Football's Rotten Core
It is not a secret that I am a Spurs fan and so I was not exactly distraught to hear of the troubles befalling Chelsea recently as their Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, became subject to sanctions that froze his assets. Attempts to avoid the long arm of the law failed: first by trying to use legalese to pass ‘stewardship and care’ of the club to a charitable foundation (even though that is meaningless in practice) and then second, by attempting to sell the club.
Now Chelsea are in limbo and their manager, Thomas Tuchel, has promised to drive his team to Lille if that’s what it takes to make it to the second leg of their Champions League tie.
The whole situation is a mess and has caused a lot of hand-wringing in the media about English football and its relationship with oligarchs and dirty money. However the truth is that this relationship is not new and the Premier League has long done a deal with the devil in order to secure its status as the most prestigious football league in the world. After all, Abramovich bought Chelsea back in 2003 but nothing seems to drown out criticism like winning trophies.1
Now the sanctions against Abramovich and the recent purchase of Newcastle United by the Saudi Public Investment Fund are causing a rethink. The ‘fit and proper’ test that is meant to weed out dodgy owners is itself neither fit nor proper. It operates on the basis of pass/fail and while it has allowed for more subjectivity in recent years, the scope does not extend very wide. Here are the things that would make an owner/director not fit and proper:
An interest in another English club.
They are prohibited by law from acting as a director under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.
Certain criminal convictions.
Personal/corporate insolvency.
Subject to a sports ban.
Match-fixing for betting purposes.
They are a football agent.
They are banned from entering the UK.
Although this covers fundamental things that ought to preclude someone owning a club, these categories do not extend very wide and leave little discretion for the Premier League. In some ways that is by design. After all subjectivity could lead to people slipping through the system and accusations of bias. Nevertheless, with the way things are at the moment, it is easy to see how someone like Abramovich could satisfy this test.
A greater level of discretion to think about where money is coming from and how the presence of that owner would affect the reputation of the English game might come across as arbitrary but that is the prerogative of a governing body. It is not much different to the way that the UK government decided to impose sanctions on individuals, such as Abramovich, recently.
Unfortunately so long as sportswashing (using sports to improve your reputation) remains real and there is money pouring into England via new ownership groups, the genuine desire to address this problem will remain non-existent.
In today’s episode of the podcast we look at an extradition case where a Northern Irish man is due to be prosecuted in Greece. He wanted to appeal but his solicitor forgot to file all the paperwork so the Supreme Court was asked whether he should still be extradited or not.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2022-uksc-4/
Make a difference today,
Marcus
As a Spurs fan I have no idea if this is actually true or not.