Clive Betts MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—not for the time limit but for calling me. The Bill is crucial because football has failed to regulate itself. It is key to ensuring the sustainability of our great game. The first aspect of it that I really commend is the move to give the regulator powers to ensure a fairer redistribution of money throughout the football pyramid—it is clearly totally unfair that money is concentrated in a handful of clubs at the top while other clubs struggle at the bottom—and to remove the enormous cliff edge between the premier league and the championship. I thank the Secretary of State and the Sport Minister for listening to the concerns raised about the powers of the regulator with regard to the backstop. In improving the backstop in terms of scope and process during the Bill’s passage, they have listened and acted, which is welcome indeed.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will turn in a second to what the EFL can do now. For all that the Minister has been helpful in explaining what the regulator’s powers will be, the problem is that we are left in the meantime without a regulator and doubts about what the EFL can do in that regard. My hon. Friends the Members for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) and for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) will be very much involved with the Reading supporters’ trust and can tell us all the problems that they have experienced. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) has similar problems with her club. There have been similar problems for Derby and its fans, as hon. Friends will know, and the Secretary of State will know about Wigan. The situation at Sheffield Wednesday is dire. The owner has failed to pay wages for three months over the course of this year. That affects not just the players—some of whom may be well off, while others are not; the administrative staff, clerks and all those people have not been paid for two months in some cases. The owner has not paid His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on two occasions. It is clear that he is simply running out of money. What actions can the EFL take? We welcome the investigation that it is now conducting into what is going on at Hillsborough, but it is clear that although Chansiri was funding the club to the tune of about £10 million a year, he has now run out of money. Rob Brookes of the Wednesday supporters’ trust has done a brilliant analysis of Chansiri’s companies in Thailand, which are, by and large, now losing money. He is not able to fund the club, so where has the money been coming from to keep it going for the past two or three years? Has he borrowed it? If so, who has he borrowed it from? What are the conditions on that borrowing? Are the people who lent him the money now effectively running the club and telling Chansiri that he cannot sell it? He has turned down many approaches to sell the club and is demanding ridiculous prices for it. Has the money been borrowed from reputable sources? I do not know; I am not making an accusation. The only person who can clarify this awful situation is Mr Chansiri himself, but he will not comment on it. We welcome the EFL investigation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) says, we want the EFL to find out what is happening, and to be transparent and open about what it knew about the whole issue. Why, when Chansiri produced a business plan in March, did the EFL accept it? How far did it question that plan? Having given the EFL a business plan saying that he was financially sustainable, he failed to pay wages hours later. He had two five-hour engagements with the fans and never once mentioned his problems funding the club. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley said, what we do not want is for the EFL to come in and its only actions be to punish the club with transfer embargoes and points deductions to the point where a sustainable sale to someone else is not possible. I say to the EFL: you are the only hope we have until the regulator comes in, so please work with the fans’ trust and others to find the best way forward. Tell us what you knew and what you know now, and expose what Chansiri has been doing, because it is an absolute disgrace that a club of Sheffield Wednesday’s stature should be reduced to this situation. We have heard today that, because of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, Sheffield city council has issued a directive that unless work is done on the north stand roof, it will close part of the ground come the start of the season, but the club has known about that for three years. This is an appalling situation. I ask the Minister and the Secretary of State to talk to the EFL about how far they can work with them to save the situation. I welcome the Minister for Sport’s letters to me, the commitment to fan engagement and the commitment on the FSA’s role going forward, but the regulator must have the powers to intervene if it feels that external competitions such as the club world cup interfere with our domestic competitions. I thank her very much for her engagement right through this process.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I do not whether the shadow Minister can get some help from his right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, who is sitting next to him on the Front Bench. I wonder whether, when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Government, he received any correspondence from UEFA and FIFA. Given the openness that the shadow Minister is calling for, will he now publish any correspondence received by the last Government?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Would the shadow Minister like to join me in thanking the shadow Secretary of State, his right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), for first introducing legislation to this House that promoted an independent football regulator? [ Interruption. ]