Premier League boss Richard Masters denies they have “tried to kick around a new long-grass football regulator” after former sports minister Tracey Crouch claimed the top flight was “unwilling to engage” with the fan-driven review.
- Crouch told government committee the Premier League ‘put up obstacles’
- He claimed that the higher-ups wanted to thwart the formation of a new regulator.
- But Richard Masters said the Premier League had been fully compromised.
Richard Masters has refuted claims by former sports minister Tracey Crouch that the Premier League tried “to jettison plans for an independent football regulator”.
Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee, Crouch said the Premier League was “unwilling to commit” to plans to reform football governance and tried to thwart the process.
She said it was “disappointing and surprising” that the English top flight tried to put up “a whole series of hurdles that people constantly have to jump over”.
Speaking at the same hearing but a different panel later, Premier League chief executive Masters responded, saying: “We have done nothing more than participate in the process.”
Plans for the new independent football regulator are now at the White Paper stage and have assembled the recommendations of a fan-led review that began in 2021 following the attempt to break away from six Premier League clubs to join a Super League. european.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has denied claims his organization tried to “throw plans for a new football regulator onto the long grass”.
Former sports minister Tracey Crouch said the Premier League tried to thwart a fan-led review that led to a government white paper on an independent regulator.
It will aim to prevent this from happening in the future, while also introducing more stringent tests for owners and managers to protect clubs from being taken over by malevolent owners, and also ensuring more money flows into the English football pyramid.
There would also be tightened regulations to try to prevent a repeat of the demise of clubs like Bury and Macclesfield amid the financial crisis of recent years.
Crouch has claimed the Premier League tried to kick the regulator’s new plans ‘in the tall grass’.
He praised the attitude of the Football Association and the EFL during the process, but later added: “I have not seen such a willingness to compromise and acknowledge the challenges and vulnerabilities of football governance in the Premier League.”
“We have had a very positive commitment from the clubs on an individual level. Throughout the process, we talk to the authorities, but we also talk to clubs and individual supporters’ trusts on an individual basis and there are Premier League clubs who support the white paper recommendations, but that’s not their general position.
It has been a challenge trying to navigate through those areas of conflict. I would always come back and remind people why we got here in the first place and if the trigger was ESL. [European Super League] when the Premier League approached the Government for help when they faced the threat of six clubs seceding from the league.
“It’s always important to remember what triggered the initiation of the fan-led review.”
But under questioning by Julie Elliott, a Labor MP for Sunderland Central, Masters denied that the Premier League had tried to obstruct the process.
I don’t recognize it at all. It suggests that we have not done anything,” he said.
Masters testified before a DCMS committee on the new football regulator alongside FA Chairman Debbie Hewitt (left) and EFL Chairman Rick Parry.
The attempt to reform the governance of English football stemmed from the failed attempt by six Premier League clubs to join the European Super League in 2021
‘I would say we have done nothing more than commit to this process. We’ve done an enormous amount of work trying to gauge what the answers are to the questions posed first by the fan-led review and second by the government response and now by the white paper.
He has dominated every shareholder meeting we’ve ever had. I spent my time talking to our clubs about how to solve these problems.
‘She has the perception that the Premier League would prefer all this not to happen. She has her due experience lived in this regard.
Masters denied Crouch’s claim that the Premier League took weeks to respond during the fan-led review and pointed to the difficulties of the shift from Boris Johnson’s government to the short-lived administration of Liz Truss.
He said: ‘We have engaged with all of them on a voluntary and open basis, and have had ongoing dialogue with the department on all of these issues. I don’t buy the ‘kick it in the tall grass’ narrative.
‘We schedule additional meetings in the summer to advance all of our proposals, to address fan-led review issues. If we were trying to kick it in the tall grass, we wouldn’t have, we wouldn’t have wasted our time.
‘There is a difference between trying to thwart a process and trying to kill it, and trying to engage properly and make sure your legitimate concerns are heard and addressed. That is what we have been trying to do.