Labour's political football

Election time is around the corner and with it comes news of government proposals for football. Unusually, this doesn't involve ID cards or any form of supporter crackdown. Instead, Gordon Brown's proposed reforms appear to be a genuine move towards fan ownership.

It's easy to be cynical about football and it's easy to be very cynical about politics, especially when there's a General Election around the corner. But, equally, it's the kind of issue you could see governments addressing outside of election time, such has been the level of headlines written on this.

As David Conn notes, the government does appear to have been talking about this for a period of time and, in Andy Burnham and others, have ministers who genuinely love and understand the arguments for fan ownership. It's still hard not to be cynical though.

Fan ownership and government intervention is something we've discussed on the podcast on a regular basis. It's clear, with the levels of debt piled on top of Manchester United and Liverpool, and the meltdown of Portsmouth and others relegated from the Premier League, that the free market model they espouse is looking more shaky than it has ever done.

The Premier League will no doubt robustly defend itself against this proposal. Portsmouth aside, Richard Scudamore has claimed, the rest of the league is healthy and the Premier League product remains hugely in demand abroad. Certainly compared to the duopoly that is La Liga, the Premier League's nearest rival, he has a point.

Expect Scudamore to also resist moves to place clubs in the hands of supporters - to deny clubs the freedom to speculate to accumulate and restrict ownership could put off potential investors and make the league less competitive. Again, there is a point here, albeit one slightly undermined by the inability of any other than four clubs to challenge for the title. You certainly wouldn't get a Montpellier situation in the Premier League.

Tellingly, the Conservatives haven't completely dismissed the ideas (while the Lib Dems appear to have missed the point), although there's the usual rhetoric of labelling the proposals a gimmick.

Their suggestion of giving the fans a seat on the board of each football club is far less radical than what Labour are proposing, although it's a welcome step and one many supporter trusts would, you suspect, happily take if offered.

It's perhaps natural that the Conservatives would lean towards keeping a free market model and, again, Shadow Sports Minister Hugh Robertson raises relevant points about insolvency law, and asks should you penalise local businessmen or prospective buyers from attempting to buy the club by giving fans first refusal?

Each club would reply differently, no doubt. Weymouth, who've had too many local businessmen-led consortiums that have turned out to be to good to be true, would probably just give a weary sigh, as would Bournemouth, while Notts County are probably as good an argument against either model as is possible.

Elsewhere, clubs where the Supporters Trust has either revived or saved the club, like Exeter and Telford, would no doubt be keen, while Chester fans, who've had a battle to reclaim their club, would likely bite the government's hand off for these proposals.

But, broadly, these proposals have got a cautious thumbs up. As Ian King says, the alternative would be to do nothing. This isn't an option. Labour and the Conservatives are taking steps in the right direction here.

Where the proposals become a little more problematic is with the FA. The organisation is badly in need of reform and badly in need to removing the massive conflict of interest that is generally called 'Sir Dave Richards from the Premier League sitting on the board'.

But any reform here leads us into a Catch 22 situation. The FA can't implement any reforms by itself because there are too many conflicts of interest and self-vested infighting. It needs an external hand. But the government can't get too heavily involved, lest it runs the risk of FIFA taking a dim view of political interference and imposing sanctions, meaning the change needs to come from the FA, and so on.

At least implementing the Burns Report - five years and counting - in full will be a start. Cracking some heads together would at least help as well.

It's clear that the Bundesliga and its 50+1% rule is at the forefront of the government's mind with this proposal, along with Barcelona's fan-owned model. Both are lofty and worthy ideals to aim for, but are not without problems.

German clubs, most notably current lead leader Schalke, haven't stopped getting into debt, while no German club has won the Champions League since Bayern Munich in 2001.

All we can hope for is that whoever forms the next government won't kick football reform into the long grass. Doing nothing will just let the problems stack up. You suspect, or at least hope, Supporters' Direct won't let this happen.

We'll be debating Labour's fan ownership proposal on the twofootedtackle podcast this week and would love to hear your thoughts on this Is it, as the Liberal Democrats have said, just a pipe dream? Or are you fully behind Labour on this? Has it swayed your vote? Does it go far enough or too far? Leave your thoughts on this issue, plus any questions for Gary, Chris and Chris Lee, in the comments and we'll pick out as many as we can in the podcast.

(Pic via Enjoy England)