“Terrible”, “suffocating” and “damaging to the Premier League”.

Opponents of an independent regulator for English football have not been shy about making their feelings known, so why does the UK government want to get involved? What kind of person is needed to lead it? And have top-flight clubs been properly consulted?

Lisa Nandy, the UK secretary of state for culture, media and sport, joined Ayo Akinwolere, Matt Slater and Phil Hay on The Athletic FC Podcast to discuss.

Their questions and answers have been edited for clarity. Watch the full podcast below, or listen on Apple or Spotify.

The English game has been around for over 150 years. So why does the government need to get involved?

Nandy: I could answer that in one word: Bury. But Bury, Bolton, Oldham, Reading… we’ve just had so many examples in recent years of clubs whose very existence is under threat; real concerns about the sustainability of the whole pyramid.

Football is an ecosystem and we have to make sure of three things. The first is that fans have to be at the centre of the game and their clubs. Too often the experience for fans is that when it comes to things like team colours, heritage, stadium and decisions about things like ticketing, they’re just an afterthought. The second is that we want to make sure that every club has a decent business plan and is sustainable. And we want to make sure that every club has a decent owner. And those three things have to be non-negotiable for football. Many clubs are already doing them, but not all.

That’s why we need a regulator. We think football could get its own house in order and the whole point of this is to incentivise it to do so — but if they can’t, there has to be a backstop for fans so that someone can intervene. And make sure that we don’t have episodes like what happened to Bury ever again.

One of the main complaints from Premier League club executives is that they haven’t been properly consulted. Is that true?

Nandy: It is completely untrue. There is not a shred of truth in that.

When I was appointed seven months ago after we won the election, one of the first meetings that I had was with the Premier League executives, and then a meeting with Premier League clubs.

Nandy arrives for a cabinet meeting in January (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

I said to them, ‘This is not just a one-off. We want to work with you closely, like we will with the EFL and the National League and others as the bill goes through parliament’.

I’ve had regular meetings — as has Stephanie Peacock, our sports minister — with them ever since.

Some of the Premier League clubs are in a very different place to others. Some are very supportive of the bill. Some have practical, pragmatic concerns that they want to iron out about the existing legislation. And then others are just completely opposed.

All those views are legitimate. The door has been opened, we’ve met with every single club that has wanted to and that offer remains on the table.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put fans at the heart of the game and enjoy the sustainability of the whole football pyramid for years and years to come, so my door is absolutely 100 per cent open.

But has the threat of regulation actually prevented the EFL and the Premier League from agreeing a financial deal?

Nandy: I totally disagree. The reason that we’ve ended up in this situation is because the EFL and the Premier League couldn’t come to an agreement themselves. If they had been able to do so in the last few years, I’m not sure that the last government would have ended up in a position where they felt that they needed this aspect of regulation where you have a backstop where somebody can actually intervene and make sure that there is an agreement that is reached.

The regulator doesn’t come in and make their own decision about the fair settlement between leagues. The regulator will only act and get involved if one of the leagues decides to trigger that involvement and at that point, it’s for the two leagues to put their own offers on the table and the regulator will choose.

So the hope is that what that will do is bring them to the table, get them to put reasonable offers on and they’ll meet in the middle. But if they can’t, the fans have to have some protection.

So who is going to lead this thing? 

Nandy: There will be no shortage of people who want to do this. I’m looking for somebody who really cares about putting fans back at the heart of this game. That is the whole inception behind the fan-led review and it’s really important that they come from that starting point. I want someone who puts the fans first but sees the importance of fans at the centre of the game, who is therefore interested in the whole pyramid.

We’ve deliberately conceived of this regulator as a backstop. Not a front stop. So the idea is that football is incentivised to come to its own agreement. We think that is far, far preferable than having to have a regulator intervene — but somebody who can navigate the complexities around that incentive.

The final thing is that it’s got to be somebody who can command the confidence of a wide range of people. The regulator will have to be somebody who can not only go from room to room and have those conversations but can bring people together.

We can get the regulator in place as soon as possible. Fans have just waited for too long for this.

World governing body FIFA and its European equivalent, UEFA, oppose government intervention in football. How does this impact the independent football regulator?

Nandy: We are completely confident in the position of FIFA and UEFA in relation to this bill. We’ve worked with them very closely. No government will ever do anything that would risk our participation in international competitions.

 (Top photo: Visionhaus)