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Football Governance

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and that of Mr Havard, the previous Chair, who probably prefers the oval ball, but accepts that the round ball game—the beautiful game—touches all four nations of the United Kingdom. I am delighted that three of those nations were represented in the debate at some point. I thank other Committee members. For a football fan, it was a fabulous inquiry. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) was a bit gutted not to be on the Committee at the time. However, he should take credit for having been part of the main inspiration for the inquiry in that seminal debate in Westminster Hall some time ago. I hope that he is proud now to be part of the Committee that was able to put the report to the House for consideration. There is no question but that football is probably our most successful export. I appreciate that Sepp Blatter thinks that the Chinese invented football, but I firmly believe that it is the English version of the game that has gone around the world. Indeed, we seem to be importers of talent nowadays, but our game is no worse for that. The extent of professional football here goes far beyond anything we saw in Germany, in terms of the number of teams and the quality of football, as the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) mentioned earlier. That is reflected in the fact that we have had such success in European competitions. Success perhaps eludes the three lions. Of course, we all hope to put that right in 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, and in Brazil in 2014. But as I will mention later, that is one reason why the Committee felt that it was important to do something about football governance. I will try not to repeat too many things that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said and I will try to develop a few different points, but I echo his tribute to David Bernstein. I ought to say that I am parliamentary fellow to the FA at the moment, so this is not being done in an attempt to try to get free tickets for any game, or anything. I was looking at the evidence from 29 March 2011, when the Committee visited Wembley stadium to take evidence from the FA. At that time I brought up the issue of governance and Fabio Capello's contract. All I can say is that David Bernstein's responses that day gave me confidence, as did his actions, in respect of exactly what happened with the captaincy of England—and in the situation in the past 24 hours. David Bernstein has persuaded the council, the shareholders and other board members to bring on two new independent non-executive directors. That has happened and already they are making a contribution to the board. Give credit where it is due, despite the fact that he is a Manchester City fan. As we all know, we can be very tribal in the main Chamber, but we are all here for the greater good of football.