Football Governance Act: Statutory Instrument on Specified Competitions

I am updating the House on the introduction of the Football Governance Act 2025 (Specified Competitions) Regulations 2025, which were laid before Parliament today and will be debated in due course. These regulations are subject to the draft affirmative procedure for secondary legislation.

They are made under powers provided to the Government by the Football Governance Act 2025. As was discussed in detail during the Act’s passage through both Houses, it will be important to set the scope for this regulator as soon as possible through its delegated power. This eliminates any uncertainty for clubs, and to allow the independent football regulator to proceed with its set-up, including its “State of the Game” report, that requires its scope to be set before publishing the report.

The statutory instrument laid today proposes that the scope of the regime will be the top five professional leagues in English football. This will include the premier league, the championship, leagues one and two, and the national league.

This was the proposal in the fan-led review in 2021, the previous Government’s White Paper in 2023, and has been discussed and consulted on by all relevant stakeholders at great length. The rationale for these leagues are that the issues that the regulator is concerned with most typically and markedly arise in the top five leagues of the men’s game, where the financialisation of clubs is greater and where the right balance between benefits versus costs of regulation is achieved.

We do not believe extending the scope beyond the top five tiers would be proportionate to the burden on the smaller clubs below the national league, where the issues the IFR is aiming to resolve are less prevalent.

On the women’s game, Karen Carney led an independent review of domestic women’s football, which was published in July 2023 and recommended that the women’s game should be given the opportunity to self-regulate rather than moving immediately to independent statutory regulation. Given the rapid growth and opportunity in the women’s game, the Government support this recommendation, so women’s football will not be in scope of the IFR.

By continuing the set-up of the independent football regulator, this Government continue to deliver on their election promises, to combat the poor governance and financial mismanagement of football clubs in this country, and to put fans back at the heart of English Football.

[HCWS945]