Experienced media executive David Kogan is reportedly set to be named the head of the UK government’s new Independent Football Regulator (IFR), a body that will have a level of oversight across the clubs in England’s top five soccer tiers.
Lisa Nandy, the UK culture secretary, will select the IFR’s leader, with Kogan most notably – according to reports – boasting the support of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
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Following his selection Kogan will have to undergo scrutiny from a select committee operated by Nandy’s Department for Media, Culture, and Sport (DCMS).
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), Scottish soccer's Scottish Premier League, and perhaps most importantly for his IFR appointment, English men's soccer’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.
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By GlobalDataMost 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 suggestion of Kogan has, however, brought scrutiny, ostensibly due to his position as a long-time backer of the Labour Party at the head of what should be an ‘independent’ body, (despite having reportedly been tapped for the same role by the previous Conservative government).
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 have an adverse effect on that league.
April 28 will see the second reading in the UK's Parliament of the Football Governance Bill, the legislation that will create the IFR.
Other candidates reportedly linked to head the IFR include Christian Purslow, who was previously the chief executive of English Premier League sides Liverpool and Aston Villa, and Sanjay Bhandari, who heads the sporting anti-racism charity Kick It Out.
