Alistair Jones, Sarah Turner and Tim Payton gave evidence.

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming along. Would each of you please introduce yourselves?

Tim Payton:

I am Tim Payton, and I am from Arsenal Supporters’ Trust.

Alistair Jones:

I am Alistair Jones, and I am from West Bromwich Albion independent supporters’ trust, formerly Action for Albion.

Sarah Turner:

I am Sarah Turner, the chair of the STAR: Supporters’ Trust At Reading.

Q Welcome to you all, and good afternoon; thanks for joining us. My first question is: do you believe that the Bill carves out enough space for existing supporters’ trusts? Where do they fit into the Bill, and why is it important that they are recognised?

Tim Payton:

It would be good to see supporters’ trusts recognised in the Bill. They are democratic organisations registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, and they bring governance standards that reflect the wider aims of the Bill.

There are other areas where the Bill could be strengthened to recognise supporters. I want to highlight one that is almost breaking news: you might have seen that, overnight, FIFA, at its congress, set up a committee to look at allowing club games to be played overseas in different jurisdictions.

In clause 48(4), which relates to the duty not to relocate, it would be very reassuring to see supporters given a direct role in engagement with the IFR before approval to relocate is given. I can promise you that the next event where you will see my members marching on stadiums and flooding your inboxes at the levels they were after the super league was announced will be when they try to move Arsenal, Spurs, West Brom or Reading games to jurisdictions overseas. A tightening of that area for supporters would be really welcome.

Alistair Jones:

For me, I think it is a lack of trust from the organisations that run football. Independent supporters’ trusts that have been democratically elected by the fans that support the teams will definitely help. Since 1992, there has been a constant mistrust of regulation and football in this country, and having fans able to represent the views of all the fans that they cover will definitely help.

Sarah Turner:

We were disappointed that the “golden share” idea was not taken through from the White Paper, because we feel that fans are in the best position to protect our heritage and other things that are in fans’ interest. We think supporters’ trusts are exactly the right way forward, but we would have liked that in a more authoritative way so that we had more of a say on heritage, kit, moving stadiums, changing names and anything else like that.

Q What are some of the major issues that your club or supporters’ trust has faced, and how has this affected fans in the community? Do you think the Bill would prevent that sort of thing from happening again?

Sarah Turner:

Reading have had a terrible couple of years. If an independent regulator had been in place, they may have been able to stop some of the things from happening to us. We were in a position where no one could actually help us. We had an owner who was unwilling or unable to fund the club. The EFL was unable to help because it could not make him sell the club.

The impact on the community is huge. Reading is a small town; the football club is at the heart of it. The uncertainty has really affected everybody, not to mention the liabilities: people have not been paid for things at the football club, because it has been unable to.

Alistair Jones:

We have just recently come out. We speak to Reading regularly. West Brom were purchased by Mr Shilen Patel and Bilkul Football in March 2024, but until that point there was a real genuine fear that West Brom would no longer exist. We did not have enough money towards the end of the season.

It became apparent that we had to do something ourselves as a voluntary fan group, and that just cannot be right for football moving forward. There were questions back to 2016 and the initial purchase about how on earth a company with no transaction or trading history at all was allowed to purchase West Bromwich Albion for north of £200 million, which was way above the market value.

We look at many things, and the fundamental reasoning for me is that it should not be down to fan groups such as those at Reading and West Brom to try to protect their football clubs. There should be something in governance to be able to stop that before it gets to that point.

Q I think you touched on this in your first answer, Sarah. The Bill requires fans to be consulted on issues of heritage. Do you think there are any other areas that fans should be consulted on?

Sarah Turner:

I think fans need to be consulted on where the club plays, because people can move clubs and historically people have moved things away; and on the sale of clubs, because our assets have been stripped at Reading and sold on.

Although there is protection in the Bill for grounds, we would like that to be extended to cover training grounds. Our owner split off the training ground, the stadium and the car park from our club, and they were all sold under different entities, which has made the sale very complicated. We would like a regulator to look at protecting the other assets as well as the stadium.

Alistair Jones:

I will just touch on that very quickly. We have had a similar experience, but we have come out of it now. There was a spider’s web of who actually owned West Brom behind the initial vehicle of Yunyi Guokai Sports Development. We proved where the money had come from—it was China in this particular instance—but there has to be some sort of ability to stop that moving in the future.

On corporate governance, for 10 years we have had one named director of West Bromwich Albion Group, so we support schedule 5. We need independent non-executive directors to ensure corporate governance in football clubs.

Tim Payton:

I would like to briefly cover not just what we are consulted on but how we are consulted. I will use ticket pricing as an example, because there are now supposed to be advisory boards in place, but the process this year seems to be really unsatisfactory.

Before coming here, I put a message on the Premier League loop, where we talk to all the other trusts. I had messages from the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, Save Our Seniors at Spurs, Spirit of Shankly, Fulham Supporters Trust, Foxes Trust, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle and Wolves 1877 Trust, and all of them feel that there is not really fan consultation on ticket prices; it is more broadcast. You go into a meeting, you get told the announcement, and an hour later it happens.

In the evidence I put in—as policymakers, you will understand this—I thought about a framework almost like a supporter impact assessment following a regulatory impact assessment. It would be very basic: you set out what you plan to do, you have a consultation over a number of weeks, you particularly listen to affected parties—at Arsenal at the moment, they are trying to move season tickets from all senior concessions—and then at the end you produce a report.

In producing a report and explaining what you have done, you bring that accountability and transparency, which might lead to better policymaking. I know that is probably not for the face of the Bill, but we would welcome the understanding in guidance that there will be thought about what effective consultation is, as well as the list of items we are consulted on.

Alistair Jones:

It is not just the Premier League. Fan representation is not just about ticket pricing; it is about the times of games too. Next year, more than 1,000 games will be televised by the broadcast partners just in the EFL alone. That means that an average of 20 games per season will be covered, but what does that mean to the travelling fan? For instance, I have to be in Southampton for one of the biggest games of our lives at 8 o’clock tomorrow night. Now, I have young children, and if there is extra time and penalties—hopefully we win—it will be a half-past 2 or 3 o’clock journey back. I understand that commercial revenues are important, but that is part of being a fan who goes to these games, so that needs to be thought of as well.

I have six colleagues who want to ask questions, so can we make them brief, please?

Q This is principally to Tim Payton because it relates to your written evidence, but if the other witnesses have anything to add I would be happy to hear that. Tim, you recommended an amendment to clause 55(2) on the redistribution of broadcast revenue, so that the regulator’s role is not just to consider broadcast revenue for redistribution but all revenue for Premier League clubs. Could you explain a bit about why you made that recommendation?

Tim Payton:

Specifically, at the moment it mentions Premier League broadcast revenue, and that does not address where the game is moving. I picked up the widespread dismay on Second Reading and on Tuesday about the loss of FA cup replays. Why are FA cup replays going? Because the European competitions are expanding. The European revenue that will come in is not captured by the relevant revenue clause, because it goes directly to the clubs. Similarly, FIFA is going to expand the Club World cup, and the big clubs are earning more and more from commercial revenue. I know there is a heated debate about whether you have parachute payments within that clause and how it is triggered, but it is almost an irrelevant debate to us until you address the relevant revenue.

The clause also does not future-proof the Bill because at the moment if you move to individual broadcast selling, which is what the large clubs want to do, the clause is meaningless because there is no revenue left to be redistributed. I think a simple wording change could make it much more effective.

Q Do you agree that, as Steve Parish said on Tuesday, the clause as drafted puts a far greater onus on the smaller Premier League clubs, for whom the Premier League broadcasting revenue is a much greater proportion of their income?

Tim Payton:

The way Premier League broadcast revenue is distributed is fantastically collective. I think it is 1:1.6, so it really helps to keep a competitive balance, which of course Richard Masters was stressing the importance of to all of you. But the regulator is in effect having the powers over the wrong bit of the broadcast income. It is Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal’s revenue that must be included, so that we have a progressive system of redistribution, but also a check on where the game is heading.

Q In the previous evidence sessions, we have had explained to us—in quite graphic detail at times—the differences between the leagues, the different challenges they face, the different ways that fans experience the game and so on. First, I am keen to hear from the fans’ perspective what you think those risks are across those leagues. Secondly, are you happy that the Bill addresses those risks, for example, in the way that clubs fail?

Alistair Jones:

For the EFL, the precipice between the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship is massively disproportionate to wherever it has been before. The simple fact is that over the 72 football league clubs, there is £450 million of losses just last year alone. That cannot continue—everything has to be sustainable.

For me and for Albion fans, a fairer distribution of wealth and a fairer redistribution of Premier League income would make that difference less between the 20th team and the 21st team in the country. At the moment, over £50 million of turnover is written off more or less overnight, and that is dependent on whether parachute payments are consistent. Also, the lack of competition is a big worry. The bottom three of the Premier League were the top three that got promoted last year, and they have just swapped places. It is more than likely that two of the three will be promoted this year.

Sarah Turner:

We would like parachute payments to come under the independent regulator because we think it does make it an unfair competition. You are striving to reach the promised lands, so you will throw everything at it, and it makes owners gamble and spend recklessly, which is what has happened to Reading and many other teams. It is an unfair competition because you are pushing yourself so far to get there. We were relegated because of a points deduction to League One, and we are striving to get back up to the Championship.

Tim Payton:

We are here because of the European Super League and the furore. I was in the meeting with the Prime Minister where he said he would “drop a legislative bomb” on it. What I hope you are all doing is passing legislation that means we do not need to throw bombs around but we have a good defensive mechanism in place. The two big threats to the heritage and competitive balance of the Premier League are all the revenue being earned outside of that in the UEFA and FIFA competitions and, as I said before, the relocation of our games. I would urge you to look closely at the suggestions we have made for tightening up in those areas.

Q As you said, there have been some serious problems with owners, not least at Reading. Do you feel that the Bill does enough to tackle that, potentially, through the regulator? Also, do you feel that there is enough of a fan’s voice in the process of raising concerns about owners?

Sarah Turner:

It is a good start, but there is probably more we can do. I do not know if the owners and directors test is a duplication of the ones that the EFL will do or whether it will hand that over to the independent regulator. We think there needs to be some real-time tracking of what is going on at clubs because they are continuously overspending and risk-taking. We think the regulator should be taking an overview all the time of what is going on, rather than just at the beginning when they purchase.

Alistair Jones:

I concur on real-time accountability around accountancy. From looking back at 2016 when we were purchased, it would be—quite simply; I am a simple man—a great case study to look at. If we could look at West Bromwich Albion, when they were purchased in 2016, and use that as a case study, what if the same company came and purchased West Brom now? Would it still be allowed? If that were the case, quite frankly there would be no point in doing it because it has proven that it was a poor opportunity to buy the club.

Tim Payton:

In our evidence, we put forward the importance that the independent non-executive director can have. Following up from what you heard from Sanjay, we think that it would be powerful having in the Bill the need to have two INEDS on the board of each club, and the regulator obviously could then set the guidance and framework. Of course, we already have that in the corporate governance code, which is set out in—I think you mentioned—the Companies Act. Where I see it linking across to other areas of the Bill is the INED under the corporate governance code already has a lead responsibility to consider stakeholders, and of course the stakeholders in football are the supporters.

When we look for improved fan engagement, we do not just look at the fan engagement standard, but to the INEDs on the board being there to ensure that effective fan engagement is taking place. Good INEDs are an early warning system to many other things going wrong. The Minister will be aware of the improvements that have come to national governing body governance through the corporate code. He inherited all that from the pioneering work that Tracey pushed through. I really hope we can have the same framework for the football clubs under the IFR.

Q Supporters’ trusts vary quite widely; I used to be involved in one at Notts County many years ago. Many of them come to the fore when a club is in crisis or needs to be saved. We have been out with the buckets before. In some cases, supporters’ trusts get involved with the actual ownership of the club, and sometimes they are shareholders. Do you feel that a regulator could have helped with that process in the past? Is there a role in the future for helping supporters’ trusts if they want to get more involved? Might there also be the potential that they have some quite onerous requirements? Obviously, I am looking at some of the financial things that are talked about, and a lot of supporters’ trusts are volunteers, so they do not always come from those sectors. Do you feel that a regulator can help supporters’ trusts when they have that level of involvement with the club?

Sarah Turner:

I think they probably can, but the FSA do a fantastic role in that. Your first port of call would always be to go to them, but the independent regulator may go over it on the financial side.

Okay. Alistair?

Alistair Jones:

I agree. The FSA does a fantastic job for independent supporters’ trusts. It is more fitting for us to report into an FSA sort of body rather than directly into an independent regulator, if you want my honest opinion.

Tim Payton:

The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust used to own shares in Arsenal and used that association to have a role in the governance. Unfortunately, we were squeezed out. Under companies law, somebody reached 95% and compulsorily took the shares off us. I do not see a practical way of going back to us being shareholders in the club any more, so I very much look to the Bill to, in effect, give us shadow ownership and powers going forward. I hope we see this Bill on the statute book and that it will help supporters have a more meaningful say in their clubs.

Alistair Jones:

It is very difficult to give you an all-encompassing answer, because we have 12% of shareholders, represented by Shareholders for Albion. If it had not been for them telling people about the issues we have, it might have been a very different story for us at West Brom. So it is a very difficult to give an all-encompassing answer.

Q I would like to ask about the distribution of broadcast revenue, particularly to the National League. Currently, for every £1,000 that a Premier League club gets from broadcast deals, a club like Southend gets just 57p. Given that the Premier League and the upper leagues benefit from the entire football pyramid, not just their member clubs, do you consider that to be a fair distribution? I think Sarah would be my closest ally here.

Sarah Turner:

It is not, is it? It cannot be a fair distribution. The whole system and pyramid is not fair. That is one thing we would like the independent regulator to be looking at—how money could be distributed down. At Reading we looked at some of the players that have come forward and are starring in the Premier League, and they were made in the National League and the EFL—so yes, we think so.

Alistair Jones:

I could not agree more in terms of the distribution, and it is not just because we are at the top of the Championship or in the Premier League. We believe that it cannot be right. There is no way that the top 20 clubs can have so much power in this country over the 72 below. It has got to change. We can point to the FA Cup replays being scrapped for rounds one and two. That was decided by the Premier League, and they are not even entering it until the third round. How can that possibly be right? It has to change.

Tim Payton:

The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust is also your ally, because why did we fight the Super League so hard, together with the supporter groups at all the other big clubs? We wanted to fight the self-interest. What is football if Southend cannot dream of coming up to the Premier League? Football is about us all working together. It strengthens the pyramid, promotion and relegation, and the jeopardy. Everybody must be able to dream in football.

Q The obvious follow-up is: do you think the backstop goes far enough to address this?

Alistair Jones:

Personally, no. I do not think it goes far enough. I think it needs some work on it at the moment. Again, I stress that the competition is key. There are 51 clubs that have participated in the Premier League since its inception in 1992. There are only six that have stayed in there. That means that 45 clubs have been spread right across the Football League and even the international leagues—Oldham being an example that are now in the National League but were in the Premier League. We have to support, carry and help those clubs.

Sarah Turner:

I would really hope that the Premier League and the EFL could come to an agreement without requiring the backstop.

Tim Payton:

I would just take you back to what I said before, which is that if a backstop is going to be activated, the Bill needs to redefine “relevant revenue”, so that it is effective. It must capture all the revenue coming into the game, rather than just the broadcast revenue, or it will not do what you want in the years to come.

Q I want to dovetail back to the point about effective consultation. The Bill touches on it, but it varies. We had the example about ticket prices and people basically being told, “This is what your price is going to be.” How do you think that consultation could be strengthened? Do you think that there needs to be a more prescriptive approach whereby clubs are told, “This is what consultation is. If you do this, you’re in breach. You can’t do what you want to do”? Do you think that the delivery channel for that more formally —it does seem to vary—needs to be supporters’ trusts? Do you see fan representation as the conduit for it? And how do you balance that with the corporate identity of a lot of these clubs? I appreciate that there are three prongs to that question, but I am keen to get your insights.

Tim Payton:

It is a very good question. I think the regulator must have some means of acting a bit like an Ofsted, or there must be a check and balance whereby supporter trusts and other organisations can go and say they do not feel the consultation is being effective, but of course, you do not want to reach that stage. You want effective consultation, so let us work with the IFR and the clubs to come up with a framework. I think we all know what good consultation looks like. As I set out, you announce your proposals; you talk to the affected parties; and then, at the end of the process, you have to write up and explain where you have got to. But it will be important that the regulator has some real teeth to enforce that on clubs, because it will be about changing a culture that is very much one where clubs say, “We’re going to do what we want to do, and you’re so loyal and committed to us that you will suck it up whatever we do.”

Alistair Jones:

We are in a fortunate position at my club, because we have had really good dialogue and communication. My club is an outstanding example of what can be achieved if you sit down at a table in a room and discuss what we both want, given what we share, which is the love of our football club. From our point of view—speaking selfishly—we already have that at West Brom. We have a really good dialogue. The issue is, of course, that every club is different, as we have intimated before, so I think the regulator has to set out some guidelines as to what can be done with regard to ticket pricing, fan entertainment or anything to do with fan engagement.

Q I assume that this could be done through leveraging best practice as well. You have just given the example of the Albion and how you guys are doing it—the relationship there.

Alistair Jones:

We campaigned and tried to get answers, and credit to them: they did provide that over a certain amount of time. Once we got to the table, they recognised that we are only here to help. The members of every independent supporters’ trust that I have sat down with volunteer because they love the football club; they do not do it for kudos.

Tim Payton:

Of course, if you have the independent non-executive director there, you have a different check and balance, because the INED follows the corporate governance code and would be making sure that effective consultation was happening from a different perspective, but over-layering with whatever the IFR does.

Sarah Turner:

Formalising how that engagement looks would be a really good idea, because as you say, people look at it in a different way. Anything that goes forward and that listens to fans and gives them that forum to have their opinions heard has to be a good thing.

There are a few more minutes, if anybody would like to come back in.

Q On the strength of the fan engagement element, Tim, you have touched on what is happening now. We know that some fan advisory boards are already getting swamped by club employees and then they become toothless, which is a real worry regarding what we do, going forward. Alistair, you have touched on your good relationship with West Brom. That could change; those people could go. So how do we ensure that we have provided for longevity and the teeth that are needed for fan independence? What could that look like? And would you all support an independent voice on the IFR board? I think that is really important. We have not touched on it. I think it needs to happen as well. That is just my opinion.

Tim Payton:

I always think independence is good and important, so I assume the IFR board will have INEDs in its process. I think you asked how we make the fan engagement processes better. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that a supporter trust must have the ability to go to the IFR and say that it does not think that the consultation has been effective. To do that it probably needs a checklist or a process of consultation to have been set out so that it can say, “This has not been followed”. That takes you back—it is starting to sound a little bit repetitive—to a supporter impact assessment or a regulatory impact assessment for all consultation issues.

Alistair Jones:

You are right. We cannot guarantee that we will have constant and good communication with our football club—we did not for eight years, for instance. The IFR needs to put procedures and processes in place to address any lack of meaningful communication with the football club. That needs to be addressed in the Bill as well.

Sarah Turner:

I agree. Fans are the best early warning signal of anything going wrong, so any independent body that you can go to will always be useful.

Alistair Jones:

At the end of the day, if you have 12,000 people marching on a football stadium, it is too late. We need action before that. That is something that needs to be addressed in the Bill.

Q Using a football stadium as collateral for large loans is a complex issue. Owners see it as a valid practice to raise capital, but, as has happened, particularly in Southend and at West Bromwich Albion, that capital then fails to materialise and be directed into the football operation. What more can the regulator do to prevent those sorts of situations happening?

Alistair Jones:

From the point of view of West Brom, it fell upon Albion fans and Shareholders for Albion to get an asset of community value to try to protect the stadium. It was probably not the all-seeing answer that we hoped it would be, but again, that was reliant on us.

To put it simply, we need better governance. Our previous owner borrowed money from West Bromwich Albion to put into another business portfolio. He could do that without any governance at all. That was never paid back, even though he promised it three times. It was finally paid back by our new owner last month. There must be procedures in place where that can be stopped. If you have money from broadcast revenue, or wherever the money has come from from your football club, and you are using it for other areas of your business portfolios, that should be stopped and not allowed.

Sarah Turner:

We would also like the other assets protected, such as the training grounds. We cannot get an ACV on our training ground because it is not a public property, but we think that should be protected in some other way so that it is for the use of the football club.

If there are no more questions, may I thank all three of you for your concise and very helpful answers? Thank you very much.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mike Wood.)

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.