Member

The noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, asked about fairness; and there was also a discussion from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, about businesses being required to give away their cash. The Premier League itself recognises that financial redistribution is needed to ensure the solidarity of the football pyramid, which is why it already voluntarily distributes its revenue to lower leagues. The Government’s strong preference is for an industry-led solution that works for all of football. However, given the importance of financial distributions to financial sustainability and that ensuring a timely satisfactory agreement is in the public interest, the regulator will need to have a targeted backstop power to intervene if necessary. The regulator will have targeted powers to intervene as a last resort. This means that, if football cannot deliver a solution, the regulator will. These backstop powers have been carefully designed to incentivise an industry-led solution that delivers the right outcomes with minimum regulatory involvement. As such, the regulator will only ever intervene as a last resort.