Footballgovernance

Blackpool Gazette

Minister Lisa Nandy meets football fans including Christine Seddon of the Blackpool Supporters Trust to discuss the Football Governance Bill (courtesy of DCMS)

Transcript

00:00I was very worried that we were going to lose our club.

00:02So much of your esteem is about your football team.

00:05Our community is what is the lifeblood around a football club.

00:08It's not the other way around.

00:10Hello.

00:11Hello again.

00:12Hello again.

00:12The whole idea about the Football Governance Bill

00:14is that we put fans back at the heart of the game where they belong.

00:17We're really excited, finally it's here.

00:20And we've put more into it to strengthen the protection for fans as well

00:23and make sure that all clubs can be sustainable.

00:25So perhaps we'll start with Blackpool because I was there recently

00:28and I saw just how important the club is to the whole community.

00:31In our recent history, of course, we had a lot of problems at Blackpool with rogue owners.

00:36And I was very worried that we were going to lose our club.

00:39And we were really shocked to find that the regulations as it's existed up till now

00:45just wasn't fit for purpose.

00:47And I'm just absolutely over the moon that we've got this far

00:51and that people are now listening and realise the importance of football clubs

00:55not just to the fans but to the community.

00:57The way that I often describe it is that they're handed down through the generations

01:02as part of our social and civic inheritance.

01:05And they matter far more beyond what happens on the pitch

01:09because you see the ripple effects right across entire communities.

01:12I'm third generation Liverpool fan.

01:15My grandfather was actually a commissioner on the door of Anfield

01:18actually then putting something back into his community.

01:20So it's like, it's real for me.

01:22I want it to be real for my children and my grandchildren and theirs as well.

01:26And I think the introduction of the independent regulator is what takes us to that other level.

01:31That means then if these owners do move on to somewhere else

01:34then other owners can't rip apart what we have because there'd be regulation in place.

01:38The whole point of this is about our community is what is the lifeblood around a football club.

01:43It's not the other way around.

01:45The only thing I keep thinking of is just the precarity of it all.

01:47And it shouldn't be something you have to worry about.

01:50I think when the governance is bad and when the boardrooms are bad

01:54that trickles down to the pitch.

01:55Our downfall at the moment arguably came on the cusp of us going to the Premier League for the first time in 20 years.

02:02No one should have had that feeling of riding it so high and then crashing so low all at once.

02:07Because so much of your esteem is about your football team and so many of your friendships.

02:12Yeah, just the security would be lovely.

02:14Well, that is exactly what this bill is all about.

02:17Football brings enormous joy.

02:20It shouldn't be this much of a struggle.

02:22So I'm really, really grateful to you all for making a bit of time to talk to us about it, about why it's so important.

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