Ben Wright gave evidence.

I invite our first witness, Ben Wright, the director of external affairs at the Professional Footballers’ Association, to start his evidence. Can you introduce yourself, please?

Ben Wright:

Thanks very much for the opportunity to come and speak to you this morning. My name is Ben Wright, and I am the director of external affairs at the Professional Footballers’ Association. The PFA is the trade union for all current professional players in the Premier League, the English Football League and the Women’s Super League. We have approximately 5,000 current members, and provide support to approximately 50,000 formers members as well.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. Good morning, and thank you for joining us, Ben. By way of a first question, perhaps you would like to outline your thoughts on the Bill, in particular the fact that the Bill does not mention players once.Q145

Ben Wright:

Thanks for the opportunity. First, I will say that we have really appreciated the opportunity to engage throughout this process, from the fan-led review and then all the way through to the publication of the Bill. We welcome the support of the Minister and his officials, who have been very willing to listen to our views on this.

On the Bill as a whole, we have always taken the view that, if football was able to show that it can regulate itself, the Bill should not be necessary. I think it has been said to you before that we should view it ultimately as a failure of football that it has got to this point. However, we are broadly supportive of the way that the Bill has been presented. The fact that it is light touch and contains a relatively tight and focused remit is the right approach at this stage. We believe that a proposed code of governance, which can be established by the Independent Football Regulator, rather than being specifically set out in the legislation, is the right way to go.

We do think that the omission of any mention of players in the Bill, which you nudged towards, is significant. I am paraphrasing something that our friends at the Football Supporters’ Association said to you the other day, but we certainly do not view it as a conspiracy to make sure players’ voices are not heard; I think it is possibly a result of a perhaps understandable determination to reduce the amount of specification and detail in the Bill and to keep it very tightly framed. However, the Bill mentions a lot of things—leagues, governing bodies and all the rest of it—and we always take the view that there are only two groups without which professional football cannot exist: those who play it and those who watch it. If you take football out of the Bill—this is not intended as a criticism of other regulated industries, but I would imagine there is possibly slightly more scrutiny of this Bill, because it is football—the Bill is ultimately about enabling the regulation of an industry. We think that there is a need for the employees in that regulated industry to be recognised as a group who have a degree of importance that perhaps elevates them above other stakeholders. Their views should be sought and heard.

Q In which areas do you think the regulator should consult players?

Ben Wright:

In terms of the Bill itself, we would like to see it reflected in the regulatory principles. The PFA and I think that there is almost a philosophical need for players to be identified and for their importance in the game to be established in the regulatory principles.

There are other aspects, though. There is a provision in the Bill about the ability of the regulator to pass views on new competitions and applications for new competitions, but it does not specifically mention that players should be consulted about that. There are two reasons for this: the slightly philosophical and then the practical. In a lot of the things that the IFR could have the capacity to do, players are one of a very small group who could be substantially and substantively impacted by the decisions it makes. From a trade union point of view, I am talking about their contracts, which will be explicitly linked to the competitions they play in, the financial security of their owners, and what any decisions by the IFR might mean for their employment contracts. That is why, from a practical reason, I think they need to be recognised.

With things like new leagues, the obvious and clear reference point is the development of European Super League proposals, which is understandably very much framed around the fan opposition there was to that. It often gets forgotten that there was also a huge backlash from players towards that—it developed to a point where players were finding out about it by hearing reports on Sky News, or wherever it might have been, on a Sunday afternoon. As the union, you are getting calls from players saying, “What’s all this about?”. Some of them may have moral reasons—to term it loosely—why they might have a problem with where competitions are hosted, and they might have practical reasons for wanting more information, based on their employment contracts.

Q I have one more question: do you think it is right that player welfare is not in the scope of the Bill? Many people are rightly concerned about the link between football and dementia, for example.

Ben Wright:

Again, that is possibly an area where the code of governance might be useful. We had long conversations at the outset of the fan-led review, and the White Paper does actually reflect quite a lot around player welfare. There were specific mentions—I know officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are still working on this, and have taken it seriously —of player welfare within club academies and the right for independent support to be offered to those players.

I think the code of governance is absolutely a discussion to be had. What I would point to, though—I think the FA talked about this when they spoke to you the other day—is that there are well-established mechanisms in place around a lot of player welfare issues that have been very effective. A lot of those are actually enshrined in their contracts. One of the things that we, as a union, always slightly guard against is the idea that while football is not a normal profession, it is a normal job, and you have the rights to the same employment protections and rights of protection from your employers and expectations as anyone else should have. That is fundamentally where they should be enshrined. We would support that remaining the case.

On Tuesday, we heard from academics that there was an inability to control costs in football. We also heard that the wage-to-revenue ratio has risen dramatically from 45% to 70%. We heard from Mr Mather, the chairman at Cambridge United football club, that his expectation is of a 30% uplift in player wages in this round of negotiations. He made the point, in fact, that Haaland at Manchester City will earn in two months what his club turns over in a year. Do you think it is an inability to control player wages that is the problemQ ?

Ben Wright:

You will probably be unsurprised to hear me say no. I think there is—

It is not just me; there are a lot of people who will be interested.

Ben Wright:

I absolutely understand, and I heard the evidence the other day as well. We have always taken the view that financial sustainability in football is fundamentally based on sensible, long-term club ownership decisions that are properly regulated and properly scrutinised. There is always a tendency, when that fails —when clubs potentially spend beyond their means, and when a market does arguably and potentially get inflated—for that to roll downhill, and it always ends up that the problem is the money being paid to the players, rather than the decisions that are being made to pay those players that amount of money.

A player has a right, like any other employee, to negotiate within the market that they exist in. We have always taken the view that it should not be the responsibility of the employees to ultimately become part of an artificial restraint on a market. Markets can be shaped, restrained and managed organically. A lot of Premier League clubs, for example, will have stipulations written into contracts that mean if they get relegated, players’ wages naturally go down. That, as far as we are concerned, would be a sustainable ownership decision, but it is something that has to come from the clubs and the owners themselves, rather than that kind of rolling down towards the players.

You make the point with someone like Haaland. We are always at pains to point out that very obviously, our most high-profile members will be people who play for the biggest clubs, but they are not reflective of the majority of footballers. I understand the reference that was made to the evidence that was given the other day, but most footballers do not live in those circumstances where they are on inflated, long-term contracts. It can be an incredibly insecure career, and I think that that needs to be recognised.

It is a fact that the stone does roll downhill, and the key financial transaction in the whole of the football pyramid is the broadcasting rights negotiations between the Premier League and the lower leagues. In that way that money does follow downhill. It seems that players want to have their cake and eat it, being part of a system that rewards them very well and at the same time disassociating themselves from the decision-making within it. Apart from that, do you think the introduction of a football regulator could help owners to manage players’ wage expectations going forwardQ ?

Ben Wright:

The first point I make about players wanting to disassociate themselves; one of the reasons we want players represented in the Bill is for the exact opposite of that, it is so that players do have a voice in this, which at the moment they would not necessarily be guaranteed. Could you repeat the second question?

Would the introduction of a regulator would actually help owners to manage players’ wage expectations?

Ben Wright:

I do not necessarily know that I would accept the premise that a regulator would help owners manage player’s wage expectations. What a regulator can do is make sure that the decisions clubs are making as private businesses about what to pay their employees are sustainable decisions. Ultimately, as we said at the start, this is something that football should have been able to do, but a regulator’s job as far as we understand it, is not to come in and, we would argue, artificially suppress wages. A regulator’s job is to make sure that when clubs write their budgets, and their payrolls, that they can fulfil them. Clubs as private businesses have got to be allowed to do that.

If I may just touch on women’s football. What is your view about it falling out of the scope of the Bill as it isQ ?

Ben Wright:

We have been heavily involved in the Karen Carney review: obviously it is a different strand of work at the moment. We have taken the view that it is probably correct at the moment that it does not fall within the Bill. They are businesses, and leagues, that are at very different stages of development with very different issues. The stage we are at with women’s football and the professionalisation of women’s football— obviously, we speak representing every player in the WSL—is a very different stage of the professionalisation journey. I think it is right that the new structures being put in place around NewCo and the professionalisation of the Championship is allowed to be developed and owned in its own way before direct regulatory involvement. That is not to say that in the future there may not be a requirement or a need for a regulator to get involved. Given the scale and scope of the leagues, and their differing stages of development, we are happy, or comfortable, at the moment, that it does not fall under the auspices of the regulator. But that should not something that should be a sealed deal, and maybe that is something ready to be developed.

Q Just to follow up on that, is the women’s game sustainable and how would we ensure that the same mistakes are not made?

Ben Wright:

We always bang the drum bout not making the same mistakes as the men’s game, particularly in areas such as fixture congestion in the calendar. What drives fixture overload and player workload overload? It is money. There is suddenly a realisation that people can invest and make money from holding competitions, and then, as there is in the men’s game, there is a race for space. So they try to fill the calendar. It has not worked in the men’s game and it will not work in the women’s game. That is something we watch very carefully. For it to be sustainable there has to be a proper balance with international football, which until this point has been the most high-profile format for the women’s game, particularly for an English audience, but it also has to allow the space for the domestic leagues to develop. That is something we are seeing play out in the men’s game, where there is a conflict between international scheduling and international competitions, and domestic competitions. You have to give our domestic game the room to grow and the space to do that without it being in competition with national and international formats.

On Tuesday, we heard a lot of evidence about unintended consequences, but from the club and National League perspectives. In particular, talk was about possible additional bureaucratic burdens. Can you see any unintended consequences, but from the players’ perspectiveQ ?

Ben Wright:

I do not necessarily know if “unintended consequences” is how we would frame it; it is more about the need for awareness by the regulator of those consequences. A lot of them come down to practical impacts on players, and their contracts, rights and conditions. I believe that this is referenced in one of the amendments that you will consider, but where at the moment there is an outlining of the IFR’s ability to make decisions that impact clubs, whether that is sanctioning measures or things like that, there is not necessarily a huge amount of detail about what that might look like for the players, who almost inherit the decisions that are put on to clubs. That is not something that needs to be laid out in detail within the Bill, but we would argue that that is why it is so important that players and the potential consequences—unintended consequences, if you like—are reflected in the work of the regulator and in why it has that engagement with players and their representatives.

I have one further short follow-up.

Very quick, and can the answers be shorter?

Ben Wright:

I will do my best.

Q There is no equivalent of the Professional Footballers’ Association for the National League. Will the existence of the regulator and it having to consult other relevant stakeholder groups, for the National League, mean that players get slightly more consultation than otherwise?

Ben Wright:

With the National League, the PFA has members who are constituted as current members of the Premier League, EFL and the WSL, then we have former members—approximately 80% of players in the National League are former PFA members, so they retain all that access and can come to us for support. At the moment, it is not constituted as a professional league. That may change and it might be that the regulator has a role in changing that, because it brings it closer to the EFL and the Premier League. But that is always something we will look at closely, ultimately.

Thanks for the evidence so far, Ben. Some objectives of the IFR will be the financial soundness of regulated clubs and promoting and protecting the resilience of English football. How does the £410 million paid out to agents go with that? What is the PFA’s take on the payments to agentsQ ?

Ben Wright:

In terms of regulation of agent payments?

In terms of regulation.

Ben Wright:

We take a principled position on this. Ultimately, these are usually our members who are employing agents. We are very careful never to immediately jump on this idea of “Agents, bad”, because there are some good agents—it is like any other industry. Some of our members feel they get enormous value out of their agents. I would argue that it is almost exactly like what I described with the role of the IFR, in that the role of agents needs to be properly regulated and properly licensed. I think moves and measures are being taken to do that.

Q Should that be within the scope of the IFR?

Ben Wright:

I think it is already happening. I am sure that this is work that the Department will have done, but the IFR has to be very careful about the legalities and where its scope can end. If they are licensed agents who are being paid in open transactions by their clients, we do not philosophically have a problem with that, but that regulation of agents is important, yes.

Matt Rodda—very quick. You have only half a minute.

I will be very quick. Do you have some examples of structures that are working well at the moment to protect players? Do you feel that the Bill does enough to ensure that those continueQ ?

Ben Wright:

Absolutely, I have an example. It was mentioned by the FA when they gave evidence the other day. There is in existence a committee called the Professional Football Negotiating and Consultative Committee—football is full of acronyms, so I am sorry about this, but the PFNCC. It is something that has worked well, essentially to stop leagues, clubs and unions making unilateral decisions that might have wider impacts. It is important that the regulator, when it comes in, understands the role of those bodies and hopefully acts in a way that complements them. But again, it is important that the stakeholders within those groups act in a way that shows respect to their functions, and make sure that they function properly so that the regulator would not need to get involved to supersede them.

I am afraid that brings us to the time limit; I have no discretion to extend it. Thank you very much for your help.