Nicola Richards tweets about West Brom after Conservative MP speaks with Sports Minister
Conservative MP Nicola Richards has shared that she met with Sports Minister Stuart Andrew to discuss the upcoming independent football regulator and how clubs like West Brom can be protected.
Sharing the news via her Twitter account on Tuesday (12 September) Richards discussed how the regulator will help protect clubs like Albion for years to come to ensure they can continue serving their local communities.
One key part of the regulator’s remit will be to change the current owner’s and director’s test to ensure clubs remain in safe hands and that football will remain a game for the fans, rather than be harmed by improper owners.
Richards said: “Yesterday (11 September) I met with the Sports Minister and other MPs to discuss the upcoming independent football regulator.
“The regulator will ensure that we protect our historic football clubs, like West Brom, for generations to come so they can continue serving our local communities.”
The Baggies have suffered due to poor ownership in recent years, with Carlos Corberan restricted to loan and free signings during the summer transfer window, leading fans to express their unhappiness with the ownership, including protests from Action For Albion who have campaigned for a change of ownership at The Hawthorns [The Athletic, 15 June].
A needed change
An independent regulator will be a huge development for the entirety of English football and especially for the Baggies as the Black Country club’s owners certainly haven’t had the best interests of the football club at the top of their agenda.
When the current ownership took over at Albion they were a consistent mid-table Premier League outfit. Now they are struggling to make the Championship play-offs and Guochuan Lai has received criticism for a series of loans that have been taken out to the detriment of the club.
Sadly the damage has been done at The Hawthorns but the introduction of an independent regulator could help stop this from happening to any other clubs and would ensure should the Baggies be sold, they wouldn’t suffer with another owner as bad as the incumbent.
Hopefully, the government can ensure this regulator is introduced sooner rather than later to stop more clubs from suffering a similar fate as the Albion until there is more done to prevent poor owners and stop historic football clubs from being run into the ground.
In other West Brom news, Tony Pulis has revealed how the Baggies missed out on signing both Harry Maguire and Virgil Van Dijk