Sir Keir Starmer’s football freebies raise serious questions about his impartiality over the establishment of a new regulator for the sport, the Tories warned last night.
The Prime Minister has accepted more than £35,000 worth of free tickets for matches over the past five years and from now on will watch his beloved Arsenal from the directors’ box.
But his Government is also working on a law to create a football regulator that is opposed by many Premier League clubs, as it will have the power to stop teams joining breakaway leagues and block investment from controversial countries.
It has raised fears that he will be lobbied by footballing chiefs and that his free tickets risk creating a major conflict of interest.
Last night a Conservative party spokesman told the Mail: ‘Keir Starmer’s football freebies raise serious questions about his impartiality when it comes to the new regulator.
‘Labour claims to be a government serving in the public interest, but after Starmer’s decision to take a £200,000 VIP box at his beloved Arsenal it seems Labour are only interested in serving their own interests.
‘If he had any integrity, the Prime Minister would recuse himself of any involvement in the football watchdog.’
Another senior Tory source went further, telling the Mail: ‘When is he going to realise that as Prime Minister he’s just going to have to watch Arsenal down the pub or at home like 99 per cent of fans? This is a massive and blatant conflict of interest. Starmer needs to give up the box.’
Dame Caroline Dinenage, who will lead the new Culture, Media and Sport committee, told The Guardian: ‘Everything the government does must not only be clear and transparent, but it must be seen to be clear and transparent.’
And newly elected Tory MP Ben Obese-Jecty said: ‘Keir Starmer has received £12,588 worth of hospitality and freebies from the Premier League, and £35,792 worth of football tickets during the last parliament.
‘In light of this, the decisions he takes on football governance should receive ‘forensic’ scrutiny.’
Even a minister couldn’t totally rule out the risk of Sir Keir being lobbied when he accepts free tickets for football matches, amid deepening controversy over the £107,145 in gifts, benefits and hospitality the Labour leader has accepted since December 2019.
Jess Phillips was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday if ‘the fact he is in charge of football regulation when there are key decisions coming up might influence their thinking in offering him that seat’.
She replied: ‘It might influence their thinking, it is whether it influences his that matters to me. And actually I don’t think there’s been any particular pause on the desire to regulate football.’
Asked if he should avoid the potential conflict of interest by watching at home, Ms Phillips said: ‘That’s for him to make that decision. But I think Keir Starmer is perfectly capable of going to an Arsenal match and [making] the right decision about whether football should be regulated.’
In a separate interview with Times Radio, she was asked if she would take so many freebies and replied: ‘I don’t like the Arsenal.’
Pressed on if she would accept other gifts, Ms Phillips said: ‘We get invited to theatre performances and things and you go along and you support the arts and people want you to go to their things because they want it supported. So if you can find me a politician who’s never done anything like that, has never ever gone to their local theatre to watch something, then well I think they’re lying to you.’
In a round of broadcast interviews on Thursday, Sir Keir defended his decision to watch future Arsenal home matches from a corporate box at the Emirates stadium.
He said: ‘Frankly, I’d rather be in the stands, but I’m not going to ask the taxpayer to indulge me to be in the stands, when I could go and sit somewhere else. That’s for me, a common sense situation.’
Protection experts said if the Prime Minister was to attend matches then it would be far safer for him to do so from a box rather than in the main stands.