Unlike David Cameron – who famously got in a muddle about which team he supported – Rishi Sunak is a genuine football fan. But this makes the government’s latest wheeze of introducing a football regulator hard to take. Sunak says the outfit will help to prevent the ‘financial mismanagement’ of ‘unscrupulous owners’. It is, he says, a ‘historic moment for football fans’. Not everyone is convinced.

The Premier League is one of Britain’s most famous exports. Millions of people around the world follow teams like Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool. Its success is because these clubs have been left relatively free to conduct business: snapping up the best players and paying enormous salaries to persuade stars to play in England, rather than rival leagues in Spain or Italy.

Footballers will go where the money is and while, to quote Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer ‘football is nothing without its fans’, the Premier League is nothing without its players.

Any attempt to tame this Premier League beast will either fail (there is no end to the resourcefulness/ruthlessness of the clubs); or succeed and create an opportunity for a Premier League 2.0 (most likely in the Middle East) to flourish free of the impositions of pesky regulators spoiling the fun.

Footballers will go where the money is

This meddling doesn’t only affect the Premier League: the proposed (and yet to be named) independent regulator will have authority over the top five tiers of English football. Its powers will revolve around three core objectives: improving the clubs’ financial sustainability, strengthening financial resilience and protecting English football’s heritage. There will be closer scrutiny of club owners and directors to assess their suitably as custodians of ‘vital community assets’. A licensing system for clubs may be introduced with clubs required to consult their fans on key off-field decisions and strategic direction, a pretty obvious reference to the breakaway super league fiasco of 2021.