No minutes kept of Ministers meetings with Premier League bosses
Officials finally come clean and confirm no minutes were taken when former ministers met with Premier League bosses to discuss football governance and the new independent regulator.
In 2023, the Premier League turned over £3.5bn in revenue and it’s shareholders - the 20 football teams that make up the EPL, generated an eye-watering income of £6.1bn. An 11% increase on the previous year which eclipsed all previous records.
The sport has incredible reach and last season 1.87 billion people followed the Premier League worldwide.
The sums of money involved in the Premier League are astronomical and its impact truly global, therefore how the game is governed in this country is extremely important.
However, over recent months, The Pitch Inspection has discovered a number of transparency concerns involving discussions between Premier League executives and government ministers. We have discovered secretive meetings about football governance and the proposed independent regulator were held in late 2023 and that surprisingly no meeting minutes were kept by officials - on multiple occasions.
Transparency concerns - No minutes!
Following a long campaign, by the Pitch Inspection the government has finally provided more details about its dealings with Premier League executives.
A few weeks ago the ICO ordered the Department for Culture, Media and Sports to provide a response to our freedom of information request for documentation relating to two meetings between former government ministers and the EPL.
Today, we finally got a response and it revealed:
No minutes were taken by officials, when two of its former ministers (The Secretary of State Lucy Frazer and Sport’s minister Stuart Andrew) met with the Premier League in October and November 2023.
The agenda for the first meeting held on 17 October 2023 included a discussion on “The independent Football Regulator”. The Premier League’s Chair Alison Brittain and Managing Director Richard Masters where in attendance representing the EPL alongside government ministers and senior civil servants. No minutes were kept.
A month later, on 14 November 2023, the same ministers met again with the EPL’s Alison Brittain and Richard Masters and the proposed regulator was again on the agenda, but in similar fashion to the previous meeting officials failed to record what was discussed.
We also discovered that government ministers were handed a ministerial briefing document by civil servants prior to the October meeting with the EPL, however they are refusing to make this public - claiming its not in the “public interest”.
The Pitch Inspection asked if Ministers discussed with EPL bosses the ongoing saga with Man City and its potential financial fair play breaches. However the response wasn’t particularly clear:
The Pitch Inspection has also been stonewalled by officials over government ministers meetings with Man City and we’ve also requested further information from the Department for Culture, Media and Sports over 12 recently declared meetings by former ministers with the opaquely named “football stakeholders”.
The governance of the game we love sits at a crucial cross road and The Pitch Inspection will continue to pressure the government to be more transparent over its discussions with the Premier League and its 20 teams.
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You can read the full response from the Department for Culture, Media and Sports here: