Impact assessment

Fact sheet - duties on clubs and competition organisers

Updated 25 March 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Applies to England and Wales

Duties on clubs and competition organisers

The Football Governance Bill confers a number of duties on clubs and on specified competition organisers.

For clubs, there are 3 sets of duties applying to slightly different classes of club:

• duties on regulated and formerly regulated clubs

• duties on regulated clubs

• duties on licensed clubs

When the Secretary of State specifies in secondary legislation the competitions which are in scope of regulation, all clubs operating a team competing in these competitions will need a licence to operate - these are referred to as ‘regulated clubs’. Once these clubs obtain a licence, they are referred to as ‘licensed clubs’.

Most requirements imposed by the Bill or the IFR (including any type of licence condition) will only be applicable to licensed clubs, but a small subset will apply to all regulated clubs whether or not they have a licence, and a smaller subset still will also apply to ‘formerly regulated clubs’. 

This is structured in a way that will ensure any club wishing to remove itself from the licensing regime to breach certain conditions are still captured if they try to do so. For instance, if they wish to participate in a prohibited competition and deliberately get their licence revoked, the IFR still has recourse to prevent the club competing in the prohibited competition.

Duties on regulated and formerly regulated clubs

Prohibited competitions

Regulated and formerly regulated (within the past 10 years) clubs cannot participate in “prohibited competitions”. 

The IFR can specify a prohibited competition, in considering predetermined criteria, including whether it would:

• be fair and meritocratic

• jeopardise the sustainability of other English competitions and clubs in those competitions

• harm the heritage of English football

The IFR must also gather and have regard to the views of fans in England and Wales, and consult the FA, before prohibiting a competition.

Home ground sale or disposal

The IFR must pre-approve before any regulated club, or formerly regulated club (a body that has been a regulated club within the past 5 years), sells or disposes of any interest the club/body holds in the home ground, or uses the ground as security for a loan.

Relevant steps when considering administration

Regulated clubs and formerly regulated clubs (a body that has been a regulated club within the past 5 years) must seek approval from the IFR before appointing an administrator to the club when considering entering administration.

Duties on regulated clubs

Club heritage

Regulated clubs will be required to establish the support of the majority of their fans in England and Wales prior to making any material changes to the club crest and predominant home shirt colours. 

The legislation also requires clubs to gain the approval of the FA prior to any name change.

Stadium relocation

The IFR must pre-approve the relocation of a regulated club’s team from its home ground. 

Clubs may occasionally move stadiums in a way that is likely to be acceptable, as the impacts on club heritage are minimal relative to the financial and other benefits. However, this duty will ensure the IFR can prevent a relocation where the impacts on club heritage are outweighed.

Duties on licensed clubs

Personnel statement

Licensed clubs will be under a duty to publish a “personnel statement” and submit it to the IFR for approval. 

This is a statement which identifies who is in charge of the club, including its owners, directors, and senior managers and their roles and responsibilities.

Levy

The IFR will have powers to charge a levy on licensed clubs, to cover its running costs as a result of the delivery of the regime.

The IFR will determine how the levy is distributed across clubs. In doing so, the IFR must consider each club’s financial resources and which league each  club is in (given the link to revenue). As such, the levy payments will not be equally divided among the 116 clubs in scope. 

Given the IFR has a statutory requirement to take into account clubs’ individual financial positions, it is expected that Premier League clubs will shoulder a larger proportion of costs, reducing financial burden on clubs further down the pyramid.

Duties on specified competition organisers

The IFR will take a participative approach to regulation, consulting with the leagues where necessary, and the leagues will have the opportunity to offer legally binding commitments in lieu of financial discretionary licence conditions to address issues as they arise.

In order to facilitate this participative approach, there will be a duty on the leagues to notify the IFR in the following circumstances:

• if the league thinks for any reason that there is a risk to the ability of the IFR to deliver on its club financial soundness, or systemic financial resilience objectives

• if the league has failed, or expects to fail, to comply with a commitment in place in lieu of a financial discretionary licence condition

• if the league considers or suspects that a club has breached a ‘specified competition rule’ - a league rule which relates to the IFR’s functions. For example, this might include failing to meet the Premier League’s Fan Engagement Standard