“What I realised, and what ultimately made me so angry, was that a sport that was built by working-class people for working-class people had been hijacked by far too many owners who have no interest in them, and no intention of listening to them either.
“There are too many owners who treat supporters with disdain, who disrespect them, refuse to listen and even complain about them. It’s as though the people who want to own football clubs – as well as many who already do – see fans as an irritation, something to be tolerated and managed, not engaged with or listened to.
“Lives are intertwined with their football clubs, they are loved and cherished, yet that is open to abuse by people who either fail to understand what these clubs represent or simply don’t care. English football has been preyed on by individuals and groups who are, to varying degrees, interested only in themselves. Some of them don’t even like football and have very little interest in it. Which inevitably begs the question why?
“You had such varied types of potential owners who are very difficult to assess beyond what they initially offer as a bid and a loose plan for the future … these global networks, which are opaque and very difficult to untangle. There were groups, and I have to be careful here, but who had suspected links to organised crime, backed by people who were very difficult to pin down on anything and cannot be held to account. There are criminals involved, and it appears to be an open secret.
“The fact football clubs can be bought by someone borrowing all the money to pay for it and then transfer that debt on to the club, that’s not illegal but …
“These billionaires, many of them living abroad and barely lifting a finger in terms of the day-to-day running, had control. Now it was a case of exploiting that. What can this club do for me and how much more money will I make? The fans? Who cares? It’s my business and I will run it how I want, it was so sad.
“The Government, for a long time, knew the problems,” Nandy adds. “But didn’t think it was worth having the fight. I’m not the first MP who has had their eyes opened. It took the outcry that greeted the Super League for them to realise they had to do something.
“What has this country become when an elected Prime Minister is effectively threatened by a foreign dictator, who warned there would be serious consequences for this country if he did not get control of Saudi Sportswashing Machine?
“We already have a report from a parliamentary select committee that highlighted these problems, and it’s on a shelf gathering dust. Nothing changed and we have to keep the pressure on them. There has been a calculation in government that it’s job done. We’ve announced the review, there has been a public debate, but it will move on. They thought ‘the Super League has collapsed and we’ve got some positive headlines out of it.’
“We need the Government to give fans the power to protect their clubs. The power that resides in the hands of a very small group of people, who can effectively do whatever they want with the clubs, give it [power] back to the people who actually make the game what it is – the supporters.”