Regulation

Football Regulator: ‘another expensive and unaccountable Quango’, says IEA expert


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IEA research referenced in The Telegraph

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Commenting on the introduction of legislation to create an independent football regulator, Len Shackleton, Editorial and Research Fellow at the free market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

English football is a global leader, with the richest and most successful club competition at elite level, watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. 

“Below the Premier League there is a vast ecosystem of professional and semi-professional leagues which supply live sport to millions across the country. It is a sport open to all ethnic groups, and in recent years has seen a massive increase in the visibility and popularity of the women’s game.

“All of this has been created by over 150 years of private initiative and private money. Yet here comes a government on its last legs, creating an ‘Independent Regulator’. 

“This would be another expensive and unaccountable Quango that will interfere with property rights, impose a crippling bureaucracy complete with the usual box-ticking woke demands, allow arbitrary redistribution, restrict competition and hamper new entrants.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Contact: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520

In March 2022, Len co-authored Red Card: Why English Football doesn’t need an independent regulator.

The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.



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