UK football regulator to cost clubs £20m a year, double earlier forecasts

LONDON – Fresh off telling English football clubs that they need to change their money-losing ways or face a financial reckoning, the sport’s new UK regulator is asking those teams to pay a combined £20 million (S$34.2 million) for its first year of operating costs. 

That total is twice as much as the government earlier forecast: in 2025, it estimated costs for the Independent Football Regulator would run as high as £10.2 million annually over its first decade.

The IFR’s levy, announced on Oct 23, adds to the outlays teams in the Premier League, England’s top division, are facing. Clubs are already potentially on the hook for the league’s mounting bills in its legal battle with Manchester City.

Richard Monks, the IFR’s chief executive officer, said in an interview that the government’s figure from last year for operating costs does not reflect the “current financial reality or the task ahead of us”. 

The IFR, created through a 2025 law, said the highest-earning Premier League teams will shoulder more of the burden and contribute as much as £1.8 million a season for the levy. Clubs in lower divisions will pay in a range of £600 to £45,000.

The annual costs for the regulator represent about 0.2% of the £9 billion in revenue generated by the sport last season, according to the IFR. The budget includes funding a staff of about 100 people. 

The regulator released a report last week on the state of English football that said the sport needed to change its financial structure because too many teams are losing money.

Paul Quinn, a football consultant, said the industry is not in a position to complain because the regulator, which will benefit the game in the long term, will cost a fraction of what teams spend on player acquisition costs and agent fees. 

The appointment of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to assist with the regulator’s State of the Game report released last week ignited some of the concerns about how much this oversight was going to cost. 

At least one team declined to cooperate with BCG over worries about the cost of its contract with the regulator, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter. 

BCG declined to comment.

“Boston Consulting Group went out to a large number of owners and potential investors for the State of the Game report,” Monks said. 

The cost of using the firm was not ruinous and details would be in the regulator’s annual report, according to him. 

“The levy we are proposing today represents a fair and balanced approach,” Monks said. “We are confident football will see this as a relatively modest investment to help achieve a more sustainable ecosystem, which will provide peace of mind for fans, clubs and the communities they serve.” BLOOMBERG