L

Lord Moynihan (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 December 2024

Debate

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Contribution

My Lords, I will be equally brief in proposing my Amendments 187ZA and 187ZB. The drafting of the Bill states that if the regulator takes too long to determine applications for new owners and officers, then the applicants are treated as not suitable under Clause 32(5), through absolutely no fault of their own. This is not aligned with practice in other regulated sectors. It could have an impact on that person wider than purely their involvement in the club and be detrimental to clubs that have only one potential new owner, who is deemed unsuitable purely because the regulator ran out of time. The change that I propose to Clause 32(5) would reverse the consequence of excessive delay, addressing the inherent unfairness in the current drafting. This is aligned with how statutory time limits on mergers work, for example. If the CMA fails to make a decision within a specified timeline, the merger is automatically allowed. These are clarifying amendments; I very much hope that the Government will see benefit in improving the legislation by accepting them.

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