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The impending appointment of David Kogan as the chair of the new Independent Football Regulator has surprised many in the sport, given that the media rights specialist was not on the three-person shortlist, but in retrospect he may have been hiding in plain sight.
In a House of Lords debate on the Football Governance Bill last November David Triesman, a Labour peer and former Football Association chair, effectively recommended Kogan for the job, name-checking Kogan’s former company Reel Enterprises, which for 13 years sold media rights on behalf of the Premier League.
“We all think we know about football, but I bet that your Lordships really do not,” Triesman said, and after mentioning Reel’s work, he continued: “Whoever the regulator is will need to understand finance. Those money flows will be understood only by people who have done that job, and there are probably no more than 10 of them in this country.”
As Triesman foretold, Kogan has been recommended for the role by the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, after more than two decades negotiating TV rights sales on behalf of the Premier League, EFL and Women’s Super League, because he brings a deep knowledge of how the football ecosystem works, although multiple sources with knowledge of the recruitment process claim his impeccable Labour connections were equally significant. The 67-year-old has written two books on the Labour party, only recently stood down as chair of the independent news website Labour List, and has made nine donations to the party and MPs totalling £33,000 since 2022, including £5,000 to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
“David likes to think of himself as under-the-radar Labour aristocracy, but will be very much in the spotlight now,” said a source who has worked closely with him.
Kogan, partly as a result of his Labour ties, will face a grilling by Conservative members of the culture, media and sport select committee, particularly its chair, Caroline Dinenage, at Wednesday’s pre-appointment hearing before he is ratified. The Guardian has been told Nandy was initially reluctant to recommend him because of concerns over the perception that it was a political appointment. “David has been there in the background all along, but as a Labour donor we didn’t want to go down that route,” a source said.
The shortlist chosen by the advisory assessment panel had comprised the former Liverpool and Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow, the Kick It Out chair, Sanjay Bhandari, and the lawyer Sir Ian Kennedy, although Kogan had not applied for the job, with multiple sources saying this was for family reasons. He was approached by the Conservative government when the Football Governance Bill was first introduced last year, however, and did apply before the general election intervened.
After three rounds of interviews this year Purslow is understood to have been earmarked as the preferred candidate, despite Bhandari being scored higher by the panel, although no job offer was made. All three candidates were informed a fortnight ago that the process had been reopened because the government was seeking someone with a “different skill set”.
Sir Keir Starmer is said to have been involved in the decision-making over the past couple of weeks, with Kogan very much the prime minister’s man. Multiple sources have said the Arsenal executive vice-chair, Tim Lewis, an outspoken critic of the regulator who has regularly entertained Starmer at the Emirates Stadium, also strongly recommended him. Kogan was interviewed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s advisory assessment panel before being publicly recommended by Nandy on 25 April.
Purslow declined to comment when contacted by the Guardian but Bhandari gave Kogan his endorsement. “They have got a really good person and an extremely well-qualified candidate,” Bhandari said. “I’ve met David and been very impressed. He knows football inside out and I’m sure he’ll do a good job.”
There is a rare unanimity about the man tasked with taking on what is a historic role to regulate football: bright, focused and occasionally blunt to the point of rudeness, according to one source who described themselves as an admirer.
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“David will have enemies in football, that’s for sure,” said a source from his days advising the Premier League. “He’s very combative. This is not someone who does business in a conciliatory manner. He runs tough negotiating processes by banging heads. I wouldn’t have thought of him as a ‘regulator’ type, but maybe that’s a good thing. He’s quite a big character.”
Kogan was part of a Premier League triumvirate with Richard Scudamore, the then executive chair, and the legal adviser Nick West largely responsible for creating a TV rights sales process now worth £3bn a year, but concerns raised by some EFL clubs that he will be a Premier League plant appear misguided.
The Premier League ended Kogan’s consultancy contract in 2015 and last year he played an important role in negotiating the WSL’s £65m deal with Sky. “To portray him as a Premier League stooge is unfair,” a source said. “He’s worked for the EFL as well, and has spent longer outside the Premier League tent than in it.”
Kogan’s ability to get on with both parties is likely to be crucial because his first task will be to help them reach a financial settlement. After three years of talks the Premier League was last year ready to offer the EFL £900m over five seasons but their clubs could not agree how it should be paid for, so the negotiations stalled. “It’s very simple, he just has to get the deal done,” a government source said.
Tracey Crouch’s main recommendations, though, from the fan-led review published in November 2021 were based on protecting the interests of supporters and safeguarding community assets, which are not Kogan’s specialist areas. “Have they got the person they set out to and fulfilled their terms of reference?” a source who gave evidence to the review said. “David is someone who has made millions out of moving kick-off times around for TV.”
The appointment by Kogan of a more fan-focused chief executive could address this issue, and that role is likely to prove more significant in the long run.
Kevin Miles, the chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Association, is happy enough with the appointment, having met Kogan briefly in parliament last month. “It seems a pretty robust appointment,” Miles said. “The job is not for someone who will be pushed around. From our brief conversation he seemed to genuinely believe in the need for a regulator.”
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