My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady Brady about the importance of a light-touch approach: not just the light touch in the way we do things today but the light touch in how we might innovate and take our game forward in the future. My wife and I spent Christmas in Oman, when the Gulf states were having their own little world cup. The key point there was how they are innovating, building a nation through football, breaking down barriers and changing the way things are done in football.

More of the same will not be the recipe for success for the English game as we look forward. I want to illustrate this with a story. Earlier this evening, I explained that I was a shareholder of Norwich City Football Club. About 30 years ago, the club auditors told us that a certain Alan Sugar—a Member of your Lordships’ House—had decided to move his players from the profit and loss and on to the balance sheet. It was the first time this had ever happened. At that moment, in the blink of an eye, English football changed.

What our noble friend did was turn a series of cottage industries—clubs that were grounded in local communities—into investable propositions. Whether he appreciated it at the time or not, it was that stroke of the pen that put British football clubs on the path to greatness. Overnight, football became better capitalised, becoming a magnet for investment and success. People say that Sky made the difference, but the truth is that it was our noble friend who made football so investible in the first place.

Can you imagine how an overbearing regulator might have reacted if this astonishingly innovative but unprecedented accounting proposal to move players from the P and L to the balance sheet had been made? We need this light touch. This was a huge innovation. Would it have happened if this regulator had been overbearing? Of course not. I have always found it strange that the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, has not been publicly recognised for what he did. Viewing his innovation through the lens of history has transformed the prospects of English football.

My purpose in telling this story is that the regulator must continue to be flexible and to adapt to the future as it can be—not just as it is today. The principle of the light touch is essential for us to maintain the leadership of English football at the forefront of our industry, being flexible and imaginative. Nobody owes us our place in history. We have to keep moving forward to survive. If we are overly fossilised in the system as it is today, we risk falling behind. So I am very focused on and supportive of a light-touch approach and I am pleased that it is on the amendments in front of us.