PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Independent Football Regulator - 12 November 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

In 2021, the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, set up the fan-led review of football, and selected Dame Tracey Crouch to chair it. This led to a clear recommendation for an independent football regulator, which was strongly endorsed by Members from all sides of the House. The previous Government promised that they would deliver this regulator, but they did not, leaving fans in the lurch as a result. This Government made it a priority and passed that legislation within our first year, because we are fully committed to protecting football clubs across the country.

To make that a reality, the Minister for Sport confirmed David Kogan as the chair of the Independent Football Regulator on 6 October. David Kogan was the exceptional candidate, warmly endorsed across the world of football and by the cross-party Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport.

As the House will be aware, the Commissioner for Public Appointments conducted an investigation into the appointment itself, which was released last week. I am pleased that the report does not question the suitability of Mr Kogan as chair of the IFR. The report also makes it clear that I did not personally know about the donations to my leadership campaign at the time that I selected him as the preferred candidate. It also recognises that, as soon as I became aware of the donations, I chose to declare them and chose to recuse myself from the remainder of the process.

However, as I have made clear, I acknowledge the findings of the report. The Commissioner was clear that the breach around donations to my campaign was unknowing, but I recognise that the highest standards were not met. As the Secretary of State for the Department that ran this appointment, I take full responsibility for that, and it is for that reason that I wrote to the Prime Minister and apologised for the error. I will, of course, ensure that lessons are learned from this process with my Department.

Our focus now is to make sure that no fan ever has to go through what my constituents and I lived through in Wigan. Implementing this regime to help protect clubs in financial peril, and putting the interests of fans up and down the country first, is a priority for this Government and, led by David Kogan, the Independent Football Regulator will get on with the job.

We are here today to debate process, but this is also about real-world impact. Fans up and down the country need us to get on with delivering on our promise and making a difference. This is for Derby County and Scunthorpe United, for Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday, for Wigan, Reading, Macclesfield Town and Bury. We are putting fans back at the heart of the game, where they belong.

I will try to answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions in turn. First, this process was subject to a thorough investigation by the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments, and when he questions the findings of that report, he should reflect on whether that is the proper role of this House. The report was absolutely crystal clear on that point. It was also clear—in contrast to what the hon. Gentleman just asserted—that I personally fell short of what was expected on one occasion. There were two other technical breaches from the Department, but as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, I take full responsibility.

The hon. Gentleman asks about the Prime Minister. As he will know, if he has read the report, I personally took the decision to ask Mr Kogan to put that information in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at his hearing to ensure that it had full information as soon as I had it, within hours of finding out about the donation. Mr Kogan was open and transparent about the fact that he had donated to both my campaign and the Prime Minister’s campaign, but I am the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; my Department ran this process, and it is for me to take full responsibility for it.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman asserts that Mr Kogan was not part of the process. I find that astonishing, and I presume that at some point he will come back to correct the record. When he speaks to his colleagues, he will know that one of them—the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—oversaw the process before the general election, at a time when they were proudly extolling the virtues of having a football regulator and governance Act, which they later opposed.

The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) will know that Mr Kogan was approached for this job under the last Conservative Government and put on the list, which I inherited from the last Government. I want to be crystal clear on this point. Mr Kogan was not added to the list after the general election; he was on the list from the last Conservative Government.

The hon. Gentleman talks about cronies. [Interruption.] The Opposition can chunter all they like, but the hon. Gentleman is talking about a man who has extensive media experience and represented the Premier League, the English Football League, the National Football League and others throughout his long and distinguished career. He was put on the list by the last Government in the full knowledge that he was a Labour donor. If he is such a crony and unfit to hold this sort of office, why on earth did the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), appoint him to the board of Channel 4? It just does not stack up. Mr Kogan was so good that the last Government approached him themselves.

Finally, I am happy to answer extensive questions about this issue. That is why I have chosen to come to the House and answer these questions, despite the fact that the Minister for Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), made the final decision. The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup is a Charlton Athletic fan, and I am a bit surprised that, given its experience of bad owners, he is setting himself and his party against football fans in his constituency and the length and breadth of the country by trying to attack a man whose credentials are unquestionable.

As always, my hon. Friend has taken this debate back to focusing on the people who matter most: the fans. They have been through hell over recent years as the last Government committed to act, then dragged their feet, and then refused to fulfil that promise to those fans. It was shameful to see Conservative Members go through the Lobby to vote against their own Bill, but I put on record my thanks to Dame Tracey Crouch for all the work she did and continues to do to uphold that promise. I also sincerely thank my hon. Friend; he and I have had numerous conversations over the course of the saga that has developed at Sheffield Wednesday, and I know how active he has been. That is the approach that this Government will always take. We will not stand by and let football fans pay the price when bad owners take over their clubs; we are putting those fans back at the heart of the game, where they belong.

All the way through this process, I have complied fully with the independent commissioner, because I believe that that is important. That stands in contrast to the last Government, multiple members of which broke not just the public appointments code but the ministerial code. The Conservatives still have a member of their Front-Bench team who broke the ministerial code—she now sits on their Front Bench as the shadow Foreign Secretary. Unlike them, we comply with these processes and accept the consequences. However, there has been an independent investigation—it has been going on for six months. I do not know how the hon. Lady has missed it; that is what we are discussing today.

She has also said to me that we need to earn the trust of the footballing world. Throughout the passage of the Football Governance Act 2025, as Conservative Members well know from when they were supporting it, numerous people were concerned about the appointment of anybody to take on the role of chair. One of those was Karren Brady, a very distinguished Member of the House of Lords, with extensive experience in football. Recently, she said that David Kogan has

“dealt with the EFL, Uefa, the women’s game and international bodies. That matters, because football isn’t just about the elite—it’s a pyramid, and if the top crumbles, the base cracks with it…And, more importantly, he’s worked in governance roles that demand accountability.”

If Members want any further evidence of the confidence that the appointment of David Kogan commands across the footballing world, it is that the staunchest critics of the Government’s approach to implementing a football regulator in the first place have come out strongly in support of the man who is already cracking on with putting football fans back at the heart of the game.

I thank my hon. Friend for the years of work that he put into ensuring that we reached this point. I thank him personally as well, because when my club, Wigan Athletic, was in trouble, not once but twice, he and other members of the Select Committee could not have been more supportive in making sure that we got the right outcome and saved our club.

I also thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, because even though he has latterly decided that this is a terrible appointment and that the Football Governance Act is a terrible thing, a couple of years ago he said this to the then Sports Minister, the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew):

“Following years of misery and uncertainty for fans at local clubs such as Charlton Athletic, I welcome the news on an independent football regulator. Will the Minister assure my constituents that the regulator will have sufficient powers to deal with regulatory breaches and strengthen those ownership tests?”—[Official Report, 23 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 343.]

I am not sure whether the then Minister could give an answer at that time, but I am happy to say that we certainly will.

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is essential for the public to be able to have confidence in the public appointments that we make, not least because of the many debacles that we saw under the last Government. That is why I personally requested that Mr Kogan make that information available to the Select Committee within hours of being notified of it myself. The hon. Lady is also right to say that the Committee made a recommendation to Mr Kogan that he must take steps to ensure that he was independent of Government. Although that was not a recommendation aimed at me as the Secretary of State, I heard it loud and clear, and it was one of the reasons why I was so quick to recuse myself from the process and take no further decisions in it.

The hon. Lady has indeed raised with me, and with the permanent secretary, the occasions on which the Department has fallen short. We take that very seriously, and we have committed to come back to her with a full list of concrete actions that we are taking. This is not to make excuses, because it is my responsibility to ensure that we get it right, but I might add that the DCMS is responsible for the vast majority of public appointments—I think that we make nearly 50% of all such appointments across Government—and that is even more reason for us to ensure that the proper processes are in place. We are looking at that at the moment, and will come back to the hon. Lady very quickly.

May I also take this opportunity to thank the hon. Lady’s constituents? I remember that when we were in trouble at Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth fans jumped on to a Zoom call with us at very short notice, and could not have been more supportive in giving us advice and guidance to help us to pull through a difficult time. I remember that time as if it were yesterday. I remember how much pain and anxiety we were going through. The footballing world was there for us, and my commitment to the hon. Lady’s constituents, and all our constituents, is that this Government will be there for them too.

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, and I am pleased that he has joined the Select Committee. He has extensive knowledge of football and has been a consistent champion of football fans, and I very much support what he has said. This Government are absolutely determined to appoint the right people to the right positions, so that when fans go through the difficulties caused by poor owners, as they did at Charlton, they do not feel that they have nowhere to turn.

The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, entirely right to say that we need the tightest possible processes. That is why the Prime Minister took steps, when he was first elected as Prime Minister, to strengthen the ministerial code and also to strengthen the oversight powers of the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, in relation to the code. However, as the report makes clear, in this particular case I did ask for information about all donations to my leadership campaign. I was given the information but it turned out to be incomplete, and as soon as I was notified that that was the case, I took the decision to declare it, to ensure that the Select Committee was aware of it, and to recuse myself from the process.

I know that my hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for her constituents, and that this is something they care about. Both the Minister for Sport and I have heard the strength of feeling from the national league. This matter is not within the scope of the Independent Football Regulator—we deliberately kept its remit tight so it could focus on the many issues that have been raised, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—but I know that what has been said has been heard by the EFL, and the Government will continue to follow this closely.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone that he has taken, but I must say to him that if he does not think that David Kogan was fit to be considered because he was a Labour donor, his party should not have put him on the list while knowing full well that he was a Labour donor, or, indeed, appointed him to the board of Channel 4. I appreciate that it is inconvenient for the Opposition, but I am afraid that that is the fact of the matter.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether it is time to reconsider the Independent Football Regulator. Football fans were promised in 2021 that the last Government would act to deal with the many problems that we had seen in football clubs throughout the country, but they had to wait for a Labour Government to make good on that promise. In October this year, the Minister for Sport was able to confirm that Mr Kogan had been appointed and that we would start that work immediately. He has had a few weeks in which to get on with the job, and he has already achieved more in that time than the last Conservative Government achieved in 14 years.

Well, I can confirm that Mr Kogan was on the list that was held by the Department; there are obviously records of that. I was also presented with that list when I took up this post in the summer of 2024. Not only was Mr Kogan on that list, having been approached by a Conservative Government about the job, but he was appointed to the board of Channel 4 by the last Conservative Government, so the Conservatives are obviously well aware of his credentials for the job.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) mentioned Dame Tracey Crouch, I take this opportunity to thank her for the work that she has done. I was reflecting recently on how far the Opposition have fallen from the days when they had Members of Parliament like Dame Tracey Crouch, who could command the respect of the whole House.

As I have made clear, David Kogan was approached under the last Government and is eminently qualified for the job. Of course, as soon as I knew about the donations, I chose to declare them and recuse myself, and I then played no further part in the process, but I have a responsibility to football fans the length and breadth of this country to appoint the right person to this job, and there is no question but that David Kogan was the outstanding candidate—as he is already proving, having wasted no time in getting on with the job.

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and for being such a fantastic champion for his constituents; it was a pleasure to meet some of them when I came to his constituency not that long ago. I agree with him that the Conservatives appear to have no respect for football fans, for independent processes, or even for their own manifesto, which made it crystal clear that they supported the Football Governance Act 2025.

I think I have answered that question. I have been absolutely crystal clear: it is my Department that appoints the chair of the Independent Football Regulator. I was responsible for this process, and I take full responsibility for it. Just to be absolutely crystal clear, because hon. Members do not seem to be listening and seem to be all asking the same thing, I recused myself from the process, so it was the Minister for Sport who ultimately made the appointment decision, but I am the Secretary of State responsible for the process as a whole.

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and for all the work she has done to support football fans for many years, even before being elected to this place. I completely accept that appointments will be made, under any Government, involving people who have made political donations—by definition, those people want to be involved in public life—and I have never criticised the Conservatives for making appointments on that basis. When I have criticised them, it has been when there was a strong dispute about whether the candidate had any qualifications for the job. There is no such dispute in the case of David Kogan.

When I have particularly criticised the Conservatives, it has been for not being prepared to comply with and respect independent processes. That is the difference between us and them. The independent Commissioner for Public Appointments decided to open an inquiry on what happened during this process. I complied with it fully throughout, and I have accepted the consequences.

It is difficult to know where to start, given the number of inaccuracies in that statement, but I will have a go. First of all, I did not “forget” to declare the donations; if the hon. Gentleman had read the report—he obviously has not—he would know that the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments was convinced that I did not know about those donations, and that as soon as I did know about them, I chose to declare them and recused myself from the process. He might want to reflect on that. Secondly, I think that his quote about Boris Johnson related to the abolition of the Department for International Development; he might want to go and check that as well. I have heard quite a few comments from him recently, on social media and elsewhere, about the accuracy of things said at this Dispatch Box. I absolutely stand by what I have said, and the next time he comes to this House, he might want to do a bit of homework first.

Again, I think the hon. Gentleman should have more respect for the independence of these processes. The independent Commissioner for Public Appointments investigated this thoroughly and found that the breach of the code was unknowing. Nevertheless, I have taken full responsibility for it.

I have to say that the Conservatives have some brass neck; when their shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), was in government, she broke the ministerial code and was told to resign, but refused to do so, and she is now one of their most senior Ministers.

The Prime Minister has made it clear, and the Cabinet strongly believes, that although mistakes will always be made, we have to comply fully and openly with independent processes when those mistakes are made. We have to respect those processes, and we have to accept the consequences. The hon. Gentleman will note that in the report that was written and published by the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments, not a single recommendation was made to me. There were recommendations for the Department, but there was not a recommendation for me. Nevertheless, I have chosen to apologise to the Prime Minister, because I believe that the right thing to do is to take responsibility for the things that we are responsible for.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the BBC. I imagine that he is alluding to an issue that was raised yesterday by many Members of this House: the political appointments that were made to the board, and the appointment of one board member in particular, which has been highlighted by many Members as being of concern. He will know that those appointments were made under the last Conservative Government. The last Conservative Government also chose to extend the term of the board member in question, just a few weeks before they called the general election, so that board member has been in post for several years. However, there is an opportunity to look at the issue in the upcoming charter review, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will.

I am happy to clarify that this was not a prime ministerial appointment; it was an appointment made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As the hon. Gentleman knows, as soon as I discovered the donation and that the information given at the start of the process was incomplete, I chose to declare that. I recused myself from the process, and the final decision was made not by the Prime Minister, but by the Minister for Sport.

Oversight of the whole process and the way that public appointments are made is the responsibility of the Prime Minister, but I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions and comments about the need to uphold the highest standards. In relation to this appointment, we did not meet the highest standards. It was a complicated process, and the post required a specialist skillset, and the appointment took place under two different Governments. That is not to make excuses; it is just to explain that this process was highly unusual. We have learned lessons from it, and we are implementing the commissioner’s recommendations in full.

In the end, the test of whether the public can have confidence in this appointment is whether Mr Kogan and the Independent Football Regulator are able to deliver on the promise that we will deal with bad owners and put fans back at the heart of the game. I am confident that we have made the right appointment, as evidenced by the fact that since he was appointed on 6 October, he has wasted no time at all in getting on with the job.