For the record this is a copy from Hansard of the main points made by Hereford MP Jesse Norman to the Non-league Football Debate in Parliament today.
First, may I thank all those who have supported
this important debate on the future of non-league football? I thank the
Backbench Business Committee and colleagues across the House today for
taking part and for other work they have done on football issues. I also
thank the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport; Supporters
Direct, which has provided tremendous additional help; and, above all,
the Hereford United Supporters Trust, the Hereford United Independent
Supporters Association, the dozens of Herefordians who have shared their
feelings and views with me, and the thousands more who have poured
their passion and commitment into the local game in Herefordshire over
many years.
You do not have to be a football
supporter to know how important this game is to the people of Great
Britain. Every week during the season hundreds of thousands of people
turn out to watch premiership and football league games, and millions
more watch at home or catch up with the highlights. Football is the
lifeblood of many of our towns and cities: it is what parents and kids
do on a Saturday afternoon; and it is the subject of endless banter and
gossip during the week. But the premiership and the football league are
just the glamour at the top. There is huge activity below the surface,
in non-league and grass-roots football. It is very easy to forget the
significance of those parts of the game, and the roles those clubs play
in the community and their importance in seeding the players and
supporters of tomorrow.
That carries with it a
crucial point: football clubs are not purely private organisations. They
are not merely the private playthings of their owners—they are public
as well. What gives the clubs their life and energy, even in the
premiership, is the passion and love of their fans. I am talking about
supporters who turn out every week, who yell their heads off at the
match, who make the trek to away games and who buy the season tickets
and the merchandise. So it is entirely appropriate that Parliament
should take an interest in football and, specifically today, in
non-league football: how it is funded, regulated and managed, balancing
private interests with the public interest.
In
large part I have called this debate to focus public attention on what
has happened at Hereford United, which has been the result of a
disastrous catalogue of mismanagement and poor regulation. We will come
to that, but first I want to look to the good. In Herefordshire, despite
many competing sports and other outdoor activities, the high cost of
coaching and a shortage of access to good pitches, the non-league and
grass-roots game is flourishing. We have 42 grass-roots senior football
teams, some 150 junior teams, a schools league and midweek leisure
games. Every weekend during the season about 2,000 youngsters between
the ages of nine and 16 turn out in teams such as Ross Juniors in
Ross-on-Wye and Pegasus Juniors in Hereford. Over the summer some 78
girls took part in girls week football, and I had the privilege of
barbecuing several hundredweight of sausages for the different
nationalities’ teams in the first-ever Herefordshire world cup in July.
The
issue of finance is a very important one, and I know colleagues will
have a lot to say about it—indeed, it deserves a separate debate in its
own right. But it is important to recognise the £1.4 million in Premier
League, Football Association and Government grants that has been given
to grass-roots football in Herefordshire since 2000 and the further
£240,000 that has been received from the Football Stadia Improvement
Fund, which is funded entirely by the Premier League. As always,
however, what really matters is community spirit and local organisation.
I pay tribute to Jim Lambert and the Herefordshire Football
Association, whose president is a distinguished former Member of this
House, my predecessor but one, Sir Colin Shepherd. I also pay a special
tribute to all those who play in these teams, to the families who
support them and to the volunteers who give up their time to referee
games and organise the league. Many of those people have supported and
nurtured football in Herefordshire for generations.
Much
of that good news has been cast into the shadows by events at Hereford
United, which have been a catastrophe for the club, for the city, for
the county and for Bulls fans everywhere. This debate has special
significance for Herefordians, because the terrible truth is that our
club, my club, Hereford United—the club of Ronnie Radford and what has
been described as the most famous goal in FA Cup history, against
Newcastle United; the goal that launched the career of John Motson—with
its famous tradition and international name, in the year of its 90th
anniversary, is likely to go into insolvency next Monday, with a court
judgment on its outstanding debts.
How did that
occur? How has a club that was solvent and competitive three years ago
suddenly found itself on the brink of annihilation? It is a long and
tortuous saga, which I will not recount here, but let me tell the House
that Hereford United stand as a case study in mismanagement and poor
regulation, of a kind all too prevalent in lower league and non-league
football.
In 2008-09 Hereford United were
playing in league one against teams such as Leicester City, now in the
premier league, and Leeds United, currently in the championship. They
were relegated to league two in 2009 and to the football conference in
2012. That is when the financial problems began to bite. Their share of
rights income dropped from £750,000 a year to a tiny £50,000. That was
offset by a parachute payment of £215,000, much less even than one
year’s drop in rights income, much of which will have been returned to
clubs in the league and to the FA itself.
The
2013-14 season was beset by financial crises but the fans rallied, funds
were raised to see off the threat of a series of winding-up petitions
and Hereford United secured an astonishing last-gasp 2-1 victory over
Aldershot, thus narrowly managing to avoid relegation. However, in June,
Mr Thomas Agombar became the 57% owner of Hereford United. When he
arrived at the club, he reassured staff that
“all
payments and wages due to themselves, players and football creditors
would be paid in full this week, subject to Conference status”.
Despite
those promises and the deadline for payment being extended three times,
Hereford United failed to pay their football creditors and failed to
post the bond as required under conference rules. They were then
expelled from the conference on 10 June 2014. That created, indeed
reinforced, the strong impression locally that Mr Agombar was less
interested in football than in taking over leases to the Edgar Street
ground and using them for commercial development. We now know he met
repeatedly with Herefordshire council, which to its credit has taken no
steps to allow him use of the leases.
There was
also immediate local concern about the suitability of Mr Agombar to own a
football club, not least because he has convictions for conspiracy to
steal and theft. Furthermore, two other directors appeared likely to
fail the FA’s owners and directors test. One, Mr Philip Gambrill, was
subject to an individual voluntary arrangement and another, Mr Thomas
Agombar Jr, had been banned by Essex County FA.
I
wrote to the Football Association in early June, asking it to consider
whether Mr Agombar met the requirements of the owners and directors fit
and proper test. However, perhaps because of the World cup, it was
difficult to get a rapid response from the FA, despite the answer being
vital to Hereford United’s survival. Indeed it was not until 4 August,
some six weeks later, that the FA finally confirmed to me that Mr
Agombar Sr had failed the test, along with Mr Agombar Jr and Mr
Gambrill. Even then, despite my repeated requests and warning of the
reputational risks to the FA itself, the FA refused publicly to announce
the results of the test. It pleaded confidentiality, although the club
was even then in negotiations over a company voluntary agreement, with
Mr Gambrill’s name on the CVA document. It took until 12 August for news
that Mr Agombar and those two other directors had failed the test to be
made public. I must tell the House that the FA has still not made a
statement on the matter. Not only that: the Southern League accepted
Hereford United as a member in mid-June, despite the fact that it is
supposed to abide by FA rules and that Mr Agombar had not passed, and as
it proved would never pass, the fit and proper test.
This
whole fiasco raises very serious issues about governance and the need
for greater transparency; about funding and financial fair play; about
the negative effects of the football creditors rule; and about the
importance of supporters’ trusts. I would encourage the Select Committee
on Culture, Media and Sport to revisit in the next Parliament its 2011
report on football governance to reconsider some of the issues.
Today
I want to focus on the FA’s fit and proper test and how that was
administered. How could it be right for the FA to refuse to publish the
results, which were clearly material to a proceeding in court? The
creditors should have been immediately informed, so that they could
judge the CVA in that light. Some of those were football creditors, to
whom the FA arguably owed a special duty of care. I can see no reason
why the FA should not be able to make public in a timely fashion whether
an individual submitted the relevant form for the owners and directors
test; and whether, if they have, they passed the test. After all, this
is the practice in the parallel case of financial services and, although
that industry is no poster child for good regulation—goodness knows
that is true—its approach has been proven to deter some very dodgy
individuals from seeking senior positions.
Moreover,
how can people who buy shares in football clubs be able to register
their directorship with Companies House when they have not passed the
test? Surely people who would be likely to fail the test should not be
allowed even to get to that stage. The FA, Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs and Companies House should work much more closely to identify
potentially unsuitable club shareholders, owners and directors as soon
as they appear.
As my hon. Friend knows, it is likely that many of the creditors,
including football creditors, at Hereford United will never be paid. He
raises a serious issue. I am not by any means critical of the FA as
such; I think that many of the things it does are good. There is a
specific issue in relation to the owners and directors test that I want
to focus on. Serious concerns exist in that regard.
As I have said, the FA, Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs and Companies House should work much more closely to identify
potentially unsuitable club shareholders, owners and directors as soon
as they appear. Incredible as it sounds, as we debate today, Mr Andrew
Lonsdale, a long-time associate of Mr Agombar, is the current chairman
of Hereford United, despite a criminal conviction in 2008 and despite
being disqualified at Companies House from 2006 to 2012. That raises in
the starkest possible form the question, how on earth have the football
authorities allowed such a person to be a club chairman?
Will
the Minister write to the FA asking it to demand answers to those
questions, and in particular to demand early completion—or
pre-registration, as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)
mentioned—by potential owners and directors of the fit and proper test
and rapid publication thereafter, so that we all know who has put up for
it and who has passed or failed?
I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and I am
about to wind up, but I am also grateful for the intervention and I can
only sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s pain, still felt in many parts
of Newcastle, as a result of that great goal. I think there is a degree
of truth in his question. It is a balanced judgment, and if I may, I
will leave it there.
Will the Minister write to
the Football Association and other relevant authorities, requesting that
they investigate the rules which may have been contravened by Hereford
United and its owners and directors recently, and in particular how
Hereford United was allowed entry into the Southern League without Mr
Agombar passing the owner and directors test and despite its failure to
pay its football creditors, and whether Mr Andrew Lonsdale’s continued
role as club chairman is in contravention of existing rules?
Hereford
United’s motto is “Our greatest glory lies not in never having fallen,
but in rising when we fall.” The situation there has been a tragedy for
everyone who loves the club, but there might be some small comfort for
fans if it now leads to genuine and sustained improvements in the
non-league game.
I would like to thank all colleagues from across
the House for taking part in a cracking debate that has shown the House
of Commons at its best; it has been full of wisdom, insight, passion and
good humour. I know that the Minister has not failed to note the
enormous passion and the strong feelings expressed about the ODT, and I
am glad that she has committed to asking the FA to review it.
To
bookend my earlier remarks about Hereford United, we have one shining
example of a great community football club in Hereford: Westfields
football club, founded 48 years ago, after England won the World cup. It
was the grassiest of grass-roots clubs then, run by a team of people,
one of whom was a 16-year-old goalkeeper and is now the chief executive,
Andrew Morris. I wish we had more such clubs.
The
football pyramid does not work at the moment. We know that. In the
early 1990s, when Hereford United were last at risk, Graham Turner, the
revered former manager, wrote to all members of the premiership asking
them to send a side to help to boost Hereford United’s gate. Only one
premiership manager replied: Alex Ferguson, who sent a team including
Ryan Giggs. That made a huge difference. That is what we should be
seeing a lot more of across the premier league today.