Introduction of independent regulator has ‘paralysed’ football – Steve Parish

English football has been “driven into the courts” by the prospect of an independent regulator, Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has said.

The Premier League is going through arguably the most heavily litigious period in its history since its foundation in 1992.

Manchester City, champions in each of the last four seasons, have launched two separate challenges to the league’s rules governing commercial deals while also fighting more than 100 charges of breaching its financial rules which they strenuously deny.

The Premier League is also involved in an arbitration case with Leicester over a dispute surrounding an alleged breach of its profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), while last season Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked points under the same regulations.

However, Parish insists when the clubs meet the mood is “civil” and “collegiate”, and instead blamed the creation of an independent regulator for the current “paralysis”.

He told the Financial Times Business of Football Summit: “People make the issues to be so much more than they are.

“But we do have a problem – that we’re constantly told we’re not a business, we’re a sport. And at the same time we’re in court being treated to the nth degree like a business.

“We’ve got the spectre of a government regulator, as everybody knows, who want to interfere in all the things we don’t want them to interfere with and help with none of the things we actually need help with, it feels.

“(Chief executive) Richard (Masters) does a fantastic job stewarding the Premier League and I think the dynamic of English football has worked outstandingly over the years, the various different gravitational pulls of the EFL, the FA and the Premier League have got to the right answer.

“We’re now in a complete paralysis because the government has (made) this spectre of a regulator. It’s paralysed the game, driven it into the courts and I don’t think that’s good.”

Clubs opted against introducing new financial rules for next season and are instead set to stick with the PSR, with concerns around the impact of the regulator understood to be a key concern for top-flight teams.

The regulator is at the heart of the Football Governance Bill which is working its way through the parliamentary process.

The regulator’s purpose will not be to set new financial rules to govern Premier League clubs, but instead to license clubs if they meet criteria around financial sustainability and fan accountability.