Three stages. Prices on the page.

IFR readiness assessment

£3,000 to £5,000fixed fee · League One, League Two, National League

A structured assessment of your club against every requirement of the Football Governance Act 2025 and the IFR's licensing rules: threshold requirements, the four mandatory licence conditions, the ownership and officer rules, the notification duties and the reporting calendar. You receive a written report the board can read in an evening:

• a requirement-by-requirement position, each entry cited to the Act or the relevant IFR rule;
• a prioritised remediation plan with realistic target dates against the licensing timetable;
• a plain statement of what your club can fix itself and where it needs help.

The band covers a club in League One, League Two or the National League with a straightforward ownership structure. Premier League and Championship clubs, and groups with layered or overseas shareholdings, are quoted separately: still a fixed fee, still agreed before any work starts.

The assessment fee is credited in full against an implementation engagement begun within six months. If the assessment shows your club is already in good shape, it costs you a report that proves it.

Implementation and the licence application

Project feescoped from the assessment

We close the gaps the assessment found, on a fixed scope agreed before work begins. Most implementations for the divisions the assessment covers land between £10,000 and £20,000; because the assessment defines the work precisely, you see what each item costs before committing to any of it. Between now and 26 February 2027, for most clubs this stage is the provisional licence application itself; the window opens on 2 November 2026. Typical workstreams:

• governance: board and committee structures, terms of reference, delegation and conflicts arrangements;
• ownership documentation: the Schedule 1 analysis, the group structure diagram and the personnel statement;
• financial-plan preparation on the IFR's mandatory forecasting template, including the stress tests;
• fan consultation structures that actually meet the condition.

For the application, choose how much of the work your club keeps in-house:

• Independent review. Your club prepares its own application. Before submission we review it requirement by requirement, mark up the drafting, flag anything that would fail the completeness check, and take the board through the findings.
• Shared delivery. We split the workstreams. Your club keeps what it does well, usually the numbers and the club-facing material; we draft the ownership analysis and the governance narrative, and clear the whole pack before it goes in.
• Full delivery. We run the application end to end under a named lead: ownership analysis, forecasts on the IFR template, narrative sections, personnel statement, submission and any follow-up correspondence with the regulator.

Retained support

£6,000from · a year

This is where most of the regime's work sits. An operating licence commits the club to reporting every year, indefinitely. The retainer covers:

• the Schedule Five platform for your club: gap tracking, evidence library, ownership map, notification log and rules-derived deadlines;
• the four-report cycle: financial plan, corporate governance statement, fan consultation report and annual declaration;
• advice through the year: when a shareholder restructures, a director resigns or the IFR writes to you, you have someone to call.

If the retainer ends, the club keeps its evidence library and everything produced for it. Nothing is held hostage.