1. As Head of Financial Regulation at The Football Association, I have overall responsibility for ensuring
that various aspects of the football business in England are regulated and administered in a
professional and transparent way. This includes three principle areas:
1. The regulation of club finances - ensuring that club football in England is sustainable and
successful;
2. The regulation of agents and the transfer market - ensuring that agents uphold standards of
conduct, that players are appropriately protected, and that the transfer market is subject to
suitable levels of scrutiny and monitoring, and
3. The regulation of issues relating to betting and gambling - ensuring that the English game is
appropriately protected from the threat of match-fixing, and that participants do not misuse
inside information.
This work involves a significant amount of monitoring and oversight of various aspects of football
which is carried out through, for example, regular visits to football clubs, as well as through a
significant level of office-based monitoring of transfer transactions and payments (all of which pass
through The FA's systems). We also have a dedicated team of specialist investigators who inquire
into possible breaches of FA rules.
During Nicola Ventra's time at The FA, he has spent time with me and my team learning about the
work that we do, as well as assisting with the monitoring checks that are preformed on transfer related
activity. He also attended training sessions that we provided for clubs in the Premier League on
various changes to the regulations that we have introduced for the season 2009110. This has given
him a good understanding of the work of the team and has provided him with some detailed material
regarding the financial performance of English clubs and the particular challenges that are faced by
football clubs in the current economic climate.
These challenges are particularly relevant at present with the work being undertaken by UEFA on
measures to introduce Financial Fair Play into European football. Football is a unique market in a
number of ways: (i) its fans (its primary "consumers") are not governed by the normal consumer
behaviours - if their clubs do not succeed they do not switch brands; (ii) the competition between
clubs is governed by a mutual dependency in sport, in that clubs actually need their rivals to be able
to compete with them in order for their competition to be an attractive and successful product; and (iii)
the game has a unique social and cultural heritage that means the game and its clubs (as the key
institutions in the game) have a place in society that transcends normal economic or business
boundaries.
ln this context, there is no single solution to the financial challenges that confront football. The
response of governing bodies and regulators such as The FA has to achieve a balance (and it is a
very fine balance) between permitting sufficient economic freedom to allow the clubs and the game to
grow and achieve success both on and off the pitch, whilst ensuring that fundamental sporting
principles are protected to preserve the long term health and stability of the world's most popular
sport.