The long, long road toward football’s reform. Could these be the first tiny steps?

For as Politico tells us,  “Uefa has warned the British government that England risks being banned from the Euro 2028 football tournament it is co-hosting if plans for a football regulator proceed.”

And that is one of the stories that we already knew, but which the English media don’t much feel inclined to report.  Nor indeed have they reported or even contemplated why the government in England and Wales, have gone ahead with this without discussing it with Uefa first and then coming out with a clear answer.

Uefa as we know, is a megalomaniac organisation in the full sense of megalomaniac – it has an utterly total and obsessive desire for power.   And the notion of the government of England and Wales taking some of that power away is far too much for Uefa to handle

Now personally I don’t hold the government of the United Kingdom in much regard – but then nor did I the last one.  So I am not at all sure about the idea of a regulator set up by them and presumably under the control of the Football Association (whom I hold in even lower regard).  Except that being under the control of Uefa seems even worse to me.

Now I am not at all sure that a new regulator would get things right, but certainly, things are going wrong at the moment.  One only has to look at the 115 charges against Manchester City, the fact that Manchester City is suing the League in which it plays, the financial position of many clubs in the Premier League, the corruption and exploitation of the workforce surrounding the jamboree that is the world cup, the fact that the referees association in England is on the verge of liquidation and is using the same referees day after day because it can’t afford to hire any more….  this does suggest things are not quite going right.

So one is entitled to ask if the notion of an independent football regulator could lead a worse situation.  It seems unlikely but if the only thing one has to clutch is a straw, better to clutch at that then simply sink.

According to the BBC and The Times the warning against having a regulator was put in a letter from UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis to the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy stating their rules prohibited “government interference in the running of football.”

Now as I say I didn’t vote for this government in the UK, but at least I had a vote.  I didn’t vote for anything or anyone to do with Uefa, because I don’t have a vote.  And I see that as a difference.

And given that the Football Governance Bill will establish a regulator who can oversee a certain level of financial distribution in English football and give fans a greater voice, it seems at least one tiny step in the right direction.

But of course, it would challenge Uefa’s dominance, and that Uefa won’t stand for.  But then one really doesn’t have to look much further than the disasters at Champions League finals to realise that Uefa is an organisation which if offered the chance of free drinks all round in a brewery would hand out the wrong map to help everyone get there.

And of course we can go back much further to the Heysel Stadium disaster which was very much Uefa’s disaster since they chose and approved the stadium and its safety controls.

But really the whole thing just shows both how football bumbles along from one crisis to another,  and how the media springs onto an issue late on, having not recognised it was there before despite the fans all knowing what was going on.

Meanwhile suddenly Arsenal beat Tottenham at the new superwhizzo wonderful most profitable stadium in the world (according to some Tottenham supporters) and the story of how wonderful that club vanishes, and instead we get reports telling us (in case we didn’t know) that “Tottenham have picked up 44 points out of the last possible 96 – a success rate of under 50%.”