8 Things to Know About the Independent Football Regulator

The Independent Football Regulator was created by the Football Governance Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 21 July 2025. It regulates clubs in the top five divisions of English men's football, with 116 clubs in its scope. These eight points set out its legal basis, licensing plans, levy, owners' tests and first consultations, from official sources.

Key facts

• The IFR's three stated objectives are to protect and promote the financial soundness of regulated clubs, to protect and promote the financial resilience of English football, and to safeguard the heritage of English football.
• Final licensing rules and guidance were published on 1 July 2026. Clubs must hold a provisional licence ahead of the 2027-28 season.
• A proposed 20.3 million pound annual levy, published on 23 October 2026, is intended to fund the IFR from 2027-28, replacing government funding.
• A consultation on risk-based cash reserves, including a five-month operating-loss buffer for higher-risk EFL and National League clubs, opened on 10 November 2026 and closes on 18 December 2026.

1. It is a statutory regulator, created by an Act of Parliament

The Football Governance Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 21 July 2025, according to the official GOV.UK announcement and the IFR's own homepage. Section 1 of the Act states that its purpose is to protect and promote the sustainability of English football, and that Part 2 establishes the Independent Football Regulator. The IFR says this is the biggest change to the governance of English club football since the creation of the Premier League in 1992. It is not a league body, a union or a voluntary code. Its functions, duties and appeal routes sit in statute.

2. It has three statutory objectives, including heritage

The IFR's about-regulation page sets out three objectives: protecting and promoting the financial soundness of regulated clubs; protecting and promoting the financial resilience of English football; and safeguarding the heritage of English football. Those heritage duties cover club colours, badges, names and grounds. The regulator says it will also set governance standards and has powers to monitor and enforce rules on financial regulation, fan engagement and club heritage. The Act's purpose clause adds that English football is sustainable if it continues to serve fans of regulated clubs and to contribute to the economic or social well-being of the local communities those clubs are associated with.

3. Its scope is the top five divisions, or 116 clubs

The licensing and levy materials both state that the regime covers clubs in the top five tiers of English men's football: the Premier League, the Championship, League One, League Two and the National League. The IFR's 23 October 2026 levy announcement says it will regulate 116 clubs. That figure is the current size of those five divisions, not a cap written as a permanent headcount. Women's competitions and clubs outside those five divisions are not brought into this licensing perimeter by the materials cited here.

4. Clubs will need a licence to compete from 2027-28

Final licensing rules and guidance were published on 1 July 2026. The IFR says all clubs in the top five divisions must apply for and be granted a provisional licence ahead of the 2027-28 season. Each licence is expected to carry four standard mandatory licence conditions, and licensed clubs must produce a statement on how they apply the IFR's Football Club Corporate Governance Code. Our earlier report on the proposed five-month loss buffers also records that clubs will hold provisional licences first and must meet the "appropriate financial resources" test for a full licence by May 2030, with annual financial plans due from May 2028.

5. Clubs, not the government, are meant to fund it from 2027-28

On 23 October 2026 the IFR published a proposed levy of 20.3 million pounds to fund a budget made up of 18.3 million pounds of operating costs, a 1 million pound litigation fund, and 1 million pounds in the first year towards recovering set-up costs over 10 years. The regulator put the total at about 0.2% of English football's 9 billion pounds of annual revenue in 2025-26, and said most clubs would pay around 0.1% of their revenue, with no club paying more than 0.5%. Illustrative bills range from up to 1.8 million pounds at the highest-earning Premier League clubs to less than 600 pounds in the National League. We examined the proposal in more detail in our levy explainer. These amounts are still a consultation proposal, not a final invoice.

6. New owners and directors face a statutory suitability test

The Act gives the IFR power to decide whether people are suitable to be owners or officers of football clubs. The regulator's 23 October 2026 announcement said it had already carried out advanced checks on 40 owners, directors and senior executives under its ODSE regime. Since 5 May 2026, anyone taking control of a club in the top five tiers must pass that test, a point that has already mattered in deals such as the Gateshead takeover agreed with Flacks Group. The government's July 2025 briefing on the Act also said the regulator would have powers to force "rogue owners" to sell, language that sits in the policy announcement rather than in the IFR's own levy or licensing pages and should be read as the government's description of the regime.

7. Heritage decisions, from badges to grounds, now have a statutory backstop

The IFR says it will safeguard heritage and identity, "from club colours and badges to names and grounds." On 23 October 2026 it said it had already assessed several proposals for heritage changes to club crests, "ensuring fans were properly consulted by clubs." The government's Royal Assent briefing also listed statutory protections for home shirt colours, badges and stadium moves, and new standards for fan engagement. This is not a veto over every commercial decision, but it does move identity and relocation questions out of purely private club discretion and into a regulated process.

8. Financial resilience rules are being built in stages, starting with liquidity

The IFR is not a replacement for the Premier League's squad cost rules or for UEFA's club financial requirements, which we have explained separately. It is adding its own financial-resilience tools. On 10 November 2026 it opened a six-week consultation on risk-based cash reserves for EFL and National League clubs, with a starting table of one month of wages plus, for higher-risk clubs, five months of operating losses, to be built in stages by summer 2030. Premier League clubs are to be risk-assessed, but with no standard starting reserve at this stage. The Act also creates a mechanism, in Part 6, under which the IFR can in certain circumstances order a competition organiser to distribute revenue, a backstop rather than a routine power. Chair David Kogan has previously described use of those backstop powers as a failure of the game's leadership, as we noted in the levy explainer.

Methodology and last updated

This explainer is based on the Football Governance Act 2025, the official Royal Assent announcement of 21 July 2025, and pages and notices published by the Independent Football Regulator, including its licensing materials of 1 July 2026, the levy proposal of 23 October 2026, and the liquidity consultation of 10 November 2026. Levy figures are the IFR's illustrative amounts, not final bills. Where this site has already reported a consultation or a specific deal, those pieces are linked rather than restated at full length. Last updated: 12 November 2026.

Sources

• Football Governance Act 2025, section 1 (Royal Assent 21 July 2025)
• GOV.UK, Football Governance Act becomes law (21 July 2025)
• Independent Football Regulator, About Regulation (accessed 12 November 2026)
• Independent Football Regulator, Licensing (final rules published 1 July 2026)
• IFR, club levy to fund a 20 million pound budget (23 October 2026)