Regulation

Despite the incompetence of football club owners, fans should be wary of state intervention


Mark Littlewood writes for The Times

Mark Littlewood, Director General of the IEA, has written his column for The Times on a fan-backed review of English football, chaired by Conservative MP Tracey Crouch.

The review calls for an overhaul of English football by introducing an independent regulator to gauge the suitability of owners to run their clubs, admit licenses to clubs to play and monitor club finances.

Mark argues that fans should be cautious about calling for a state regulator.

“First, there is a danger that proponents of a new regulatory structure are falling for what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit”. It is easy to point to a range of failures and poor decisions in almost any economic sector, but this doesn’t mean the imposition of state control will improve matters. The unspoken assumption is that those at the coalface of a business are venal, biased and self-serving, whereas regulators are bound to be enlightened, informed and even-handed.”

Read the full article here.



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