Alison McGovern – 2020 Comments on Fan-Led Review of Football

The text of the comments made by Alison McGovern, the Shadow Sports Minister, on 16 July 2020.

Like other challenges in our country, Covid-19 has magnified the long-term structural challenges for football. The crisis has showed sports organisations are at the heart of their communities and no community deserves to lose a much-loved football club.

What happened at Wigan Athletic perfectly makes the case for why we need reform and why it cannot wait any longer.

This must be a project for the whole of the UK, so we are urging the Government to develop a framework that enables Scottish football to be included – the issues in football north of the border have plenty of overlap with those in the rest of the UK.

If the Government wants to deliver on its manifesto pledge for football fans, the first step must be to explain what fan-led means in practice, who will take part and, most importantly, when we can expect change. This must be genuinely driven by what fans want and need, from the grassroots up.

This crisis has shown cracks in so many areas of our society after a decade of Conservative governments. Football is no different.