Football regulator: West Ham’s Karren Brady issues warning over plans

The government’s proposed new football regulator would create a “closed shop” of top sides, West Ham United vice chair Karren Brady has warned.

The Football Governance Bill, which would lead to the creation of a regulator, was debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday.

Baroness Brady, who has held senior positions at clubs for 30 years, told peers there were “dangers lurking in this bill”.

“Aspects of this legislation risks suffocating the very thing that makes English football so unique, the aspiration that allows clubs to rise and succeed in our pyramid system. The ambition that means fans can dream,” she said.

The government wants a regulator to be able to “improve the resilience of club finances, tackle rogue owners and directors and strengthen fan engagement”.

The bill was introduced after a similar measure by the previous government ran out of time to be made law before the general election.

But Conservative peer Brady said planned “extreme redistribution” would “replace our brilliant but brutal meritocracy with the likelihood of a closed shop where survival not aspiration becomes a ceiling”.

Supporter groups and the English Football League are among those to have welcomed the bill, though the Premier League has insisted there is no need for an independent regulator.