Fit & Proper

Free checks

Do you know who owns and runs your club?

Nine questions, about five minutes. The Football Governance Act 2025 defines an owner far more widely than a share register does, and the Owners, Directors and Senior Executives regime built on that definition has been live since 5 May 2026. This check tells you whether your club could actually answer the questions the regime asks. Your answers are scored in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose to ask for a follow-up once your results are in front of you.

The check

Answer from what the club can evidence today. An honest "not sure" is scored as work to do, because an unconfirmed ownership position is itself the risk the regime is aimed at.

Could you name every person who holds, directly or through other companies, more than 25% of the club's shares or more than 25% of its voting rights?

Shares and voting rights are separate conditions; crossing 25% on either one makes a person an owner. Holdings through a chain of companies count too.

Where the chain between the club and the individuals at the top runs through holding companies, trusts or family arrangements, is it mapped end to end?

A person holds indirectly where they have a majority stake in a company that holds the shares or rights, or sit at the top of a chain of such stakes. Trusts and similar bodies are caught by their own condition.

Have you identified any shares held by nominees, and any shareholders who have agreed to exercise their rights together?

Nominee-held shares are treated as held by the principal, not the nominee. Under a joint arrangement, each party is treated as holding the combined position of both.

Have you identified everyone with the right, directly or indirectly, to appoint or remove an officer of the club, whatever their shareholding?

This right makes a person an owner on its own. It often hides in the articles, an investment agreement or a loan agreement rather than the share register.

Have you considered whether anyone exercises significant influence or control over the club without a qualifying shareholding, such as a funder, a founder or a family member behind the scenes?

The first owner condition needs no shares at all: the right to exercise, or the actual exercise of, significant influence or control is enough.

Does the club know where each owner and senior manager stands with the IFR's suitability process, and has each of them been briefed on what it examines?

A person may not become an owner, and an individual may not become an officer, without an affirmative determination from the IFR.

Could the club produce an accurate personnel statement today, naming every owner, the ultimate owner and each senior manager with their role and responsibilities?

The licence application requires this statement, approved as accurate by a director or authorised individual.

Do the people who run the club know that a reasonable prospect of a new owner or officer must be notified to the IFR in advance, and that changes in an incumbent's circumstances must be notified too?

These duties bite on events, not dates. A deal that is quietly progressing can already be a notifiable prospect.

Do the club's owners, and anyone likely to become one, understand that an individual's source of wealth forms part of the IFR's owner suitability assessment?

For an individual to pass, there must be no grounds to suspect that their source of wealth is connected to serious criminal conduct.