‘Fans are the moral owners of our football clubs – that’s why the Premier League needs a regulator’ | OneFootball

It’s something that can often be overlooked amid the Premier League’s constant stream of games and drama, but there has been a serious undercurrent to this season. The 2024-25 campaign has so far witnessed more supporter unrest than any since the Super League was launched. The season was already framed by collective fan movements over ticket price rises, building to outright demonstrations at Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, while fostering further unease around Manchester United’s redundancies instigated by co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

That lamentable latter story has Geoff Walters thinking, especially given his role as professor in sports business at the University of Liverpool.

“To me, the United example is why there’s been a need for an independent regulator,” Walters says. “You’ve got somebody who’s got a clear business head but is everything he’s doing going to damage the club in the long term? I don’t know but we’ve got to a point where this probably could have been avoided if you’d have had a regulator in place that would have picked up on issues long before they even got to where they are.”

Walters has consulted with the EFL and is “pro regulator” but that comes from his research as one of the most respected authorities on sporting regulation. He is also director of the Centre for Sports Business, which supports sport through their work insights.

“I’ve got that perspective because of the research I’ve done over 20 years and understanding the industry,” Walters says. “Football has a social purpose, a cultural purpose; our football system is a strong cultural asset and it needs protecting. A regulator won’t be a panacea but it will be a step in the right direction.”

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Manchester United fans protest against rising ticket prices (Getty Images)

Against that, the argument is now commonly made that it’s time for people to accept the reality that the sport has become more of a business, and needs more business norms. Walters feels the evidence disproves this.

“Thirty years of increasing commercialisation have made the finance side more prominent and, as we’ve gone down this road, we’ve lost a little bit of that essence of what a football club is actually about. If this was an ordinary business, then so many clubs would have gone bust years ago. But it’s not. Football clubs have continued to persist and persist, because they are different. And so in that sense, an independent regulator protects that.”

It sums up the public relations battle around the regulator that many Premier League resistors now use that reality for the opposite argument.

“It’s like ‘football clubs don’t go out of business so therefore the football industry is healthy’, but then you look at what’s going on in the Premier League itself.”

In other words, Walters argues, the competition is actually facing a regulation crisis. He points to the major issue of the Manchester City’s Associated Party Transaction case. Having scored one victory by having the previous rules judged unlawful, the English champions have already taken a legal challenge against the hastily voted new rules.

“You’ve got clubs that are challenging the Premier League’s own rules, and finding ways to seek to go around the rules, or say the rules aren’t fit for purpose. If the Premier League loses that case, it is really, really harmful for the Premier League. Even if they win, there’s an argument that you need an independent body to be more resistant, and have rules that are more watertight.

“Self-regulation is a massive issue. Members voting through their regulations is problematic because you’ve got clubs that will vote in their own interests.”

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Manchester City are ataking on the Premier League in the courts (Getty Images)

That, for Walters, isn’t true regulation since it does not bring a neutral overview of the game.

“Historically it’s been fine because they’ve always been able to get that majority of 14 whereas now, the last few years, with new owners coming in, that dynamic is changing. The Premier League itself might start to fragment. It is more fragile.

“An independent regulator offers more certainty about particular rules, backed by law, that make them very difficult to challenge.”

In contrast, Walters points to how ad hoc that self-regulation can be.

“We’ve seen it in the past, every time there’s been potential government intervention, the Premier League or Football League bring in certain regulations saying ‘you don’t need to, this is now what we’re doing’. So it’s always been reactive, and they haven’t been put in place to address financial sustainability. It’s pure political theatre around legitimacy. The government then hasn’t had the will to get involved. That all changed with the Super League.”

Walters feels there’s a considerable irony to that now. “When the Super League came about, the Premier League were happy to lean on political involvement then.”

While it would seem that resurgent supporter unrest only illustrates the urgency of installing a regulator, Walters has been struck by Premier League figures bringing the argument back.

“A lot of the House of Lords debate focuses on ‘why we don’t need a regulator’. That’s an issue because it’s four years from the European Super League, where the process has been rigorous, with all the consultations that went into the fan-led review, the document that came from that was very clear about why we need a regulator, that fed into the white paper, that fed into the football governance bill. That’s being questioned, and I think we need to move beyond that.

“The House of Lords debates gave us the opportunity to really focus on the how - how to address cultural heritage, financial performance of clubs and the system - and instead it’s being dragged into why.

“You can see it’s a delaying tactic… the arguments are very much vested in self-interest.”

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Chelsea fans protesting against the proposed Super League in April 2020 (Getty Images)

Walters ultimately believes the arguments that a regulator would hinder the competitiveness of the Premier League are disproved by evidence.

“Look at the revenues, compared to the second biggest generator, the Bundesliga. (The Premier League is almost double at around £6bn compared to £3.7bn.) The Premier League is way, way ahead… it’s the best football league in the world, the biggest brand, people still want to invest.”

Walters feels that a fundamental problem is how this financial size has given the Premier League an immense power over the English game, but the competition isn’t actually interested in taking wider responsibility for that power.

“They’re arguing from self-interest because they don’t want interference but the paradox is that undermines the ecosystem ... It generates a lot of revenue for the sector but redistribution of revenue is absolutely critical to the wider ecosystem.

“I know this sounds very simplistic, but it’s about the pie, slicing up the pie, and who gets the most. That’s essentially what it is. Otherwise, why can’t the Premier League and the EFL agree a deal?”

Walters doesn’t just feel the discussion should move on, but could also be deepened.

“I'm talking with a couple of colleagues now about whether to do something around ‘moral ownership’ and supporters being the moral owners. I don’t necessarily know how to define that, and legal ownership would take precedence but we see it every day. Look at United, and fans feeling that sense of ownership. They’re there in perpetuity. Owners are transitory.”

It’s why the game needs to have a wider view than just the interests of those in charge now.