The one thing we'd change about football

Happy new year to all, and with it some developments at FootBiz towers.

There is a new partnership which we can tell you a bit more about tomorrow. And that newsletter will be a bumper edition of the Thursday flagship you’re used to, but with some extra bits. On Friday, premium subscribers will also have something in their inbox on why we are entering a new era of ownership in football, and the challenges that come with that, before a big week of content next week.

So what have we got today?

Well in the spirit of new year and change we thought it might be fun to ask a range of people from around football, in different roles and sectors, what they would change about football if they could change one thing.

The first slew of those are rolled out today, and there will be more dotted out over the next week as well as an opportunity for you to contribute your own.

Gary Neville

TV pundit, Salford City co-owner, podcaster, ex-England and Man United full-back

The one thing I would change about football is for the Premier League clubs and EFL to come up with a proper settlement for the whole of football.

We have an independent regulator coming in with backstop powers but the Premier League could have settled the distribution of money with the EFL years ago by just accepting they have a responsibility for the wider football family.

I think their mindset maybe is that they can influence the regulator and get a better deal than the ones being discussed. But it shouldn’t take a regulator to come in to get this done.

The Premier League is an amazing product, and they are also the guardians of the game and it’s now time to do this deal and let’s move the game forward together. 

Nicholas McGeehan

Director, Fair Square and author of Substitute, The Case for External Reform of FIFA

The one thing I’d change about football is the thing that everybody would like to change about football but nobody thinks can be changed about football - the organisation that runs it.

There is a very odd dynamic surrounding FIFA, which governs the world’s most popular sport despite being wildly unpopular and repeatedly demonstrating just how unfit it is for the role. Having recently published a long and detailed report into the organisation, its multiple failings and the tragic consequences of those, I would challenge anyone to argue against the notions that FIFA is a) an absurd organisation, and b) the thing that most needs changing in modern football.

FIFA is a commercial rights holder, a development organisation, a competition organiser, and a global regulator, all rolled into one big mess. It won’t change or meaningfully reform because its senior officials and a critical mass of its member associations form a highly lucrative back-scratching club, whereby the associations get billions of dollars of FIFA’s development money in return for blind support for the FIFA President.

Who has time to effectively govern the actual sport when there’s lots more money to be made to feed this patronage system? And whereas once FIFA relied on its sugar-daddy sponsors Coca-Cola and Adidas, it has now hitched its commercial wagon to Saudi Arabia’s petrodollars, locking the organisation into a grotesque quid pro quo whereby Saudi Arabia will sustain FIFA's corrupt business model and FIFA will help Saudi Arabia to keep the world hooked on its oil, accelerating climate change.

Football fans often say it’s the hope that kills, but if we’re going to get literal and technical about it, it’s misgovernance at FIFA and what we all need for Christmas is for FIFA to be tied up in some festive red tape and externally regulated.

Francis Cagigao

Head of Global Recruitment and Strategy, Galatasaray

There is more than one thing I would change about football! But the first thing would be the use of VAR. As we have seen with all technology, it may provide a more objective picture yet it is killing the essence of the game. Fans do not know if to celebrate, kids don’t know if to hug their dads in the stand. And football is for the fans. And the next most important issue on my mind is getting the elite institutions to filter more money down to grass roots football

Miguel Delaney

Author, States of Play and Chief Football Writer, The Independent

Football needs proper regulation on where its money goes and how you spend it.

The problem with FFP has never been FFP, it's the system it sits in. And the thing with regulation like this is, if money is spread properly, it eliminates a lot of other problems at a stroke.

As we have seen with PIF and Newcastle, they won't spend if there is proper regulation, mitigating against state or private equity interest, but that is much less of a problem if Newcastle or similar clubs actually have enough revenue - or a fairer system - so they can still be competitive.

This is football's most important discussion, but the most difficult to have, as no one wants to give up their wealth.

Kieran Maguire

Lecturer in football finance, University of Liverpool, co-host of Price of Football podcast

I’d like every club to be allowed to spend the same amount of money each season in terms of players and transfer fees.

If they want to spend more than that, then for every pound they spend they’d need to put £5 into a central pot which is distributed among the other clubs.

It acts as a disincentive but would allow those ambitious and aspirational clubs to have more of a level playing field.

I’m old enough to remember Nottingham Forest, Leeds United, Derby County, Everton, Blackburn Rovers all winning the old First Division and a return to that would be great for football in general not knowing at the start of the season who was going to be successful and who wasn’t.

Simon Hallett

Owner, Plymouth Argyle

I’d actually change three rules but all on-pitch stuff:

1. I’d make the penalty area a semi-circle, or at least an arc. My geometry isn’t good enough to say exactly what shape, but it should be that it’s a penalty when a foul is committed at a fixed distance from the centre of the goal line.

2. ⁠I’d make the penalty for a foul in the box less than a penalty. It seems crazy to get xG of .75 for a foul preventing a shot of much less than that.

3. ⁠I’d introduce a sin bin system.

Your view here

Got something you’d change?

Reply to this email with yours and we will print some of the more interesting ones in the coming days.

Happy new year and we’ll see you again tomorrow with a regular Thursday edition of FootBiz.