They say that political loyalties can change but never football ones. So it was a strange experience to find myself at Old Trafford as a Cockney Red changing my colours to green and gold (“till the club is sold”) in protest against the Glazers’ control of Manchester United and the mountain of debt the club is under. Tens of thousands of supporters were wearing the old colours of Newton Heath, United’s forerunner club. The penny has dropped for all those singing: “United we love, Glazers out” along with the chants for the players on the pitch. And Manchester United fans are even joining forces with arch-rivals Liverpool to make club ownership an electoral issue in the north-west of England.

We have been here before at Old Trafford, when supporters groups and fanzines helped to thwart Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to take over the club in the wake of the glorious 1998-99 treble season. That battle was won, only for the Glazers to buy the club for £790 million in the summer of 2005. Basically, this was borrowed from the bank and then laden onto the club in order to complete the takeover.  Manchester United is no longer a public limited company. It is a wholly-owned family business. And the supporters have been made to pay for this with higher prices for tickets and replica kits. Recently, the Glazers restructured the finances of the club, with investors stumping up £500 million in bonds in order to pay off high-interest debts. Meanwhile, they have extracted millions in “consultancy fees” from the club.

In hindsight, supporters should have challenged proposals to turn United into a PLC in the first place. This was back in 1991 under the Edwards family – when this whole sorry saga began. The ideal now would be mutual control of the club, with Manchester United owned and run by its supporters and investors. Something similar already happens in Spain with Barcelona. According to Barcelona’s statutes, the club exists for the pursuit of sporting excellence. It is run by a body elected for a term of five years whose annual reports have to be reviewed and approved by a general assembly of representatives of the membership, which numbers well over 100,000. The assembly is responsible for fixing entrance and subscription fees and has to approve various other matters, including television rights and mergers or takeovers.

The current debate among Manchester United fans is about how we can achieve something similar. There is talk of a group of “Red Knights” – wealthy United supporters – riding to the rescue and then selling back their holdings incrementally to the fans over time.

It was such new forms of mutualism that the late Tony Banks, Labour’s former sports ministers, argued offered fertile ground for expansion in football. He proposed that greater supporter ownership of clubs would provide a solution to a number of problems in the sport. This is an idea whose time has clearly come – for small clubs and big clubs alike.

Little known, even in the world of football, is the Football Association’s Rule 34. This stipulates that, in the event of a club folding, its assets should go to other local sporting institutions. Along with other provisos, such as imposing articles of association that debarred profiteering by club directors, this rule was drawn up more than 100 years ago to protect the integrity of the game. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect Rule 34 when clubs go to the wall, particularly with regard to those currently in administration.

These issues have been raised in raised in the House Commons by Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP for Manchester Central, with an Early Day Motion and a debate in Parliament that had representatives from all sides insisting that the Government must intervene. However, it is questionable whether this is realistic in light of the demands on the Government from sectors of the economy that have fared far worse than the Premier League in the global recession.

Nevertheless, the enforcement of Rule 34 should be considered, as the FA already has the power to carry out the role of the regulator, but appears unwilling to act. This is unsurprising, given that no one has ever failed the FA’s “fit and proper person” test when it comes who is able to own a football club.  However, pressure on the FA to intervene when a club is in trouble would surely assist fans. Pro-supporter legislation in the next Parliament would also help.

In 1997, the incoming Labour Government set up the Football Task Force as a direct response to widespread public concern over the health of the “people’s game”. It was honouring a pre-election pledge. It’s time for Labour to go for something similar again.  This would undoubtedly go down well with fans at Old Trafford, Anfield and Fratton Park. Otherwise, the business side of the people’s game will still be able to go laughing all the way to the bank – suggesting that, at least as far as Manchester United is concerned, it will be “till debt do us part” for the fans and the Glazers.

Published in Tribune, 5 March 2010

Well, apart from breaking pledges he made to the London electorate in May 2008 that he would chair both the MPA and LWaRB, it shows that when the going gets tough Boris will leave it to others to get things going on major issues like crime and policing or building London a new waste management infrastructure.

Boris promised to chair the MPA as part of his scaremongering election campaign about crime in the capital, which was in fact falling overall and continues to fall. Nevertheless, last year faith hate offences in London were up by 46.7%, homophobic offences by 26.9%, rape by 24.2%, gun crime by 12.6%, residential burglary by 5.9% and personal robbery by 5.7%. So Boris can hardly claim to have got crime sorted during his brief stint as MPA chair.

With the new Waste and Recycling Board, it is crucial that it makes an impact now and doesn’t miss the golden opportunity to adopt new low carbon technology. But again Boris is walking away when needed.

By contrast, chairing London United is not a job Londoners elected him to undertake. But it is far easier position for Boris to entertain himself with, involving a lot of promotional events but not much actual hard work or attention to detail.

This is what we have come to expect from Boris. His is a mayoralty that gives precedence to photo ops and self-advertisement, but when push comes to shove on the big issues that affect Londoners, the Mayor is nowhere to be seen.

I was very pleased to host the launch of Show Racism the Red Card’s new campaign office in London and the South-East at a well-attended event in London’s Living Room at City Hall on Wednesday night. I look forward to SRtRC bringing their successful anti-racist work with young people here from their base in the North East.

Most fans judge players by the colour of their jersey and not their skin, yet we are in danger of the seeing the beautiful game taken over by the likes of the English Defence League, who are misusing football to incite hatred. SRtRC’s campaign promotes the true spirit of football – respect, multiculturalism and diversity.

This will be well reflected at the World Cup next year in South Africa, as well as illustrated every weekend up and down the country in the Premiership and Championship games. And remember London won the 2012 Olympics on this basis as well.

On the back of this launch, l am glad to see that the Islam Channel and Eastern Eye have also picked up on the issue.

It is clear that all roads lead to Rome, certainly if you look at the way Stadio Olimpico has been managed since the 1960 Rome Olympics. It has both local teams, Roma and Lazio, playing with fanatical support at the stadium on alternative weekends on a pitch around a running track. This is something we are not doing after 2012 with our stadium in London despite all the expenditure on it.

I have also lent my support to a suggestion in a Guardian editorial that the Stadio Olimpico should become the permanent home of the Champions League final, with some provisos. These being that we should not have to show photo ID at the stadium, that a drinking ban on the day is inconsistent with beer firms sponsoring the Champions League, and that the final should be held over a weekend and not mid-week.