Finance expert highlights Independent Football Regulator’s backstop potential
Senior Lecturer in Football Finance, Kieran Maguire, has highlighted the backstop potential of an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to address financial mismanagement at football clubs.
Kieran provided oral evidence, alongside Dr Christina Philippou (University of Portsmouth), during the first formal meeting on the Football Governance Bill introduced into Parliament in March.
They responded to MP questions concerning financial aspects connected to the bill’s cornerstone measure, an IFR for the top five tiers of men’s football in England.
MPs asked for evidence to assess the IFR’s ability to address widespread financial fragility among clubs, as highlighted in the Fan-Led Review of Football Governance, and after notorious examples of financial mismanagement from Everton and Nottingham Forest.
Kieran stressed the benefits of having an independent “regulator with a set of financial rules and observations” that can “nudge people in the right direction”, through “real time monitoring in respect of finances”.
Rather than “telling clubs how they should behave”, Kieran sees it as a reasonable way to support teams to “identify potential problems at an earlier stage” diminishing their chances of “getting into a more long term financial crisis, where the only solution would be administration”.
As well as its “ability to do real time investigations”, Kieran noted the IFR’s scope to “offer advice or, in extreme circumstances, to look at some form of regime change that allows the appointment of trustees and advisers to assist clubs in precarious financial positions”.
Using Everton as an example, he explained why it is of vital importance to scrutinise club finances, especially when they are too “reliant on third-party or ownership funding”.
While he acknowledged the regulator will not be able to “convert us into a zero-crisis environment”, it has the potential to “turn down the dial” by monitoring “the ability of that funding to be maintained on a medium to long-term basis”.
According to Kieran, when problems arise from owners’ personal circumstances or intentions changing, the IFR “would have regulatory powers and ability to send in a forensic team to take a look and offer guidance to clubs that may not be willing to listen to it under other circumstances”.
He argued this “would perhaps focus some minds where people have historically tended not to listen and take no advice”.
The first formal meeting held on 14 May, is the first of a series of sessions aimed at scrutinising the legal viability of the bill and the IFR’s ability to improve financial sustainability, ensure financial resilience across leagues and safeguard English football's heritage.