Experienced media executive David Kogan has cleared a significant hurdle to become the head of the UK government’s new Independent Football Regulator (IFR), which will have oversight across the clubs in England’s top five soccer tiers, after being endorsed by a select committee of MPs.
Following his hearing in front of MPs earlier this week, the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee confirmed it was “content to endorse” Kogan’s appointment after “recognizing this vast experience in the football and media sectors.”
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However, it added there were “concerns around his political impartiality,” after he revealed that he had previously donated to the Labour leadership campaigns of both Prime Minister Kier Starmer and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.
It is understood that those donations were below the threshold that requires declaring.
The committee urged Kogan to work hard to “reassure the football community that he will act impartially and in a politically neutral way,” while committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage warned that Kogan’s past donations “will inevitably leave him open to charges of political bias in a job where independence is paramount.”
She added: “We want to see the new independent football regulator succeed, so it’s crucial that nothing undermines the regulator as it gets up and running.”
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By GlobalDataIn a statement, Kogan said: “I would like to put on record again my commitment to make no more donations to any political cause and pledge total political impartiality throughout the tenure that I hold a public appointment, if I am fortunate enough to be appointed.”
During his hearing, Kogan, who is a declared Tottenham Hotspur supporter, said he wanted to put “fans at the heart of the regulator” and would consider setting up a “fan advisory committee” or having a “fan representative” on the regulator’s board.
He added his main task would be to help the domestic soccer pyramid survive as the gulf between the bigger clubs and smaller clubs widens.
Kogan began his career as a journalist before establishing media consultancy firm Reel Enterprises in 1997, which he co-founded with Sara Munds.
At Reel he was heavily involved with the media businesses of prominent sporting clients such as the International Olympic Committee (as adviser for European rights sales for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics), the Scottish Premier League, and perhaps most importantly for his IFR appointment, England's elite Premier League and secondary Football League,
Despite selling the Reel business to major agency Wasserman in 2011, he remained heavily involved in the sports industry as an executive at the firm, and after leaving Wasserman in 2014, Kogan continued to advise the Premier League on its media rights tender.
Most recently, Kogan’s Women’s Sports Group agency, which he established in 2019, brokered the record media rights agreement with broadcasters Sky and BBC for English women’s soccer’s top-tier Women’s Super League, which was, at the time, hailed as “the most significant broadcast partnership ever for women’s football in the UK & Ireland.”
The IFR is being established on the back of the Football Governance Bill, which is currently passing through UK Parliament after being reintroduced by the Labour government in October.
The body will be independent from the government and soccer authorities and will oversee clubs in England’s top five divisions.
Plans for an independent regulator for soccer in the UK were first mooted as far back as 2022, when it was promised by the previous Conservative government (which then lost a general election last year, before it could be implemented).
Since then, multiple Premier League club owners and executives have warned that it could potentially harm the league.
