Cases · English football (Premier League / EFL) · 2021–2026
England's Independent Football Regulator: Fans, Owners and the State
In July 2025, the Football Governance Act became law, creating England's Independent Football Regulator. Its powers include licensing clubs in the top five men's divisions, financial regulation, statutory tests for owners and directors, fan-engagement standards, a bar on joining breakaway leagues, protection of club heritage, and backstop powers over distributions between leagues. The reform followed the collapse or near-collapse of clubs such as Bury and Derby County and the 2021 European Super League attempt. The Premier League warned that the model could be 'risk-averse,' duplicative and too open to government influence. The case asks when sport should be regulated by the state, and how to balance clubs' commercial freedom with their role as community institutions.
Timeline
- The attempted European Super League breakaway prompts calls for reform.
- A Shadow Football Regulator transition team is established.
- The Premier League's chief executive sets out objections to the proposed regulator.
- The Football Governance Act receives Royal Assent.
- The regulator is established and its powers phased in.
- The Commissioner for Public Appointments finds three Governance Code breaches in the IFR chair's appointment process.
- The IFR publishes its draft State of the Game report.
The ethical issues
- Clubs as businesses versus community institutions.
- State regulation of sport and independence from government.
- Owner suitability and the source of funds.
- Fair distribution of revenue across the football pyramid.
- Fan voice in club governance.
Stakeholders
| Stakeholder | Interests & obligations |
|---|---|
| Fans and supporters' trusts | Protecting their clubs and having a voice. |
| Premier League clubs | Commercial freedom, investment and competitiveness. |
| EFL clubs | Financial sustainability and a fairer share of revenue. |
| Owners and investors | Returns and control. |
| Government | Delivering on manifesto promises and protecting community assets. |
| FIFA and UEFA | Autonomy of football from state interference. |
The case
On July 21, 2025, the Football Governance Act received Royal Assent, creating the Independent Football Regulator (IFR).[1][2] The regulator describes the Act as “the biggest change to the governance of English club football since the creation of the Premier League in 1992.”[2]
Background
The government said the Act followed “a long journey to law, which began following the attempted breakaway European Super League, and a series of high-profile cases of clubs facing financial ruin.”[1] (See the European Super League breakaway.) It cited fans of Bury, Macclesfield Town, Derby County, Reading and others who had “been left to suffer the consequences of reckless mismanagement, excessive risk-taking and financial catastrophe.”[1]
A supporters’ trust chair said that when clubs fail, “jobs are lost, community projects are cut and businesses suffer,” adding: “There are fans, not customers, players are heroes, not assets.”[1] The head of the Football Supporters’ Association said: “Club owners can no longer mark their own homework.”[1]
The rules and governance
According to the government, the regulator’s powers include:[1]
- financial regulation to improve resilience across the pyramid;
- statutory owners’ and directors’ tests, including checks against illicit finances, with powers to force unsuitable owners to sell;
- standards for fan engagement in club decision-making;
- bars on clubs joining closed-shop competitions and breakaway leagues;
- backstop powers to ensure fair financial distribution between leagues; and
- protection of heritage assets such as home shirt colors, badges and stadium moves.
The regime covers the top five men’s leagues. A Shadow Football Regulator was established in 2024 to prepare it.[1]
The Premier League’s objections
The Premier League lobbied against parts of the bill. In May 2024, its chief executive wrote to MPs that “despite good intentions” the model could “result in a risk-averse model, delivered by a complicated and duplicative system.”[3] The league had wanted a regulator that would sit above football’s authorities and step in to fix problems, rather than license clubs directly.[3]
He argued that banking-style regulation did not suit football: “The football industry overall is remarkably stable … However, what goes on inside the league structure is inherently unstable. Fierce competition, prizes for success and consequences for failure are all part of a highly competitive league system that fans want to follow. These are not deficiencies to be managed out.”[3] He also objected that the government had written “a stronger role than anticipated for itself,” including a requirement that the regulator consider foreign policy when assessing owners, and warned of possible issues with FIFA and UEFA, whose statutes ban state interference.[3] He called the distribution backstop “a novel mechanism, perhaps without precedent” that could hardwire “continuous negotiation and uncertainty into football.”[3]
Supporters of regulation responded that FIFA already tolerates national differences such as Germany’s “50+1” fan-ownership rule.[3]
What the statute actually says
The Act’s purpose clause is one sentence: “to protect and promote the sustainability of English football.”[7] Several of the most contested powers are drafted more narrowly than the political debate suggested. A club may not make material changes to its crest or its “predominant home shirt colours” unless it “has taken reasonable steps to establish that the changes are supported by a majority of the club’s fans in England and Wales.” It may not change a team’s name unless the Football Association approves.[7] Fan consultation must cover the club’s “strategic direction and objectives,” its “business priorities,” “operational and match-day issues, including ticket pricing,” and its heritage.[7] Any club that has been regulated in the previous 10 years must not field a team in a “prohibited competition.”[7]
The distribution backstop the Premier League objected to has several stages. Only a “specified competition organiser” can apply to trigger it. The question must concern broadcasting revenue or other revenue specified in regulations. The organisers must first go to mediation. If mediation fails, each submits a proposal with supporting evidence, and the regulator must point to relevant findings from its latest state of the game report. Only then can the IFR make a “distribution order.”[7] Two principles constrain that order. It should not “place an undue burden on the commercial interests of either specified competition organiser.” It also should not leave a relegated club with less relegation revenue in the first year than it would otherwise have received.[7] The Act therefore protects, for a limited period, the parachute payments that the regulator’s own first report would later say add to overspending incentives.[6][7] The statute also obliges the IFR to publish a state of the game report and to “have regard to” it when exercising its functions.[7]
The chair’s appointment
The regulator’s leadership drew scrutiny of its own. In May 2025, the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked the Commissioner for Public Appointments to examine the competition that selected David Kogan as chair.[8] The commissioner’s decision notice of November 6, 2025 found “three material breaches of the Governance Code.” First, Kogan had made two donations “totalling £2,900” in 2020 to the Labour leadership campaign of the now Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, and she had not checked for such donations before selecting him as preferred candidate. Second, the potential conflict was not discussed at interview. Third, the department did not publicly disclose his political activity, although Electoral Commission registers recorded £33,410 donated to Labour and Labour candidates by him and his company in the previous five years.[8] The commissioner found that the Secretary of State had “unknowingly breached the Code.” She had recused herself from the final decision once she learned of the donations.[8] The notice also stated that it “makes no finding about Mr Kogan’s suitability for the role,” and noted that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee had endorsed him.[8] The episode was about process, not competence. It still mattered for a body whose authority rests on being independent of both the clubs and the government.[1][8]
Aftermath
The regulator was established after the Act, with offices in Salford and London, and its powers were brought in through a phased process of consultation and licensing.[1][2]
In October 2025, the IFR published its licensing plans, which it said would “go further than anything currently in place by assessing the full financial picture of a club.” All 116 clubs in the top five divisions would need a licence to compete from 2027–28, conditional on financial plans, corporate governance standards and direct consultation with fans on matters such as business priorities, heritage and ticket prices; fans would be heard but would have no veto.[4] If clubs could not show sound financial planning, the regulator said it could require them to increase cash reserves, control costs or reduce debt. Its newly appointed chair, David Kogan, called it “a transformational change” and said the power to force unsuitable owners to sell would be used “as a last resort.”[4] After two consultations, the IFR published final licensing rules on July 1, 2026, including application guidance, a club corporate governance code and a business-plan template; clubs must hold a provisional licence ahead of 2027–28.[5]
In October 2026, the IFR’s draft State of the Game report found that English football brings in over £9 billion but that 94% of clubs are loss-making, nearly two-thirds of EFL and National League clubs are technically insolvent, and more than a quarter could not survive more than 30 days if their owners withdrew funding.[6] It found the average Premier League club earns more than eight times the average Championship club, and that parachute payments to relegated clubs add to Championship clubs’ incentives to overspend. “Anyone reading this report can be in no doubt about the need for intervention,” the regulator said, proposing a six-point plan.[6] Its findings bear directly on the backstop powers over distribution that the Premier League had resisted.[1][3][6]
The core dilemma
English football is commercially successful but has seen clubs collapse under poor ownership, and its biggest clubs tried to break away. Self-regulation failed to prevent these crises. But regulation could reduce investment, add bureaucracy and invite political influence. When should government regulate sport?
Competing values
- Community vs. commerce: clubs as civic institutions against clubs as businesses.
- Stability vs. competition.
- Independence from government vs. accountability to the public.
- Fair distribution vs. property rights.
Strongest arguments
For the regulator: repeated club failures and the Super League attempt showed self-regulation was not enough. Clubs are community assets, and fans deserve protection from reckless owners.
Against or for a lighter regulator: the Premier League is a global success and the industry is largely stable. Heavy regulation could deter investment and duplicate existing rules, and government influence risks politicizing football.
For a balanced approach: strong ownership tests and fan protections, with proportionate financial regulation and clear limits on government influence.
Applying the frameworks
Utilitarianism
A utilitarian lens weighs the benefits of preventing club failures and protecting communities against possible costs to investment and competitiveness.
Justice
A justice lens examines the distribution of revenue across the pyramid and whether clubs lower down receive a fair share of the wealth the game generates.
Care ethics
A care lens focuses on clubs’ relationships with their communities, and on the fans, workers and local businesses harmed when clubs fail.
Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model
- Spot the issue. You are the regulator’s chair designing the licensing regime. Stakeholders include fans, clubs, owners, leagues and government. Less visible are small-town communities whose clubs are fragile. The codes are the Act and its guidance.
- Gather facts. Which clubs are at risk? What do existing league rules already cover? Beware overreacting to dramatic failures.
- Test options. (a) A light-touch regime focused on problem clubs. (b) Comprehensive licensing for all clubs. (c) Tiered licensing based on risk.
- Check codes and law. Apply the Act’s duties and limits, and consider FIFA and UEFA statutes.
- Decide and document. Explain the regime and its proportionality.
- Communicate and follow up. Consult clubs and fans, and review the regime after implementation.
What’s settled and what’s contested
- Settled: the Act’s passage and the regulator’s establishment and powers.
- Contested: whether the regulator will be proportionate; whether government influence will grow; how the backstop will work in practice.
Why this case matters
England’s football regulator is a test of whether the state can protect sport’s community value without stifling its commercial success. It is a case study in governance, accountability and regulation.
See also: Docked for Spending: Everton, Forest and the Premier League’s Profit Rules.
Key terms
- Institutional accountability
- Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.
- Stakeholders
- Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.
- Distributive justice
- Fairness in how scarce opportunities, resources, benefits and burdens are shared.
- Paternalism (hard and soft)
- Restricting someone’s choices for their own good. Hard paternalism overrides competent, informed adults; soft paternalism steps in when information or autonomy is compromised.
- Commercialization
- The process of turning sport into a product and a business enterprise, with profit pressures that can compete with principle.
- Controls
- Concrete safeguards that make ethics operational: training, disclosure forms, testing, monitoring, hotlines. Ethics needs principles, process and controls.
Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.
Discussion questions
- Government described clubs as community institutions that fans built. Does that justify regulation that would not apply to other businesses?
- The Premier League argued that competition and failure are part of football. Should a regulator try to prevent clubs from failing?
- Should a regulator consider foreign policy when assessing owners, as the bill proposed? Why might that worry the league?
- Is a statutory 'backstop' for revenue distribution fair to Premier League clubs?
Sources
- Football Governance Act becomes law in historic moment for English football — UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (GOV.UK)
- Independent Football Regulator — Independent Football Regulator
- Masters outlines Premier League's objections to 'risk-averse' regulator — The Guardian
- Football clubs will have to prove financial health before being granted licence under IFR plans (Oct. 13, 2025) — BBC Sport
- Independent Football Regulator publishes final licensing rules and guidance (July 2026) — Global Regulation Tomorrow (Norton Rose Fulbright)
- State of the Game report concludes English football dangerously exposed (Oct. 2026) — Independent Football Regulator
- Football Governance Act 2025 (c. 21), as enacted — legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives)
- Decision Notice: The Appointment of the Chair of the Independent Football Regulator 2024/25 (Nov. 6, 2025) — Commissioner for Public Appointments