As the FT notes this morning:
The UK has dropped a requirement for a new men's football regulator to consider “foreign and trade policy” when approving club takeovers, ahead of the bill being introduced in parliament on Thursday.
The change “ensures” the regulator will be “fully independent” of government and industry, the Department for Culture Media and Sport said on Wednesday, following concerns from European football governing body Uefa and fan groups that it would lead to political “interference”.
I mean, heavens above that the government should have an interest in the 'national game'. That would never do, would it?
Of course, it should provide the infrastructure that makes the game possible.
And it licences the broadcasters that ensure funds flow to it.
Whilst providing the security that lets it happen.
It also has to regulate stadiums and all that is sold there to make sure that they are safe.
And, come to that it provides the legal structure that makes clubs themselves possible, and then it has to pick up the pieces if everything goes wrong.
But have the state interfere in all of this? That would never do. That might indicate state control, and how could football - which has been utterly debased by neoliberalism to the point where any pretence of there being an actual competition in the Premier League is now farcical - tolerate that? That would be deeply offensive to that neoliberal dogma, and that matters above all else.
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Thank you and well said, Richard.
Richard and readers may be interested in: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/why-america-is-buying-up-the-premier-league-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-soccer.html. If you scroll BTL, you may notice comments from Froghole. He’s a former Treasury official and amateur historian.
Thanks
All looks like applying neo-liberalism to what amounts to tribalism (footy being a formalisation of tribalism).
There are no depths to which neo-libtards will not sink to commercialise every single aspect of life. That said, even in the “good old days” it tended to be rich people owning the big clubs (Littlewoods and Liverpool?) and of course, keeping a lid on players pay, until the early 1960s.
As for the ghastly Americans – the gradual takeover of English footy is reflective of how slowly but surely the Uk is becoming ever more a colony of the USA.
The issue is that the F.A. is bound by UEFA (and FIFA) regulations. Anything seen as political interference in the football administration of a country is disallowed. If the Labour government inserted a national regulator into the game as was their original policy, then English clubs and the national teams could have been barred from playing in international competition. Which would be very bad politically-speaking, not to mention bad for the bottom line of the big clubs and the F.A. itself.
In theory disallowing political interference is aa reasonable idea, given the propensity for governments of most stripes to jump on the sporting bandwagon given the opportunity.
However, it assumes that the governance of the continental and world bodies is honest, beyond reproach and is invested in ensuring fairness for the general good of the game.
The reality, of course, is that UEFA and FIFA especially have been embroiled in all sorts of scandals and high levels of corruption have been revealed by many investigative journalists. Given the amount of money sloshing around in the game, this probably isn’t a great surprise. Even more so since the gulf states and other oligarchs started to buy up clubs for sports washing reasons and, most likely, to use as a cover for money laundering from other corrupt activities.
There is no doubt that LINO were aware of the situation regarding the sport’s governing authorities, so the promised regulator was just a nonsense, a political manoeuvre they would never have to enact.
The idea that the govt is bowing to FIFA and UEFA in the guise of they don’t allow, under their rules, political interference is nonsense. Hungary’s govt openly interferes in the game at all levels. Like far right govts do, it sees football as an extension of its nationalist ideology, as proof of its superiority.
The thing is, it’s also completely open about it.
As such, should the govt want to, it only really has to say, “erm, how come it’s okay for Orban then?”. But they don’t want to. One greedy, rotten to core organisation, has said to another, “here’s a get of jail free card”, to which they said, “thanks a lot”.
And thus the miserable, reptilian, Premier League gets what it wants, the neoliberal New Labour govt gets out of giving any clout to football fans (peasants!), and UEFA FIFA, perhaps the epitome of corrupt sports organisations breath a huge sigh of relief.
Thanks
Much like our national utilities it is of course perfectly reasonable for other states to run football in this country, rather than any undue influence from us. Just this week, the government said they wouldn’t be looking into the fact that Newcastle lied about Bin Salman’s obvious ownership of Newcastle.
“Fully independent”?
Should that not therefore require that no government minister should display a preference for one team over another?
And I’m being fair – Corbyn on the terraces is included as much as Starmer in his box.
Thank you, Anne.
Dunno about that.
Corbyn has lived in Arsenal country, where I was born, since the mid 1970s. When asked where I was born, I sometimes say Arsenal and Corbyn country. Surrey born and bred Starmer grew up supporting Crystal Palace.
🙂
Corbyn’s constituence of North Islington also includes Arsenal’s home ground.
For the reason that Steve Bull could only ever have played for the Wolves or Baggies because no-one else could understand a ‘werd that he sed’, I fear that my idea that 50% +1 of the first team squad must be locally recruited as evidenced by their proficiency in their team’s local dialect is not going to be adopted!
But it would be good if it were
I remember Ipswich player who came from Ipswich
What a country we are. Tut, tut, tut, tut.
The country that perhaps in the West at least that created central banking, learning to unleash the power of sovereign money to the benefit of all now cravenly begging for ‘inward investment’.
And why?
Because increasingly – from day one – I suspect that central bank power has been coveted by the already rich for their own ends, in order to satisfy their need to be superior, their greed for power, unable to share power – monopolists – destroying the democracy of true wealth creation, perverting it for their own ends.
Our lives are very short but to think that I have lived to bear witness to a theft like this in broad daylight.
Oh well, it could have been worse, I could have been born a Jew in Eastern Europe in the 30s/40s or a Palestinian.
Thank you and well said, PSR.
Richard, readers and you may be interested in: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/hate-and-lust-for-vengeance-are-passed-like-poison-from-one-generation-to-the-next.html.
Thank you Colonel. Always interesting topics on that site.
Plus this about the execrable Grauniad: https://novaramedia.com/2024/10/18/discontent-deepens-among-guardian-staff-over-palestine-double-standard/.
Excellent journalism, well worth reading and, I am sure, accurate.
It’s interesting isn’t it that the current conspiracy theories in the US involves wanting to destroy the Fed completely? Not content with having captured central banks via finance, these guys want to remove the chance of the public ever having the tools of freedom entirely.
It’s sort of worrying, but I also don’t think they’ll entirely succeed even when I’ve heard quite normal people saying similar things. It’s a bit Pandora’s Box. Like a bad parent, you can’t just force it all back in there. That’s why someone like Musk has to work with Trump, because it’s only ignorant people who want to turn the clock back in more ways than one. That’s my one hope anyway. We’ll see I suppose! Forgive the mixed metaphors there.
The “less is best” mantra of regulation under neoliberalism is also evident in the piece yesterday on the revisions to the English Buiding Regs… long overdue…
This is that the government is pulling back from making PVs obligatory on new builds, to an advisory note, “encouraging” them to fit solar panels.
This proposal, recently as part of the net zero strategy, has actually been around for 20 years now, has 80%+ support, and it is obvious who is pulling the strings.
You just couldn’t make this up – unless you were a developer donating money to Labour.
Of course building companies’ profits come before everything, and this is clearly accepted by government as a good thing politically.
That abyss is just getting ever closer…..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/23/labour-considering-weaker-rules-on-solar-panels-for-new-homes-in-england
This shows, to a large extent the lack of imagination amongst “builders”. If I was constructing an estate (20? 50? 100 houses), I’d be looking at how to deliver at least low-cost elec & maybe even set up a company ot own the elec network – PV on every sutiable roof (orientation south, west, east works) and chuck in a community battery. Keep the network private – create a …………energy community – with lower cost elec – forever. But as I said – the builders are too unimaginative – or, less charitably, just too thick to work it out.
Didn’t government get rather heavily involved in something called the Hillsborough inquiry not very long ago?
Presumably our government think that football would be better off with a free for all?
Let the owners of the clubs police themselves in “free(s)port” stadiums, where all that tiresome red tape doesn’t apply?
(unless someone displays a Palestinian flag of course…)
Sorry, there I go again, getting cynical.
Thank you, Helen.
Readers and you may want to read the original and comments: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/extermination-works-at-first/comments.
As a footnote to my other post…
WSC (When Saturday Comes) long ago looked at the proposed regulator, which they heartily endorse – in principle.
Unfortunately, as time passed, their enthusiasm waned as it became obvious that what they hoped for, a fan led, all inclusive, acting for all (grass roots to EPL), regulator with real teeth was not, and is not, going to happen.
What’s funny is the Tory presses hysteria, where this mild piece legislation has become some sort of neo Stalinist clampdown on our wonderful Premier league. But then, whilst I can’t stand the govt, and my dislike gets stronger every day, the presses reaction to it has been so over the top its beyond parody…
Can anyone explain why Russia was almost immediately banned from world and European football (and athletics) while Israel.can continue to compete in both world and more relevant Uefa competition?
Colonel
That footage of the American helicopter in Iraq was just well……………….what did they used to say?:
‘When the English bombed the Germans, the Germans ducked.
When the Germans bombed the English, the English ducked.
When the Americans bombed, everybody ducked.’
Watching that film and how so easily combat was turned into murder was truly shocking. Killing in real life is now nothing but a video game.
The Americans literally superimposed their own fears and prejudices on the scene and denying what their eyes were telling them, acted on those fears and prejudices.
No wonder there are so many fucked servicemen around.