Board composition in professional football clubs: implications of the independent regulator for football and a code of governance

Purpose The Independent Regulator for Football (IFR) will develop a code of governance for football clubs. In light of this, this article analyses board composition at the 116 football clubs from the English Premier League, the three divisions of the English Football League and the top division of the National League. Design/methodology/approach Data from Companies House is used to analyse board composition in relation to board size, board skills and experience, the gender of board members, board tenure and the age of the directors. We benchmark these against relevant principles from the UK Sport Governance Code. Findings Our analysis shows that, in general, board composition at football clubs does not meet the likely requirements of a code of governance. We make a series of policy-focused observations relating to board size, diversity and tenure limits that are relevant for the IFR and for football clubs. Practical implications The IFR will be tasked with creating a code of practice that sets out standards of organisational governance that football clubs will be required to meet. This research makes a number of relevant policy-focused contributions related to board size, diversity, and tenure limits that are relevant for both the IFR and football clubs. Originality/value This article is based on a novel empirical dataset and addresses a timely policy issue related to governance reform in professional football. It adds to previous research that has tended to focus on the publicly funded sports sector and related developments in government policy.