City case combined them in a certain way, any pressure from anybody, I'll resign rather than be subject to it. But the truth is, I don't for one moment think that will happen. I think,

34:13unfortunately for me, I haven't got the excuse of people putting me under pressure. The only person is going to end up having to take the blame for whatever decisions we make, and myself as chair of the board, and we and myself and my colleagues in the board will have to take the blame for whatever decisions we make and myself as chair of the board and we and myself and my colleagues in the board will have to take a decision on this so i can't blame any politician for pressurizing me it'll be my fault i suppose the tricky aspect is the state owned football clubs where there has to be some kind like andy bernie will talk about that some kind of diplomacy between our prime minister and the people that run... Yeah, sure.

34:45I mean, of course. But the fact is the government took a decision to appoint, it's in the name, the independent football regulator. They chose a particularly difficult, bulshy and irritating human being to be chair of it who's never going to be subject to much pressure. And now, actually, they are having to separate these two issues out. And I completely understand. I can see why that's an issue. Clearly, you couldn't be a thinking human being without looking at the impact on Manchester, the amount of money that's been spent on Manchester in the last 15 or 20 years. I mean, clearly. But the fact is, that is not my concern. My concern is the result of the inquiry that has taken place and what happens when the

35:23second commission that the Premier League set up makes its judgment. What do you feel about the difference between... People cite the two. Let's use the two clubs in Manchester. Manchester United, like, super debt-ridden. They've come in. All the fans hate the owners, the Glazers, probably now Ratcliffe as well. And all the fans on the other side of the city really like their owners. But at the moment, they've broken rules because they've been found guilty. So which is the worst scenario? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that question. And even if I did, I'm not sure I'd want to answer it. I mean, it's not a bad description of the position, but I don't have a formal or informal view to answer it.

36:03We all talk quite romantically about football fans. Without the fans, there's no game. That is all true. But is part of your job not also to educate football fans about the reality of the football business? Because where football fans end up being disappointed is when they think something about their clubs. We all have this amazing romantic attachment to our clubs. And then we find actually that stuff goes on that damages that club. Well, also the idea there's one coherent, consistent fan view is, of course, absolutely absurd. I mean, I can't remember how many fan groups there are for Sheffield Wednesday. There were a lot. How much they agreed on anything, they all hated the owner. Fine. And who could blame them?

36:48But beyond that, solutions, very different views. So I think you're right. I mean, one of the things that actually people haven't asked about in terms of the state of the game is the stuff we've done on corporate governance and the way that we are going to ensure that fans have a greater voice and are heard by the boards of their clubs and the way in which you know corporate governance within clubs is changed so actually i think our job is to give the the average fan group or the average sort of fan him or herself the ability to be heard and they'd be the ability to actually force their way into decision-making by actually having a relationship with the board that allows them to have a voice and have a vote.

37:29What about the German model? People always talk about the German model and fan-owned clubs. And I don't have an answer to this question. successful as the institution has been for the last 40 years if all those clubs have been owned by fan groups as opposed to commercial owners who are trying to push the boundaries? We don't know. I don't know, exactly. The problem with this is everyone has got the theory predicated on other examples. When we look at English football, the success of it, the success of its broadcasting rights, the success of its product, the success of it being a global kind of expansion of what it means in some ways to be at the core of, you know, the English game and being English in some ways, actually, certainly is so profound that I'm not sure the model of somebody switching to fan-owned clubs would necessarily meet that.

38:23How many of the Premier League clubs are currently owned by British institutions or people? Well, you could probably argue, I was going to say... There'll be a small percentage of some clubs like Crystal Palace. Is it double figures American now? Yeah. Oh, yes. American clubs own more than 10 of them. I suspect. I get what you're saying. Actually, let me give you a more interesting example. Last year, of the top six clubs in league one, only one was owned by English Owners. I mean, that in one sense is a more interesting point. It's the same point. A lot of clubs are for sale. Well, there have been, I think we said in the report, there have been, there were 78 ownership transactions in the last five years compared to five over the previous 10 years

39:10or something. You know, there's a hell of a lot of traffic going on in terms of transactional work here and very little of it is from English money. Most of it is overseas. Right. And when I'm doing the rest of this policy, I'm very, very internationalist. I'm very, very European. I think Brexit's been a disaster, including for football with the work permit issue and all that stuff. But I just wonder whether one of the things that's been lost in our football is the sense that it's become so international. That the Premier League, and as you say, The Premier League's a triumph, though, isn't it? It's a triumph. I'm not knocking the Premier League. I'm just saying whether we don't, part of your role

39:43is actually not to try to get more British concerns to understand the values. Okay, I'm fascinated. How do at you. I'm just saying whether we don't – part of your role is actually not to try to get more British concerns. Okay, I'm fascinated. How do you suggest I do that? I mean, in all seriousness, what is it – should we be – are you saying that we should be saying that an English bidder who bids half of an American hedge fund should be allowed to win it just because they're English? No, I'm not necessarily saying that. But I think we should be at least having a debate about whether we just go with the flow of internationalism right across the sector. Well, that's where, in theory, the fit and proper person test applying to new owners and directors

40:18comes into play. But again, if you read the legislation under which we operate, I have no power to prevent anyone from buying clubs as long as they meet those financial criteria. And that would mean normally it would not be an English buyer because there haven't been English buyers coming down the track. And indeed, lots of clubs who are currently in the lower leagues who are currently owned by English buyers are looking to sell. And almost certainly they won't be selling to other English buyers. So I'm afraid that's the trend that's been going on for 20 years, probably starting with Abramovich, actually, in terms of the Premier League. Oh, yeah, because that was seen as a great sort of positive move.

40:53Yeah, that was. But yeah, well, okay. But I think you, maybe it may not have the power. You can certainly argue for new powers. Yeah, sure. You know, we are currently working within the current legislation. And I think issues, I mean, you know, I think if I were the government, I'd have been waiting to see whether we were reasonably competent. You have to ask them what they think. Can I ask if you've got a view on salary cap? Yeah, we are not in support of salary cap. We certainly don't have the powers to implement one. I think actually one of the things that's so interesting about all of this is people always ask me about salary cut. Well, they don't ask me about agent's fees. You know how much agent's fees are?

41:31Oh, agent's fees is a purge for games. Over 500 million pounds. It's half a billion pounds. And frankly, would I object to that money being spent on players rather than agents? Hell, I'd much prefer to see it being spent on players. But the fact is that to me is a much more profound point in terms of transfer debt, which is rising dramatically. It's the other really big issue that some people have picked up on, but most people haven't. The amount of money owed by clubs to other clubs, Man City to other clubs, is huge. It's billions of pounds. And so when you look at the economy of all of this, everything is connected to everything else. But we're not in support of a salary cap because- There is a way to stop the agent's payments.

42:13What's that? Or to limit it because it is truly absurd at the moment. What's the way? The way is that only the player can pay his agent. But the problem I have is that agents are controlled by FIFA. Indeed. I'm talking about in general. I'm not saying you can come in and fix that, but that is the answer to it because at the moment, that is not the case. And in some cases, you've got the buying club, the selling club. You're right. And then they tell their player, oh, it's all right, we'll get the club to pay. I mean, the fact is that whether you started off two years ago believing a regulator should exist or not, I think actually, I mean, this very conversation actually proves it to me in many ways.

42:59The idea that somebody should be sitting there actually beginning to look at these issues and the profound effect. What I keep saying to my colleagues is, you know we we shouldn't be looking at the next six months three i mean clearly we've had to work like hell to get the last year and a half get up and running you know actually creating a new regulator is not a it's not a simple task forget it about it being in football which is actually is even less simple but i think we're going to get to a point a year from now where we should start looking in the much broader picture of the sort of issues you're raising. At the moment, we are literally just trying to get the building blocks in place so that, you know,

43:33people understand the problem. I think we've now shown them the problem in the State of Game report. People understand what we're going to cost football when the levy in a week or so from now. And then when we start licensing, we are able to go into clubs and start dealing with the granular issues. Once we get beyond all of that, then we start looking at the wider picture. And if government then wants to talk to us about wider powers, we'll have that conversation. Final question, unless you've got one. You can have one as well. Oh, thank you. I'm very generous, even on my own podcast. I feel like a referee final question from me for you what would you see as success you know i've done a lot of

44:14interviews of it and you're the first person to ask me that question which is kind of interesting so weirdly somebody said to me when i first got this job, the best regulator is one you never hear from. So weirdly, success is not being invited back by you in three years time've got, we've been able to take some effective action in dealing with them at a granular level. A club day by day, no clubs have gone under, I'd regard that as a pretty big step forward in our ability to work with football. We are not there to be a traffic cop. We are there to be a support mechanism for this institution. And 116 clubs is a lot of clubs. You've got to remember, we deal with Gateshead as much as we deal with Arsenal.

45:07In fact, probably more. So we are looking at all of these issues with having to work with them on a day-by-day basis. A year and a half from now, I'd like to be able to stand back and say, okay, we've got degrees of security in here. There's a new funding deal in football, which is helping that security. What's next? Most of these Premier League owners, particularly now, a lot of them, as you say, American hedge funds and American, we're talking about uber-capitalists here in the main. And we're living in a market economy. We are. Right. So is it not unrealistic to think that actually in such a competitive environment, some of them might go under. Well, if they go under after everything we're trying to do and everything they're trying

45:49to do, they'll go under. I mean, I'm not here to... Ultimately, we can only do what we can do. And I would hope... And actually, when I did an investor conference, I mean, I think it's just worth making this point. All the investors we have talked to, all of them, without exception, believe in us regulating the game. Investors want a regulator who's going to bring some degree of security and sanity where you haven't got 60% of the clubs of 116 who don't have a business plan. Actually, they want to know that their competitors are secure. They want to know they're cash flowed enough, they're still going to be competitors. So actually, most investors see us as being a help to capitalism. The way in which we preserve that

46:32and the way we keep getting inward investment into football is by making it look as though there's a stable and solid process by which things will work properly. And I think we're going to do that. Whether that is enough to prevent Klusten going bust, ultimately will come down to those owners. And we deal with owners who sometimes just wish to do their own particular form of funding mechanism, which only they understand, and it goes wrong. And I can tell you there'll be plenty of examples of those coming down the track. David, thank you very much for's been a pleasure for your time I wish you absolutely every success with it because it is have me back in 18 months and I'll find out how it went

47:10we'd love to see how our progress is made maybe you can work on Tottenham as well because I'm so happy you didn't mention Tottenham when you were talking about parachute payments we've got them but we're still down there right exactly you are it's been an absolute pleasure thank you thank you And Burnley, when you were talking about parachute payments, we've got them, but we're still down there. Right. Exactly. You are. It's been an absolute pleasure. Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis, EOE can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces or stuck chewing food for a long time. Dupixentupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least

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