Corporate governance in professional sport – the board of directors

Wednesday, 20 February 2013 Author: Richard Barham, Daniel Stock

“At a football club, there’s a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques”. Bill Shankly on boardroom meetings.

Although many supporters may agree with Bill Shankly’s statement, today the board of directors has a broader role than merely signing cheques. The board is an important decision-making body with statutory duties to promote the club’s success. In this blog, we discuss the statutory duties of the directors and principles of good corporate governance set out in the UK Corporate Governance Code (the “Code”).

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Tags: Directors | Football | Governance | Match-Fixing | Portsmouth FC | Premier League | Rangers FC | The Code

Written by

Richard Barham

Richard heads both the London Corporate practice, and Sports practice, of Dentons.

Richard's focus is on M&A and corporate work. He is particularly interested in corporate governance issues, and regularly advises companies and other organisations on how they best operate to achieve good and effective governance standards.

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Daniel Stock

Daniel is a corporate lawyer at Dentons and is a member of the firm's Sports group. Daniel has acted on the acquisition of major football clubs in the United Kingdom and advises on all aspects of corporate finance transactions, including cross-border mergers and acquisitions (share and business sales), company/business ownership matters, joint ventures and investment funds.