[John Robertson in the Chair] — Football Clubs (Governance)

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 9:30 am on 8 September 2010.

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Photo of Steve Rotheram Steve Rotheram Labour, Liverpool, Walton 9:30, 8 September 2010

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to those supporters. I think that we ignore football fans at our peril. It is not just about Manchester United or Liverpool, or the other big clubs. Bees United acquired a 60% stake in Brentford football club in 2006, which made Brentford, who are in league one, one of only two Football League clubs to be majority-owned by their supporters. My hon. Friend mentioned Sheffield Wednesday; I think that it was Brentford who enjoyed a resounding victory over Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.

As I have said, no discussion on this subject would be complete without reference to the Spanish and German models of club ownership, which I suspect are feared and grudgingly admired in equal measure by the corporate football world in the UK. Both Spain and Germany boast thriving, long-established equivalents to our premier league. Clubs in those two leagues exist in a culture of mutual or co-operative club ownership. In both leagues, it is a matter of civic pride that top-flight football clubs should be controlled or owned by their supporters. Spain's FC Barcelona, which is the "big daddy" in this respect, is routinely held up as a utopian ideal of football club governance and is structured as a co-operative society owned by some 170,000 members, with a democratically elected president-and Barcelona do not do so badly, generally. It is a case of "horses for courses".