Maoist philosophy and Ofwat’s sewer management are just some of Angus Kinnear’s references in a stinging attack on the Fan-Led Review of Football Governance.
Leeds United’s chief executive has used his programme notes for Tuesday’s Crystal Palace clash to hammer the recently-published independent review designed to improve the English game.
Kinnear said there was much to applaud in the review, including increased supporter consultation, heritage shares, a renewed focus for the women’s game and improving equality and diversity.
However, there are two strands of the report, which was published following extensive engagement with fans and stakeholders across the whole football community, Kinnear has slammed.
The demand for independent regulation and an increased transfer levy to redistribute funds down the pyramid have more than irked the Elland Road supremo.
“Forgetting that independent regulation has not proven to be a panacea for any industry (take Ofwat presiding over three billion litres of leaked water every year and thousands of hours of illegal raw sewage disposal in our nation’s waterways as a case in point), it is hard to see the value an independent regulator would have added to the perceived issues,” he said.
“We should remember the European Super League was so repugnant in its conception and so seditious in its execution the game and its supporters regulated it out of existence without the need for a third party.
“When it comes to the takeover of Newcastle [United], it is inconceivable a retired civil servant in the pocket of Westminster would have made the call that, while it is morally acceptable to trade billions of pounds worth of arms to an oppressive regime, it is morally unacceptable for them to own 11 teenage millionaires who kick around an inflated pig’s bladder.”
Kinnear suggests it has been too easily forgotten how much money the top flight already distributes to the wider football pyramid.
He said £1.5bn had already been shared across the last three years with another £1.6bn committed for the next three years to come.
“There is already a four per cent levy on transfer fees which is distributed between a player pension fund and academy investment,” he said.
“Football is a private sector business and has flourished that way. Enforcing upon football a philosophy akin to Maoist collective agriculturalism (which students of The Great Leap Forward will know culminated in the greatest famine in history) will not make the English game fairer, it will kill the competition which is its very lifeblood.”
Kinnear says clubs further down the pyramid need to live within their means rather than simply inflating them. He does not believe a redistribution of wealth would have saved Bury from extinction in 2019.
“The beauty of the English pyramid is the depth of competition,” he said. “For every fallen giant there is a new ambitious club striving to compete.
“In the same way, Leeds United have no God-given right to be in the Premier League, the right of an emerging and innovative Forest Green Rovers to league football is no less than that of an historic Notts County.
“Redistribution of wealth will simply favour the lowest common denominator.
“Clubs who excel in recruitment, player development or commercial enterprise will be punished, while less capable ownership will be rewarded for incompetence.
“Core to the villainy of the European Super League plot was its attack on the very spirit of sporting competition.
“It would be the ultimate irony if the report that was designed to respond to this threat achieved exactly the same outcome, but by different means.”
