I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 6, page 5, line 14, at end insert—

“(d) to ensure that the care and support of those who have developed neurodegenerative conditions linked to their career in English football is a central part of its approach to football governance, and to establish and supervise the scheme provided for under section [Neurodegenerative care scheme].”

This amendment places an objective on the IFR to establish and supervise a scheme to provide care and support to those who have developed neurodegenerative conditions linked to their career in English football (see NC1).

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 1—Neurodegenerative care scheme—

“(1) The IFR must establish and supervise a scheme aimed at providing a high standard of care and support to any person who has developed a neurodegenerative condition linked to their career in English football.

(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations setting out—

(a) minimum requirements for the scheme,

(b) a timescale for the scheme’s establishment, and

(c) arrangements and a timescale for a periodic review of the scheme.

(3) The IFR must ensure that, as a condition of organising any competition specified pursuant to section 2(3), all specified competition organisers jointly operate, manage and fund the scheme in accordance with subsections (3) to (9).

(4) For the purpose of operating, managing and funding the scheme, all of the specified competition organisers must form a Joint Coordinating Committee (‘JCC’).

(5) Any current or former player who has at any time been registered as a professional footballer is eligible for the scheme.

(6) The scheme must provide care and financial support to any eligible person who suffers from a neurodegenerative condition which is deemed, pursuant to subsection (7)(a), to have been caused or contributed to by playing or training activities within English football.

(7) The JCC must, under the supervision of the IFR, appoint a panel of independent experts—

(a) to determine whether, on the balance of probabilities, a neurodegenerative condition of an eligible person has been caused or contributed to by playing or training activities within English football, and

(b) to determine the appropriate provision of care and financial support required in the case of each eligible person.

(8) The IFR must ensure that the JCC acts upon the panel’s determinations.

(9) Where—

(a) specified competition owners, through the JCC, cannot agree about the operation, management or funding of the scheme, or

(b) at any time, the scheme does not meet either—

(i) the aim under subsection (1), or

(ii) any requirements set out in regulations under subsection (2), the Secretary of State may, having taken advice from the IFR, make a direction about the operation, management or funding of the scheme.”

My first Southampton game at the Dell was in 1993. Southampton lost, predictably, to Manchester United. My grandparents and father took me, and playing at the back that day was a man called Kevin Moore. He was one of the greatest headers of the ball that the Football League has ever seen. He would regularly be seen rising above the level of the crossbar and heading the ball downwards into the goal. He did so in the Zenith Data Systems Cup final—that is a reference for the spotters among us.

Kevin Moore is one of a number of footballers whose case has clearly established a link between heading the football and dementia. To balance things up with my friend from Portsmouth over the way, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North, there is similar evidence in the case of Portsmouth legend Ray Hiron. The Portsmouth News has done a wonderful public service for us all by reporting on that. Kevin Moore’s brother Dave, told the Daily Mail that

“Kev had great spring and he absolutely loved heading footballs”.

Kevin talked about how he would go to the back of Blundell Park in Grimsby with his friends and head the ball, which was apparently on a string tethered behind the stand. He probably gained a lot of aptitude for heading a football by training like that, and it definitely made him more successful at playing the game as a fierce centre-back. However, it clearly had an impact on his health in later life, and he died in a nursing home aged just 55, which is a tragedy.

Kevin Moore and Ray Hiron are not the only ones; Chris Nicholl was another Southampton legend with a Grimsby Town link. There are also more famous names such as Jeff Astle, Nobby Stiles and, more recently, Dean Windass. They are legends at their clubs and across the country.

What has been clearly established is that heading a football does an awful lot of harm over time to the brain of a human being. We accept that this is possibly outside the Bill’s scope, and we also accept the numbers in the room. However, I rise to speak to amendment 1 because it is really important that, as part of these debates on football regulation—when we are talking about billions of pounds sloshing around the football system—we understand that we could do so much with a tiny proportion of that amount to ease the pain and suffering of these footballers’ families.

Let us face it: the families of Kevin, Ray, Dean, Jeff, Nobby and Chris are around and speaking today, and there will be more families in the future. While it is very unlikely that we will be able to solve the issue with this Bill, it is important that every Member of Parliament with an interest in football takes an interest in this issue. We simply must push to get justice for the families of the footballers we have heard about today, and for those whose family member might suffer the same difficulties in the future.

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for moving amendment 1 so that we can have an initial conversation about this very emotive and important issue facing ex-players, and about the campaigns on these well-known health challenges. My right hon. Friend Caroline Nokes cannot be part of these discussions because she is a Deputy Speaker, but I have agreed to meet and listen to the group in the Southampton area.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the new clause we have tabled on player welfare, as we believe there are strong links to the arguments made on amendment 1. I will park those for now, as I am conscious that I am close to a red card following my initial yellow card—I will not go too far on that, Sir Jeremy.

Clause 6 defines the core objectives of the independent football regulator as

“to protect and promote the financial soundness of regulated clubs… to protect and promote the financial resilience of English football…to safeguard the heritage of English football”.

Amendment 1 seeks to add another subsection that would clarify this particular issue, and I understand the arguments that have been made.

We have already engaged with some of the leagues on this issue, and I draw the attention of the Committee, and of anyone listening at home who may be seeking assistance and support on this issue, to the funds that are available. I am not taking a particular position; I just want to highlight the existing scheme to support former footballers in this regard, as I think it is very important for those families around the country. My understanding is that the scheme was set up in 2023 by the Premier League and has distributed over £1.4 million to date. If this Bill Committee can achieve anything, we will be performing a good public service by advertising that the fund is available for ex-players to ensure those families can get the support they desire.

I will return to our player welfare new clause, but my understanding is that the drafting of the Bill, however well intentioned, does not look to include either the PFA or the LMA, both of which are key stakeholders in how we protect the rights of footballers and managers, who are under a lot of pressure. I think we all recognise that as politicians, because we have a lot of pressure placed on us in our duties in the workplace. With an increasing fixture list, as clubs look to add more fixtures to be more commercially viable, there is broader concern about player welfare. That is why I am keen to have that debate later in our considerations.

It is key that once this football regulator is established—and we know that it will be established—it considers the welfare of players. It is important that it does that with the bodies that represent both players and managers. I look forward to debating this further, and I thank the hon. Member for Cheltenham for moving the amendment for discussion.

I rise in support of new clause 1, which starts by saying:

“The IFR must establish and supervise a scheme aimed at providing…support to any person who has developed a neurodegenerative condition”.

The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup referred to an existing scheme run by the Premier League, which initially put £1 million into the pot, and I accept that £1.4 million may have been spent. However, Nobby Stiles’s care was £125,000 a year, so that fund would help only a handful of players.

If we look at the money in the game, there is £10 billion in Premier League TV rights and the PFA has £50 million in cash assets. John Stiles, Nobby Stiles’s son, is on record as saying that the PFA is not working with them enough. The PFA union derives an income of £26 million a year, and shirt sales in this country generate £200 million a year. The money already exists within the game to fund this at an appropriate level—more than the Premier League agreed when it set up its fund.

This scheme also has the support of the Football Supporters Association. We know from evidence that footballers are four to five times more likely to suffer devastating conditions such as Alzheimer’s, motor neurone disease, Parkinson’s and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which was found to be the cause of death in Nobby Stiles’s post-mortem.

To be clear, I was not taking a particular side. I was just explaining that funding is already available. I understand the hon. Member’s point about whether the funding is adequate.

On Nobby Stiles, the footballs that people play with are materially different from the ones that were played with in 1966. I ask in good faith: is the hon. Member leading this conversation to a potential ban on heading the ball in games, or is it just about the distribution of financial support for players?

I have a football at home signed by Sir Geoff Hurst, so I know exactly how heavy those old balls were, particularly when they got wet. We have seen coaching improvements so that children no longer head the football. That has come about because of the experiences of footballers who played in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. The Lib Dem spokesman referenced a game at Southampton in the early ’90s, when the football was not too dissimilar to the modern football. I can remember kicking it around at the park myself.

I am not in favour of banning headers in games. I would like to see a fully funded and legally compelled scheme set up to protect footballers who have suffered from playing the beautiful game and to support their families. Footballers of previous generations were not paid anywhere near what current footballers are paid. I would also like more research on preventive measures. Without the players, there is no game. We have to support our former players while protecting our future ones.

I commend the hon. Member for Cheltenham for speaking to amendment 1 and new clause 1. He said that this may not be the right place or the right Bill to do so, and I probably agree with him. Nevertheless, this is a helpful opportunity to acknowledge the issue, and it is timely given that there is a debate on dementia care in the Chamber right now. Until I entered this place, I worked for a national dementia care charity that was looking at the possible link between heading footballs and dementia diagnoses.

This debate is also timely because, almost at this hour as I understand it, an APPG is being set up to look at dementia in sport. While this amendment may not be successful, it is nevertheless very timely. I commend the hon. Member for raising the issue.

I call Max Wilkinson.

I have little more to add, other than to say that I think we should all go away and consider the extremely moving stories told by the footballers’ families. For those of us who saw those footballers during their very best days on the pitch, heading the ball with such vigour, reading those stories brings into sharp contrast what happens to those men after retirement. I therefore suggest that, while the amendment probably will not be agreed by the Committee today, it is important that we keep the discussion going—all of us who have an interest in football—and tell other parliamentarians too.

Apologies to the Minister, as I should have called her a moment ago.

That is quite okay, Sir Jeremy. I have done a lot of talking today. I thank the hon. Member for Cheltenham for moving the amendment and for giving us the opportunity to discuss it. I will explain why we are not able to accept it, but it is important to say first that the safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount.

I am very aware of this issue—I participated in a debate on it in the Chamber in September 2023, and I care greatly about the subject—and the hon. Gentleman, and indeed other Members across the House, spoke very movingly, giving a number of examples of the terrible experiences that footballers and their families have had.

I pay tribute on the record to the work of Football Families for Justice in supporting ex-players and their families. I commend it for its excellent work. Again, I echo the shadow Minister’s comments, as he made an important point about directing people to the fund and making it clear that the money is available.

The Government absolutely agree that this area requires further work, and we have committed to looking at these issues. I do not believe these measures are appropriate for this Bill, but I am fully aware of the importance of prioritising player welfare and ensuring that former players and their families have the support they need.

National governing bodies are responsible for the regulation of sports and for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, including head injuries. The Government expect national governing bodies to take the health and safety of players as a top priority.

The Secretary of State and I recently met a small group of affected families and ex-footballers, including individuals associated with Football Families for Justice, to discuss player safety and welfare for those suffering with dementia. We heard, at first hand, about players’ experiences and the views of the group on how safety and welfare could be improved at all levels of the sport.

We are considering what is required, including how to support football to come together to address the problems raised. We are committed to supporting the families and football authorities to come together to address those issues, and our officials are in the process of arranging meetings to further explore the issue.

That has hopefully outlined how the Government and I care very much about these issues. I will briefly say why we do not feel we can accept these measures. I thank my hon. Friend Chris Evans for tabling them, and I thank the hon. Member for Cheltenham for introducing them—he spoke very powerfully.

The regulator will be a specialist regulator with a precise focus on financial regulation, corporate governance, fan engagement and heritage, as we have heard throughout today’s debates. It will be aimed at addressing the main issues that came out of Dame Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review.

We have heard at length, in this House and the other place, about the importance of a tight regulatory scope focused on the market failures that the industry cannot address itself. Even if we wanted to accept this change, we feel it would open the door to other amendments, and indeed to scope creep, which we do not want. But that is certainly not in any way a reflection of how seriously we take this issue—we take it very seriously. We look forward to meeting and working with campaigners, and indeed with everyone in football, to come to a solution on this issue.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 sets out the regulator’s objectives, which are its primary aims and also the limits of its statutory remit. As clause 7 sets out, the regulator may act only if the action taken, so far as reasonably practicable, advances one or more of those objectives. I will speak briefly to the objectives, and then we can debate them further.

The first objective is club financial soundness—the ability of individual clubs to continue meeting their debts and liabilities even in the face of challenging circumstances, new risks and financial shocks. The second is systemic financial resilience, which relates to the wider financial resilience of English football. That involves issues that, individually, pose a small problem, but that, when aggregated or multiplied, pose a significant threat to groups, clubs and the pyramid as a whole.

The third objective is safeguarding club heritage and the heritage of English football. Clearly, financial collapse is a risk, but so is the potential for clubs to become unrecognisable to their fans and communities. As we know, the Bill grew out of the fan-led review, which highlighted myriad problems facing football in this country. There are a number of areas where action is needed, but not all the problems are for a statutory regulator to fix. We have been clear about the areas where the regulator would need to act; some relate to issues of sustainability, where we believe that the market has failed, or remains ill equipped, to act.

We believe that the three objectives are the right focus. When I talk about the Bill, I always say—and I said it when I opened today—that at a very basic level clubs have to do three things: be a fit and proper owner, have a business plan and consult their fans. Many are doing that, and doing it well, and in that case there will be no need for duplication. At a very basic level, that is what the Bill and the regulator aim to do.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I want to refer particularly to clause 6(c). When we finally get to the football issues in the Bill, I am sure a lot of them will be about the ownership of clubs and how owners behave. Just in passing, and without going into detail, the EFL has once again taken action against the owner of Sheffield Wednesday, Dejphon Chansiri, for failing to pay the players’ wages. I have said before that he does not have the resources to run the club, but we will come to that later. The other major issue we will come to will no doubt be the financial distribution within football.

However, let us remember why the Crouch review was established. It was actually kicked off and stimulated by the suggestion that there might be a European super league, with certain clubs going off and playing by themselves and detaching themselves from the rest of football. The then Prime Minister got rather upset about that and decided that action needed to be taken. So the review was essentially about protecting the integrity of the established football competitions—the leagues, the FA cup and the League cup.

Clause 6(c) refers to the need to

“safeguard the heritage of English football”,

or the heritage objective. Our objective is to protect the Premier League and the EFL—what has been the English league game and the pyramid for a long period—together with the FA cup and, more recently, for the last 50 years, the League cup. That is the heritage that needs protecting.

I absolutely understand the hon. Member’s argument, and as I said earlier I have full respect for the work he has done as chair of the football all-party parliamentary group. However, a story in the press yesterday highlighted that there could be a breakaway league in rugby union. A lot of the arguments he is making about the creation of the Bill are about why the heritage part is so important. Given that commonality and that we are talking about a similar risk, does he believe that the Government should set up a regulator for rugby?

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will not tempt me down that road; if he did, I am sure you would stop me fairly quickly, Sir Jeremy. Let us stick to the matter in hand and look at the heritage of the game.

It is absolutely right that the Government acted. The Bill, through a clause retained from the previous Bill, acts to stop clubs engaging in competitions that are not accepted by the regulator. That is an important part of the Bill, and it comes from the European super league suggestion. However, there are other developments in the game that I think are undermining its heritage.

Some of us are old enough to remember—although probably not everyone in the Committee Room—when FA cup matches were played until the end. They carried on having replays until a club actually won the game, rather than having penalty shoot-outs. Indeed, I remember back to 1979, when Sheffield Wednesday as a third tier club played Arsenal in the third round of the FA cup, and the tie went on for five matches—I went to four of them. I remember it because that was an incredible event. Five games that were all sold out—the replays were sold out at Leicester in the old Filbert Street ground.

We had a habit of losing these sorts of matches at Sheffield Wednesday. We played Everton towards the end of the 1980s, and again we had four matches in the FA cup. There were three very close-fought games that were all draws; the fourth game was at Hillsborough—we were 5-0 down at halftime. That is the sort of twist that happens in football, and we have all experienced them as football fans. They are part of the heritage of the game.

What is happening now is that the demands of a certain number of clubs in certain competitions—the European competitions, by and large—are starting to ensure that, because their time is demanded to play in those competitions, there is less time for the rest of the competitions that all the other clubs play in. We have seen examples this year of non-league sides being denied FA cup replays. Tamworth at Tottenham earlier on this year were not allowed to play again because cup replays had been stopped. League cup games cannot go to extra time.

The lifeblood of clubs that are never going to get into Europe is playing in the league and cup competitions—playing great games against bigger sides. They are being denied and their heritage is being undermined—the heritage of all supporters is being undermined—by the devaluation of those competitions in order to allow fewer clubs to play in a certain number of competitions in the European leagues.

The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate speech about the heritage elements of cup competitions, and a genuinely important point about fixture scheduling and how the international teams impact that. We are talking about Club World cups and tours of Asia—we have just seen Man United go straight to Asia. However, to try and spin a positive on the situation—I am not defending certain clubs—would the hon. Member agree with me that it is a good thing that this year the underdogs have won those cups? There is value again in those cup competitions, whether that is Crystal Palace winning a tournament—the hon. Member for Dartford is nodding at that—or Newcastle winning.

And Tottenham.

Indeed. We could keep going. That proves the value of the cup competitions. Many more clubs should take our traditional cup competitions more seriously.

That is a fair point, and it does not happen often enough these days. We can think back to how often the cup is won by someone different, and in past years it has been almost the same teams playing each other all the time. I think Crystal Palace were underdogs; I am not sure that Newcastle and Tottenham can really classify themselves as underdogs. But it was a point well made.

There is a point I want to emphasise and ask the Minister to have a look at. Does she accept that the regulator, with the powers that it has to safeguard the heritage of English football, can look at the impact on domestic competitions and on all the clubs within the pyramid—the clubs that play in the FA cup and the League cup—from other competitions, where the calendar fixtures of a small number of clubs detrimentally affects those other clubs?

I will make my comments brief, because the hon. Member has made a number of excellent points that need to be addressed by the Minister rather than by me. The objectives under clause 6 are the promotion of the financial soundness of regulated clubs; protecting and promoting the financial resilience of English football; and the safeguarding of heritage assets, which is the main point the hon. Member for Sheffield South East just made. He spoke well about how those different issues interlink between clubs of different sizes, and the impact it has on lower league clubs that value the financial benefits of a replay.

I remember, as a Cheltenham fan, when we were in what was League One then, but now is the Championship, going to Bolton, where we lost in Bolton’s new stadium, and going to Coventry where we beat a Premier League team. It is incredible for fans to go to grounds that they would not normally get to experience. We must not lose that aspect of this. There is also the financial impact of the smaller club getting a replay, which is absolutely crucial. Welling United, one of my local clubs, has sadly just been relegated from the Conference South. I remember—I think they had got to round two in the cup a few years ago—Carlisle had come to visit. Welling United fans would never normally have had the opportunity to watch them play that club, or to visit their stadium and see all the characteristics of stadiums at that level and professional players perform there. That is an important part of the fabric and the love of the FA cup, which we all share.

I am talking about the EFL cup as well, but the FA cup in particular is incredibly powerful. I spoke about the soft power asset of English football around the world—people understand the value of the FA cup and what that means for competition across the whole pyramid. We know clubs in the lower leagues play a number of qualifying rounds to try to get to round three when the Premier League clubs normally come in. We must not lose sight of the impact of replays, and I would be genuinely interested to see what the Minister says in response to the point made by hon. Member for Sheffield South East on those.

We had a long debate earlier about what we thought were good ambitions to try to expand the scope of the objectives of the IFR in clause 6, and I appreciate that Committee members have had their say already on whether that is the wrong thing to do. I encourage the Minister, again in good faith, to consider the point about the growth of the game. We are concerned that, as drafted, the objectives of the regulator do not fulfil the potential it could have to try to look at the growth of the game. In other Departments I know the Chancellor has urged Ministers to write to their regulators to ask for growth examples, but at this point in the Bill we can mandate that to be a part of the regulator’s considerations. I urge the Minister to think about that point.

It is a pleasure to once again, and possibly finally for today, serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy—but we will see. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East for all his work in the all-party group and for his long-standing interest. I completely appreciate his points. I would say that the regulator will have a number of ways to safeguard heritage, including to be able to prohibit competitions, and require consultation on matchday operations. Clause 8 encourages the regulator to engage with both players and fans on relevant matters. The regulator has a tightly defined scope and purpose focused on protecting and promoting the long-term financial sustainability of the game for the benefit of fans and local communities. It will not intervene on sporting competition matters, such as the footballing calendar.

To address the point by my hon. Friend for Sheffield South East about the FA cup and replays, I remember that just as the previous Bill was published, it was in the news and a real debate. I completely appreciate that one could argue that it is very much part of the heritage of the game, but it is also a competition matter, and therefore it is out of scope of the Bill. I will take away the comments by my hon. Friend, and I appreciate Members from across the House for putting theirs on the record.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Vicky Foxcroft.)

Adjourned till Thursday 5 June at half-past Eleven o’clock.

FGB01 Fair Game

FGB02 Premier League

FGB03 English Football League (EFL)