Exclusive interview: Minister for Sports Stephanie Peacock MP | OneFootball

“Bovril. And a steak pie.”

I am sitting across from Stephanie Peacock MP, the Government’s Minister for Sport, in a nice pub in the Pennines, waiting for the lunch we have just ordered. I’ve just asked what her go-to half-time snack is, and she instantly looks like she’d rather be walking back to her seat with a steaming cup of beef accompanied by a beef pie.

I am here to ask her about the Football Governance Act. But while I’ve known the Minister for a few years, I hadn’t realised she was a footy fan at all. She looked genuinely hurt. “Birmingham City. Birmingham. It’s from my dad. When I was little, growing up in Birmingham, I came home and asked my dad, ‘Can we go to Villa Park?’ He said, ‘Absolutely not.’ And within 24 hours, we’d gone to St. Andrews. He used to take me to watch the Blues when I was little.”

How does that go down in your Barnsley South constituency? “I’m from Birmingham and then I’ve lived in different places. Barnsley is very much my home now, but you can’t change your team. I follow what’s going on at Oakwell.”

“Barnsley is a very good example of how crucial and significant a football club is to a town. They have the Barnsley FC Community Trust and they do a lot of work with young kids, in schools and with holiday activities. The community trust is right next to Oakwell, so kids get to see the first team players going in. It’s really lovely.”

I ask her about the recent Lionesses’ Euros triumph and one of the upsides of her job – being able to see England games. “It’s a privilege to see them in action. It’s a proud moment for the country.” Peacock is reluctant to point to a favourite player, perhaps seeing predecessors get into trouble by getting offside with some of the team. Even when I trumpet Lauren Hemp’s legendary Norwich status, she won’t be drawn. Fair play for not playing the crowd, I suppose.

With Stephanie Peacock’s football credentials checked and rechecked, we get onto the point of the conversation: why Norwich fans – fans of every club – should care about the Government’s plans for a football regulator. It’s been the subject of many reports over the years, false dawns, and the target of a ferocious, well-funded lobbying campaign from opponents.

The Football Governance Act is partly about the intricacies of regulating an industry, but to what extent was the government thinking about, not so much the ins and outs of regulation, but the purpose of football – the place Barnsley has in its community or the importance Birmingham has to the identity of its city.

“Well, one I suppose leads to the other. The law is about regulation, but the reason behind it is that point about community assets, about towns and cities and communities and people up and down the country who have a close connection with their club. Football has a huge impact on our lives in lots of different ways.

“The calls for change go back to 2011 when there was a cross-party select committee report. Support for change has grown for many years because self-regulation hasn’t really worked. The ill-fated super league attempt led to [Tracey Crouch’s] fan-led review, which the previous Conservative government introduced. The reforms she proposed were in both Labour and Conservative manifestos. We introduced the Bill into the Lords and within our first year in office, we’ve managed to pass it through Parliament.”

A bill becomes a law when it receives royal assent from the King. Parliament is notified that this has happened when a herald reads out a message written on goat’s skin. There’s a joke here about footballs traditionally being made of pigs’ bladders, but I am not sure what it is.

I have personally followed the legislation of course, but, uh, asking for a friend, what does the regulator mean for clubs? “Consult your fans, be a fit and proper owner, have a business plan,” is Peacock’s summary. “You have to show you’ve got funds to do what you want to do. Show you’ve got a contingency plan if things go wrong. Show that you are a decent owner and fit and proper. Consult fans in a meaningful way. All of that will raise the standards and raise the bar.”

So, when will the regulator be cracking the whip?

“There’s been a shadow regulator since the time the Bill was first introduced under the previous government. doing some of the groundwork, getting some of that infrastructure in place. It’s not all there yet because staff need to be recruited, systems set up – all the practical setting up of an organisation, but it’s in progress.” There is more legislative work to do, too. Peacock is too diplomatic to say it overtly, but it is clear the Government has had to think hard about how to protect the regulator from future legal landmines.

But time is ticking. And the regulator, when it is up and running, will come too late to step in for fans of Morecombe and Sheffield Wednesday – the latest victims of rogue owners.

Peacock looks pained at that harsh reality and makes it clear that she and her boss, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, are doing what they can. They’ve both met fans of each club and have been working the phones behind the scenes. The debacle facing Wednesday and the Shrimps is just another reminder of why the new regulator and the laws that back it up are so needed.

“The regulator won’t be able to save every single club in every circumstance, but we want to raise the bar and make it much, much less likely that we see more Burys. The owners’ and directors’ test has to be meaningful. You’ve got to be a fit and proper owner. The regulator has a range of powers to act, and ultimately as a last resort if an owner is not behaving appropriately, they can be forced to divest – to sell the club.”

The lobbying over the law has focused on these powers, but Peacock insists the aim is for the regulator to work with clubs, not to go in studs up. “The regulator wants to be collaborative and work with clubs. If they’re not quite getting it right, they’re not there to just punish them. They want to work with them.”

“Of course, it’s incredibly stressful, worrying, concerning for fans when their club does end up in that place. It has a huge impact on local communities. I’ve met with Reading fans, for example, a number of times over the last year, both pre- and post-election. It is just so frustrating for them”

The power to literally force the sale of a club is big. But while it is a reassuring safety net for most fans, it is not something most of us will ever face. For many of us, creating a new culture where fans aren’t there to be humoured and fleeced is more top of mind. Peacock is animated. The new law has strong elements to ensure clubs “consult the fans properly and meaningfully – and there is a provision in there to make sure they’re not excluding fans and perhaps picking and choosing which fans they talk to. So, for example, if a club wants to sell the home ground or change the colours of the kit, they have to consult fans. We added ticket pricing as something that has to be consulted on. Of course, setting the prices is a commercial decision. It’s not for the government or the regulator to tell clubs how much they should charge for tickets, but there are too many instances of clubs putting up prices by outrageous percentages, scrapping concession prices and so on. So by consulting meaningfully, it makes it harder to do that.”

Some clubs – including, reportedly, our own club – have raised concerns about ‘red tape’. Peacock is adamant that for well-run clubs, the change will be minimal. The regulator doesn’t want to duplicate things. So, for well-run clubs, of which there are many, they’re consulting already, doing robust business plans already. They show they’re doing it and they crack on.” So it essentially boils down to the government wanting the leagues and clubs to run their own affairs, but where they can’t, there is a third party that can step in? “Yes, exactly. Well-run clubs shouldn’t have to duplicate the good work they are already doing. The aim has always been for this to be a light-touch regulator. Of course, the regulator will also carry out the ‘State of the Game’ report assessing the impact of issues on football across the pyramid, which will benefit all clubs.”

Some Norwich fans will be reading this and wondering what it has to do with us. Whatever your thoughts and gripes about Delia and Michael, we have been a stable, pretty well-run club, even before any comparisons to Bury, Morecombe or Sheffield Wednesday come up. So, why do we need this regulator?

“Well, I think it improves the game across the board. Well-run football is good for all fans, of every club. There are lots of clubs that are exactly as you describe, and it shouldn’t therefore mean it’s particularly onerous for them. But you know, sixty or so clubs have been in real difficulty since 1992. There have been too many examples of communities either losing or nearly losing their football clubs – we have to act. This provides that reassurance, for fans of every club, that before things get to a crisis point, the regulator can identify those distress signals and step in and work with clubs.”