Punish reckless owners – not the fans or communities their clubs represent

Ahead of Wednesday’s autumn statement – one of the UK government’s two annual ‘budget events’ where budgets are set – Liverpool council leader Liam Robinson and his deputy, finance director Ruth Bennett, told Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt that without immediate help the city’s local government must cut back on more services.

Since 2010, the Conservatives have cut Liverpool’s funding by £314 million ($393 million), a 56 percent drop from what the country received under the Labor government that ended in 2010. Robinson and Bennett reminded the chancellor that during the same period, funding for affluent parts of the country has been cut by just three percent.

Their letter also suggested that this policy was “unsustainable”, warning that a number of councils – not just Liverpool – “could effectively go bankrupt in the coming months”. Some, including Birmingham and Croydon, in south London, have already done so.

Since the mini-budget crash of 2022, inflation has cost Liverpool a further £77 million in terms of what it can spend. This has affected education, social care and transport, and has exacerbated the already critical situation for homeless people. Meanwhile, rising interest rates have caused the municipality’s borrowing costs to skyrocket.

What does this have to do with football?

Well, it means that the city of Liverpool simply cannot afford for the construction of Everton’s new stadium – one of the largest construction projects in its history – to fail.

In a press release from Everton, the Premier League club suggested that their new home at the city’s Bramley-Moore Dock was “recognized as the largest single-site private sector development in the country”.

Everton predicted it would be worth an estimated £1.3 billion to the British economy, creating tens of thousands of jobs and attracting 1.4 million visitors to the city every year.

The figures partly explain why other local politicians, such as Metropolitan Mayor Steve Rotheram and West Derby MP Ian Byrne, have joined the conversation since the Premier League imposed the unprecedented 10-point deduction on Everton last week.

After Rotheram wrote a letter to Premier League CEO Richard Masters calling the punishment “disproportionate”, Byrne tabled a motion in parliament suggesting it is time for English football to be regulated by a regulator ruled.

Byrne and Rotheram are well-known supporters of Liverpool FC, but every politician has the foresight to know what it could mean for the city they represent if the points deduction results in Everton being relegated from the Premier League.

There would be economic consequences for the whole of Liverpool, not just the people of Everton, if that happens. And amid all the claims that the Premier League’s punishment was disproportionate – a point made loudly and repeatedly by the Everton fans who protested at the league’s London headquarters on Friday evening and will do so again on Sunday during the home game against Manchester United – The most unfair aspect of all this is that it could ultimately affect those who have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Everton fans protested outside the Premier League headquarters (Photo: Jacob Whitehead)

When a football club goes bankrupt, many people are hurt by the debt spiral that follows.

In the 2019 case of Bolton Wanderers, they owed money to so many businesses and contractors in the city that it took years to pay off the debts. The knock-on effect of this meant that the council’s civic responsibilities became more difficult to fulfill as they did not always see the profits they should have received through unpaid taxes or business rates. Both the city and the club were hurt by Bolton’s demise.

As the Premier League recognizes the challenges faced by communities living alongside their local football clubs – these are prominently displayed in the five official initiatives impressively displayed on the organisation’s website – surely there is a better way to deal with penalties to force?

While the fans will feel most punished, Everton’s failure is ultimately down to the decisions of Farhad Moshiri, an owner who is now on the verge of selling the club.

The committee’s report on Everton suggested that a financial sanction against Moshiri was ruled out because he was a “rich man”. While this blind statement overlooks the possibility that wealthy men may shy away from financial punishment the most, it fails to recognize that many at the other end of the monetary scale could ultimately suffer from this decision.

When the government’s fan-led review of the game was released in 2021, the white paper acknowledged that “English football is currently endangered by the high and growing risk of financial failure at clubs in the top five ”. And the biggest source of the problem was the club owners, who “acted unilaterally and pursued short-term interests with little responsibility or oversight.”

That white paper advocated a regulator, which the Premier League is not – hence perhaps the scale of the punishment for Everton as the organization they are part of tries to prove it can govern itself.

Currently, every new club owner must pass a test, but once that is achieved, he/she is allowed to participate. A regulator operating a new licensing system would instead test them every three years, but no provision is made for punishing owners who fall. short.

Should Moshiri, rather than Everton, be punished for the club’s rule-breaking? (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

So what punishments could be more appropriate than a points penalty that impacts not only the supporters, but also the community that may be deprived of Premier League football and all the economic benefits that flow from it?

One option could be the loss of highly valued voting and campaigning rights at Premier League meetings, depriving them of the opportunity to protest against proposals, as a majority did this week on personal liability rules, thus avoiding the possibility of the owners are affected. in the bag more often than the clubs.

In addition, fines paid by owners rather than clubs could be pooled by the Premier League before being redistributed where the consequences of financial mismanagement are being felt. It takes some thought, but if the Premier League is serious about the communities it claims to support, it could work.

Fair Game, a group committed to achieving “fairness, sustainability and success,” this summer proposed a system that would monitor clubs in four different areas, including sustainability, governance, equality and fan engagement.

Currently, the team at the top of each league in the English game wins the most money at the end.

If Fair Game’s proposals were followed, there would be more scope for clubs finishing mid-table to prove they are performing better than those finishing first, or for those finishing bottom to prove they are performing better than clubs whose final placement is much higher. than theirs, merely because of an owner’s resources or impulses.

(Top photo: Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images)