Premier League must reflect, football can’t be left to govern itself

A fit and proper test? Before the Premier League begins to scrutinise potential club owners, the organisation needs to take a hard look at itself.

Helen MacNamara, the league’s chief policy and corporate affairs officer, was this week named as one of the 20 people fined for attending parties in Downing Street and Whitehall during the Covid-19 lockdown two years ago. MacNamara was the Cabinet Office’s director general for propriety and ethics. She provided a karaoke machine for a gathering that was described as “raucous” and involved a drunken scuffle.

Although MacNamara was a civil servant and not an elected official, she was close to the rancid heart of Westminster where those in power set the Covid-19 rules but did not adhere to them. The Premier League employed her because of her contacts at 10 Downing Street. It was thought that her influence would be useful in attempts to block the recommendations of Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review of football governance, specifically the creation of an independent regulator for the game.

The issue of MacNamara’s possible involvement in the lockdown parties scandal was raised at an FA board meeting when the Sue Gray report into illegal socialising in Whitehall pointed out “failures of leadership and judgement” by politicians, their advisors and civil servants. The board were told – not by MacNamara – that the Premier League had been given “categorical assurances” that she had not attended any law-breaking events.

Any hope that MacNamara could sweet-talk the government away for imposing an independent regulator has now gone. The weekend’s leaked stories about her fine contained embarrassing detail and prompted one football official to comment that “Downing Street has thrown her under a bus.” Her credibility has been shattered, inside and outside the game.

On Monday, Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, reiterated the intention to impose an independent regulator on English football before the next general election. The timing of this news – delivered through another leak – is no coincidence.

Neither the FA nor the Premier League want a new supervisory framework. The FA believes that changes to its internal structure could be sufficient to satisfy the politicians. The government are open to that idea but believe the necessary changes would be too radical for an organisation that has been traditionally moribund. The Premier League abhors the idea of outside regulation.

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The EFL, by contrast, is in favour of an outside body overseeing the game. The breaches between football’s administrators have widened since the failed Project Big Picture and European Super League initiatives.

MacNamara was expected to be a key figure in the battle against the plans outlined by Dorries. This week’s developments suggest that this is now a forlorn ambition. Last month MacNamara told a DCMS committee that English football does not need a new entity, saying: “We are supportive of the FA. We think there is a natural reason why the FA would be an effective regulator.”

That argument seems to be lost and MacNamara’s role at the Premier League must now be under scrutiny. The top flight’s ruling body has been immensely successful in generating income for its 20 clubs but the widening financial gap between the elite few and the rest has become a significant cause for concern. The organisation has also been criticised for being opaque and its handling of the Newcastle United takeover was characterised by a lack of clear communication with everyone involved, particularly the supporters.

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One of the key proposals in the Crouch review is an enhanced owners’ and directors’ test. The need for serious scrutiny of prospective buyers of clubs was underlined by the sanctions imposed on Roman Abramovich and knock-on impact at Chelsea. The Premier League have waved through oligarchs, repressive regimes and venture capitalists who load debt onto clubs as owners in the past 20 years. Its ethos has been that the market will sort things out. That is a dangerous proposition.

To me, so is having MacNamara as No 2 in the corporate structure. Breaking the law while head of ethics is more than the “error of judgement” that MacNamara apologised for this week. Surely it brings into question whether the second in command at the Premier League is fit and proper to be in that role? It seems there has never been a clearer indication that football cannot be left to govern itself.