Football Regulator: ‘another expensive and unaccountable Quango’, says IEA expert
19 March 2024
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Housing and Planning
IEA research referenced in The Telegraph
18 March 2024
Monetary Policy
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20 January 2026
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.
“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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