England reportedly risks Euros football ban over regulator plans

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, British media reported.

England could be excluded from the tournament over “concerns” that a planned independent football regulator could lead to “government interference” in the sport, according to UEFA, European football’s governing body, the BBC and The Times of London reported late Saturday.

According to the reports, the warning came in a letter to the United Kingdom’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy from UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis, in which he said there should be “no government interference in the running of football.”

The proposed new regulator is part of the Football Governance Bill that Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled in July as part of his legislative agenda. The bill aims to establish a football regulator to oversee better financial distribution around the sport, to check on ownership and to increase the powers for fans.

In the letter sent earlier this month, Theodoridis cautioned against plans to give the new regulator broad powers to oversee clubs in England’s top five leagues, calling the sport’s independence a “fundamental requirement,” according to the media reports, which cited a leaked copy of the letter.

The Sunak government put forward the legislation for a new watchdog in March. When Starmer succeeded Rishi Sunak as prime minister in July, Labour committed itself to the plan in its manifesto.

“We do have concerns remaining … as normally football regulation should be managed by the national federation,” Theodoridis said in his letter. “One particular area of concern stems from one of UEFA’s fundamental requirements, which is that there should be no government interference in the running of football,” he said.

“We have specific rules that guard against this in order to guarantee the autonomy of sport and fairness of sporting competition; the ultimate sanction for which would be excluding the federation from UEFA and teams from competition,” according to the letter as reported.