Laws must be changed to ensure no football club can ever again be “run into the ground” by secret owners, the Government has been told.
Labour and Conservative MPs united to take the case for change directly to the Government in a Commons debate yesterday.
Damian Collins, Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, told Ministers: “Coventry City has gone through a particularly torrid time, something I don’t think any football club should ever have to go through again.”
And he said the club had suffered because fans aren’t allowed to know who the owners are – although the Football League claimed to know.
The MP is to present his own legislation to the Commons to reform the way football clubs are managed, although it is unlikely to become law unless it is supported by the Government.
He said his legislation would require “a public declaration of the identity of the owners and investors in a club”, adding: “Football fans have a right to know... where the money is coming from.”
And this would allow the introduction of tests to ensure potential club owners were “fit and proper” people to own a football club.
He condemned “what has happened to Coventry city, the way the club has been run into the ground, the way the finances are in ruins... purely for the financial interest of its mysterious and secret owners”.
Ownership of a club “should be a matter of clear and open record”, he said, adding: “The situation at Coventry City is a desperately sad one and it should never be allowed to happen again.”
Earlier he had told the Telegraph he believed clubs and their grounds should be ‘tied together’ so the situation facing Sky Blues fans could “not be allowed to happen”.
In the debate, the MP also highlighted the situation at Birmingham FC where owner Carson Yeung is now serving a six-year prison sentence in Hong Kong for money-laundering and said he should never have been allowed to run the club in the first place.
Labour MP Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) backed calls for change, saying the situation at Coventry was “a disgrace”, and said: “It’s about time this issue was resolved by government action.”
The club’s owners refused to reveal when the club would return home from its current base in Northampton, he said.And he added: “They are playing a guessing game – it’s 20 questions all the time.
“That’s how contemptuous they are of the people and the fans of Coventry quite frankly.”
Conservative MP Marcus Jones (Con Nuneaton) added: We don’t even know who owns Coventry City FC and many of my constituents are absolutely mortified that they can’t even find out who is to blame for the situation that the club finds itself in.”
Business Minister Jenny Willott said: “The football authorities are confident that they can identify club owners.”
