Examination of Witnesses (Questions 23-39)
LORD TRIESMAN
AND MR
RICHARD SCUDAMORE
19 FEBRUARY 2008
Chairman: We will now move on to hear
from the organisations representing football, and I welcome Lord
Triesman, the new Chairman of the FA, and Richard Scudamore, the
Chief Executive of the Premier League. Mike Hall is going to start.
Q23 Mr Hall: Good morning. As a general
question, before we get to the specifics, what do you think of
this White Paper?
Lord Triesman: My first reading
of it is that it is a broad expression of warm sentiment about
things that can be done and it is perhaps not all that specific.
In a way, I am slightly relieved by that, because I think most
of the specifics that we need to attend to are specifics in particular
sports. I do not say that to disparage the effort. There are some
things, particularly about dealing with social inclusion, dealing
with racism, dealing with xenophobia, which I think are well worth
saying, absolutely well worth saying but, generally speaking,
I suppose my inclination is to think that the internal running
and regulation of sports is a very specific thing to each sport
if it is to be got right and perhaps I should be pleased that
it has not been too intrusive on those things.
Q24 Mr Hall: One of criticisms of
the White Paper is it is very football specific, is it not? It
is almost a football White Paper rather than a sports White Paper.
Do you accept that?
Lord Triesman: I think that is
an accurate description of it. The overall scale of football,
the volumes of throughput, not just in financial terms but in
the passions of the numbers of fans, perhaps make it such a dominant
sport that that was always a risk for those writing the White
Paper. It would have been quite interesting to see a White Paper
written rather more broadly.
Q25 Mr Hall: On the issue of specificity,
why should the sport be considered differently as an activity
in the application of European law? What is your take on that?
Lord Triesman: I do not wish to
dominate this.
Q26 Mr Hall: Richard will get his
moment in time.
Mr Scudamore: Will you come back
and ask me the same questions?
Q27 Mr Hall: Feel free to jump in.
Mr Scudamore: I do not like to
jump in when David is in full flow, but I would like to answer
your opening question.
Q28 Mr Hall: Perhaps you would do
that now.
Mr Scudamore: Okay. Broadly, we
can see the merit in the White Paper. I think it was a difficult
challenge to try to come up with a European Commission White Paper
for sport because of the issues David has already touched upon.
Clearly we believe sport is best organised at a national level.
We believe in subsidiarity. Therefore coming up with a European
White Paper for sport was always going to be a challenge. It has
covered the issues. It has covered the topics. Whether it has
got into some of them in great detail is arguable. It clearly
is football oriented. Its genesis, if you remember, was the Arnaut
Report, and then there was the Belet Report, and they in some
ways formed the thinking. The Arnaut report, particularly, was
literally football only and at the very last mentioned the fact
that it was supposed to apply to all sports, and you see this
football emphasis coming through it. But that might also naturally
be true because football is clearly one of the very few pan-European
sports which applies to every country. There are not many sports,
including rugby, cricket, and even horseracing, that would have
a pan-European, most countries involved in it. We think it is
broadly in the right direction, covers the right topic areas,
but is low on some specific areas. It recognises the economic
impact of sport, which is important, it recognises the societal
impact of sport, which is important, and, therefore, as I say,
we are broadly supportive of its outcomes.
Lord Triesman: To return, if I
may, to the question about whether specificity is necessary when
you set it alongside the general rules of commercial operation
in the EU, we are very eager to ensure that there is a proper
competitive balance maintained between those who compete together
in football. Commercialisation, of itself, tends to concentrate
wealth to too great an extent to be able to guarantee that that
competitiveness is sustained. That is the first reason. The second
reason is that straightforward commercial considerations would
not, in my judgment, lead easily to having a mechanism in which
some of the wealth that is generated in the sport could be guaranteed
to flow back to the amateur game, to the grass roots. You have,
in a way, to change the overall conditions of the market, to make
sure you are replenishing the roots—which would not necessarily
happen. The third reason is that if we are to encourage the development
of young and talented players rather than to see people simply
buy success from where success already exists, you again need
to change the fundamental rule set. You cannot just do it in a
market operating without any kinds of restraints. The regulations
which are there to help ensure that those three objectives that
I have just described can be achieved do mean that the straightforward
operation of a competitive commercial market would be undesirable
in football and would probably lead to a collapse of its true
competitiveness and the nurturing of young talent.
Q29 Mr Hall: What are the implications
for football of the Commission's failure to recommend any actions
on specificity?
Mr Scudamore: Specificity is hard
to say and even harder to deploy really. The White Paper does
strike a balance, because you cannot any differently argue than
that sport is best organised on an individual sporting basis and
not on a one-size-fits-all for all sports. You have heard that
from my three sporting colleagues who were here before us. Also,
clearly sport is organised fundamentally at a national level.
Just like in culture in other forms and the arts, there are, very
interestingly, uniquely national characteristics about sport in
every country. The problem with this whole specificity debate
is who wants the power and where does the power reside to carve
out exemptions from European law on behalf of sport. That is one
of the big issues with it. Clearly our view is that you are better
trying to get people to recognise that sport is different, and
shape current European law or work within the current European
legal framework to get solutions to the issues rather than carving
out exemptions, because those become very dangerous things. When
you look at the two basic tenets of European law where it does
affect sport, competition law and freedom of movement, we think
you are far better doing, for example, what we have done with
our broadcasting rights—which I am sure we will come to
later—which is carving out a legal framework and a legal
basis where the way we sell our rights is compatible with European
law rather than having some blanket carve out. There was a line
in the Arnaut Report which said: "Would it not be good if
we could have an exemption so that collective selling was legal?"
You cannot make bold statements like that. You have to say, "Collective
selling is only legal if x, y and z"—if it is proportionate,
if it is legally sustainable, if it has redistribution mechanisms,
if it has a solidarity mechanism. There is a whole way of doing
it which is compatible with law. The idea that you would suddenly
have a blanket exemption for sport to be applied by whom against
whose rules, given the governance structures in sport is, in our
view, very difficult. Therefore, I think the specificity of sport
per se is a thing that needs to be watched very, very carefully—because
who is carving out the exemption to allow them to do what they
want? I think it is quite difficult. I still think we should work
within the framework of European law and shape the outcomes to
make sure they are compatible with law, rather than exemption
or exclusion.
Q30 Mr Hall: But was not the genesis
of the White Paper precisely that?
Mr Scudamore: I think that may
have been the genesis through Mr Arnaut's Report and others that
has led to the White Paper but I think the White Paper is deliberately
vague on specificity because I think it is very nervous about
saying sport alone can have a carve out from the basic tenets
of European law.
Q31 Alan Keen: Mr Scudamore, you
have just said that sport is different. Could I say, first of
all, that if you were a multi-billionaire and owned the whole
of the Premier League I would have no worries about the future
of football. Unfortunately, there are people who have even more
money than you and they are the ones about whom I worry. My previous
visit in relation to football to Brussels was to try to help keep
the collective bargaining facility, to get as much money in and
to keep the best competition we could get within football at all
levels, in the end, but particularly starting off with the Premier
League. At that time, our adversary was a commissioner who was
only interested in business. He wanted straight competition, as
he saw it, despite claiming to be a fan of one of the Italian
sides. On our recent visit I got the impression that in this White
Paper, following on from the Arnaut Report, Brussels this time
were on the side of the fans. I am not asking a question but trying
to set the background to it. Liverpool supporters are particularly
worried about the ownership of their club. They are trying to
raise money to take it over. All football fans are worried about
that. It is a very important issue. We all have to work together
to get European law to recognise, talking particularly about football
now, that football is different. There is a democratic deficit
in football in this country now, is there not? I am very concerned
about the people who own the majority of the Premier League clubs.
How are you two people sitting next to each other going to sort
this problem out? What can Europe do towards that? I feel that
Europe is on the side of the fans now, whereas previously I was
not so sure.
Mr Scudamore: That is an interesting
assumption. Of course I go back to my previous point. I do not
sense that the European law makers are in a position to necessarily
carve out specific exemptions from key pillars and key tenets
of European law. I have said that before. Having said all of that,
I go back to my previous statements that say what is important.
You and I share a view and a belief that the collective selling
of television rights is important for a whole host of reasons,
mainly because of its ability to control distribution and redistribution
centrally, both within the league—because we do believe
the individual selling models of Italy and Spain and others are
divisive for the league—and—as you will know, because
you have been across the detail of that—the external redistribution
that goes on. Again, the numbers will be familiar to you, Alan,
and hopefully to other members of the Committee, but some £124
million a year now is redistributed from the Premier League's
revenues. Of £960 million, £124 million is given away
in solidarity payments right down the football pyramid—the
Football Foundation being the main beneficiary, along with the
Football League and others. When you come to the question which
is basically about ownership, we operate in the UK, we operate
in the UK that has a certain attitude towards foreign investment—we
do not have the same attitude in this country towards foreign
investment that other European countries have; even our close
neighbours France have a different view perhaps of who should
own companies that operate—and therefore we have, as you
know, layered in additional regulations over and above those that
are required by UK Government in terms of club ownership. We have
a whole host of rules regarding that, and we do have fit and proper
persons tests and we do have directors' declarations and we have
a very developed rule book on all of that, but, as you also know,
we have not yet got ourselves into a position and I do not know
as the administrator responsible, certainly for the Premier League
anyway, how we can apply a "We don't like the cut of your
jib" test; in other words, a subjective test. We have to
remain objective about this and stay within the law and stay within
our regulations. I understand concerns but I am not so sure that
there have not always been concerns about the local club owner
and I can only go on record and go on public record as saying
that I have been there for ten years and the club ownership situation
currently is certainly no more of a threat, in my view, to the
sustainability and the future of football than it has been in
the past.
Q32 Alan Keen: Perhaps I can remind
you what you said. You said "Sport is different".
Mr Scudamore: Yes.
Q33 Alan Keen: It appears we are
getting close to a majority of the owners of the Premier League
where sport is not different. There appears to be a majority of
them who do not know anything about football and care little about
it; they have come into it purely for money. We are getting to
the stage now where really sport is not different in the top of
the game in this country. That is what fans are worried about.
The reason why we felt better coming back from Brussels this time
was because for the people who were taking the initiative on these
rules, because they were politicians like we are, their main aim
was the fans and the future, long term, of football. We are concerned
about the fact that the Premier League is not.
Mr Scudamore: As politicians you
will have the ability to enter legislation which alters the UK
attitude toward foreign investment. If you wish to do that, I
am sure football will come along and act in accordance with whatever
legislation you put in. All I am saying is we, football, have
taken steps beyond where Parliament has taken it and that is the
position that currently exists. If the legislation changes, then
clearly that will be for you to do and we will abide by that democratic
process.
Q34 Alan Keen: Do you agree, David?
Richard is saying that football is different but it is moving
very close to the point where football is not different, where
it is purely a business. Maybe we need European intervention to
save our game.
Lord Triesman: In general, I think
it is true to say that the way we have approached all of these
questions of the running of businesses and the ownership of businesses
in Europe, from the point of view of the United Kingdom, has been
to try to avoid any form of nationalism entering into the spirit
of the ownership equation. I think, like Richard, it would be
very hard to conceive of a set of sub-rules which would not then
be sub-rules taken up elsewhere in Europe in respect of other
industries or as justification for other industries retaining
only domestic ownership were that to happen. I am sure you are
not advocating that.
Q35 Alan Keen: No. I am not interested
in where people come from; I am interested in whether they care
about football or whether they come over here for the money. It
has tipped the balance. The balance is changing almost month by
month at the moment. It is tipping over, where we are going to
have a majority of owners who really came in for money not for
football.
Lord Triesman: You have said on
a couple of occasions—I noted it because I think it is a
very important distinction—that you are talking about the
very top of the game, and I suppose I have made the only comment
which I think I can make under our current ownership acquisition
arrangements. But, generally, if you take sport as a whole, right
the way through, of course, there is a large number of people
who probably give very, very generously to their local clubs rather
than expecting to make any money out of it. There is a huge sentiment
about that and you can see it right across football. It is one
of the things—if I can put it this way—that I love
about football, that people do feel that way about it. I think
there are also a number of other things, just to broaden it very
slightly, that I think we can and we should continue to do in
order to make sure that supporters' interests/fans' interests
are properly regarded. We do a lot of work with supporters' organisations
through the FA and very often with Premier League direct financial
support, as well as support from elsewhere with Supporters Direct
and with other organisations. We have been working hard with the
Council of Europe to make sure that the Supporters' Charter is
properly implemented and I think that is very well worthwhile.
Just one very quick observation, when I was a Minister in the
Foreign Office and responsible for our Consular services, from
the other side of this I saw a great deal of the work that was
done by the FA and by the Premier League and by others, particularly
during the last World Cup, to ensure that supporters' interests
in that huge money-spinning event were looked after and attended
to properly. I must say that the football side of that equation
really did an extraordinarily good job, a very, very strong job
which kept people safe, made sure they enjoyed it—it was
a great fiesta and the point was to enjoy it—so I think
we have got some pointers as to how we can bolster supporters'
representation and interests and that we should pursue those.
I am very pleased that we have got a supporters' representative
now on the FA Council. That is another step in that direction
which I hope everybody would agree is the right direction.
Q36 Alan Keen: I have hogged too
much of the time but what I am trying to get you to agree, and
I am sure you do, is that it is important because I feel that
we are at a crossroads now and we should not look upon the European
White Paper as some people trying to come in and tell us how to
run football. The impression I got from the people there who were
pursuing it is that they care as much as we do about football,
unlike the Commissioner that Richard and I and others were battling
against a few years ago to retain collective bargaining.
Lord Triesman: I do not have any
disagreement with that proposition. I think that the authors of
the White Paper plainly do care a lot about football.
Q37 Mr Sanders: I was on the same
trip and I have to say I came away with the completely opposite
impression. What I saw was a group of European politicians wanting
to meddle in the affairs of something that they care passionately
about but actually were just looking for a role in. I am very
concerned that what Europe is trying to do here is to interfere
in a sport, whatever the sporting body, whether it is football
or cricket or rugby, which has survived for decades, more than
a century, working out its own rules, working out its own regulations,
and being able to talk to people in other countries who play the
same games and, without having a common language, being able to
agree what the rules of the game are, being able to agree how
you referee it and how you score it without intervention from
Europe. I have a very, very suspicious mind—and I am a pro-European
absolutely to my core—and this is one area that I do not
think Europe should be interfering in. That is my message over!
One of the things that they are talking about, and I would like
your view on this, is the national identity of football clubs
and the number of foreign players that clubs are able to contract
to play for them. Is that something that concerns you?
Lord Triesman: I am concerned
at a number of levels, which is why I think we need to work our
way through to the right solutions. It does seem to me to be at
least an appreciable question that when anybody who is the head
England coach goes to a match that they should be in a position
where they can see enough players who might be eligible to play
for England so that they can form a judgment about the pool of
talent and potentially have the right people coming through, otherwise,
I must say, I cannot conceive of how it is we are going to step
up and resume the position that I believe we should be in as being
one of the very leading world teams in football. For those reasons,
I profoundly hope and I believe that a number of the steps that
are being taken to improve the whole of the coaching structure
from the age of five onwards in an age-specific way, the development
of specialist coaches, the money now being deployed in order to
achieve that, is quite fundamental to what would be our long-term
success. I must say that I also think that there will now need
to be a very, very careful analysis of what the legal requirements
are or are not about not just the employment of players but also
what might be the regulations about how many start in games, which
might not be the same as the employment of players. I just want
to go through that detail in a granular way. I am two and a half
weeks into the job now. I have come to this wanting to make absolutely
certain that we have understood it and that we are not frightened
off a discussion because some lawyers say that it is impossible
to go via a particular route and others say that you can. I want
to ensure that quite aside from the fundamental building of a
platform of good players who come through—and of course
there will be good foreign players who are also found when they
are quite young and come through the academy systems and so on—but
good English eligible players, if I can put it that way, who come
through. I also want to make sure as far as I can that regulations
which fit appropriately with employment law are not being used
as a barrier to the increase in the proportion of English-only
players playing.
Q38 Mr Sanders: Why is football in
this instance different from any other trade or profession? If
we have freedom of movement, freedom of labour and freedom of
capital, why are we saying that in this particular sport the rules
are different?
Lord Triesman: At the moment they
do not seem to be different.
Q39 Mr Sanders: No, they are not;
why should they be different?
Lord Triesman: This is something
where we need to take a really long, hard, cold look at the evidence
and I think we need to be sure that at every level we are seeing
that people get the maximum out of football, not all of them because
they are going to be playing for the England senior side but just
get the maximum enjoyment out of it as we would wish for people
to do at every level. It builds through to that point at which
we come to the selection of the national side to make sure that
there are enough people available in that pool to give us a high-quality
side. I think the fundamentals of getting the development and
training of youngsters is central to this, but I do have a question
in my mind about whether that is enough. Because my aspirations
are to make sure that we are in the really top echelon of international
sides not only able to qualify for the top international competitions
but to do really well in those competitions, I would like to make
sure that we have explored every avenue to get there rather than
to suffer the disappointment we have recently suffered once again.
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