Every club in the top five tiers will need a licence.
116 clubs. One critical application window. Plain-English guidance and the actual forms, built by practitioners.
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How to read this site
Throughout the site these tags tell you, at a glance, whether you are reading the law, the IFR's own rules and guidance, or our interpretation. On Learn the regime you can filter the key points to a single type.
What the regulator stands for.
The Act gives the IFR three objectives, and eight regulatory principles it must take into account whenever it acts. They are worth knowing before anything else on this site, because every licence condition, test and decision traces back to them.
Club financial soundness
Protect and promote the financial soundness of regulated clubs.
Served by: licensing · financial plans · ODSE fitness · insolvency duties · home-ground protection · ownership transparency
Systemic financial resilience
Protect and promote the financial resilience of English football as a whole.
Served by: the revenue distribution backstop · prohibited competitions · information & reporting · the levy
Heritage
Safeguard the heritage of English football.
Served by: crest, colours & name protections · fan engagement · ground relocation approval · prohibited competitions
The eight regulatory principles
Use its resources in the most efficient, expedient and economic way.
Co-operate and engage proactively and constructively with clubs, owners, officers and organisers, and with others its decisions affect, including players and fans.
Before imposing any requirement, consider whether it is necessary and whether a less burdensome route would achieve a similar outcome.
Any requirement or restriction should be proportionate to the benefits expected from it.
Act with regard to the specific context of football and the rules clubs already face from their competition organisers.
Act consistently, while recognising the differences between clubs and between competitions.
Recognise the responsibilities owners, senior managers and officers carry for the requirements placed on their club.
Act as transparently as reasonably practicable.
Objectives and principles paraphrased from the Football Governance Act 2025, s. 6 and s. 8. The provision-to-objective mapping is our orientation, not the Act's own labelling. More questions answered on The Act, answered.
Start where you are.
Most people arrive here either curious, worried, or already halfway through a form. Pick the one that fits.
Learn the regime
What the Act actually says, what it means for your club, and why regulators in other sectors got here first.
- Short explainer videos
- The IFR Hub podcast
- How the Act compares with MiFID II and other regimes
Prepare the application
The strategic business plan, the personnel statement, the forecast template. Annotated, with the traps marked.
- Readiness self-assessment
- Annotated application form
- Forecast template walkthrough
- Mandatory condition checklists
Bring in help
Board workshops, governance reviews, and training built by people who have run regulated businesses.
- Board and NED workshops
- Licence readiness review
- Courses and structured training
- Ongoing compliance support
What happens, and when it lands on you.
Filter by where your club sits. Dates are taken from the IFR's July 2026 rules and guidance, and are subject to change.
ODSE regime live for incumbents
The Owners, Directors and Senior Executives suitability requirement begins for existing owners and senior managers. The IFR gains statutory power to examine those already in post where concerns arise.
ODSE extends to new appointments · notifications begin
Suitability testing now applies to prospective owners and officers. Clubs must notify the IFR when there's a reasonable prospect of a new owner or senior manager, before the appointment takes effect.
Home ground and insolvency protections in force
Clubs now need IFR approval before disposing of or dealing with their home ground, cannot appoint an administrator without IFR approval, and must keep fans informed during insolvency proceedings. These bite whether or not a club holds a licence (Commencement No. 3 Regulations, SI 2026/477).
Heritage duties in force
Clubs must notify the IFR of any prospective home-ground relocation (s.48), and material changes to a team's crest or predominant home shirt colours now require established majority support among fans (s.49). A team name change needs FA approval. Refusing to hold a licence is not a way around any of these (SI 2026/705).
Clubs assigned a named supervisor
Each club gets a designated IFR supervisor to work with through the licensing process. In our experience, that working relationship is worth more than any template — and worth building early rather than at submission.
Final rules and guidance published
The IFR publishes the Licensing Rules, licensing guidance, provisional licence application form, forecast template and the Football Club Corporate Governance Code, and runs a pilot scheme over the summer.
Pilot scheme findings published
Expected to include worked examples of best practice. Worth waiting for before finalising your own answers.
Application window opens
Top five divisions can submit from this date. Applying in November means four months of actuals and a twenty-month forecast: the earliest submission carries the longest forecast.
Hard deadline: top five divisions
All 116 clubs competing in 2026/27 must have submitted. February submissions carry seven months of actuals and a seventeen-month forecast.
Earliest date National League North / South can apply
Clubs with a realistic shot at promotion can submit from here, and are expected to withdraw if promotion doesn't come. IFR engagement with contenders begins this month.
Promotion confirmed: five working days to apply
Title winners: five working days after the last day of the regular season. Play-off winners: five working days after the final.
IFR aims to have decided everything
Under the IFR's rules, the decision window is three months from a complete application, extendable by one. The IFR's stated aim is to decide before League AGMs, including for promoted clubs.
Provisional licences take effect
All provisional licences start on the same date regardless of when a club applied. Four mandatory licence conditions begin: financial plan, corporate governance statement, fan consultation, annual declaration.
Earliest move to a full licence
After one year of reporting under the mandatory conditions. Requires threshold requirements and freestanding duties on top of the MLCs. No separate application needed.
First Corporate Governance Report
The IFR publishes themes, concerns and best practice drawn from every club's governance statement. Then every two years. Your statement becomes comparative material.
Latest date for a full licence
A provisional licence lasts up to three years. By the end of 2029/30, clubs meeting the criteria should hold a full licence.
No milestones match that filter.
The regime in the real world.
None of this is theoretical. Some clubs already run the kind of engagement and governance the Act now requires, and the failures that made the regulator inevitable are a matter of public record. Both are worth reading.
Already being done well
West Ham United: Fan Advisory Board Eleven elected supporter representatives consulted on strategy, heritage items and matchday plans. whufc.com Coventry City: fan engagement plan A published plan, quarterly forums and a dedicated head of fan experience, going well beyond EFL Regulation 128. ccfc.co.uk Swansea City: engagement reviewed in public Publishes its plan every season and reviews its own fan survey results openly, shortcomings included. swanseacity.com Brentford: a fan on the board The only Premier League club with an elected supporter representative on its main board of directors. brentfordfc.comWhat failure looked like
Bury: expelled from the EFL, 2019 134 years of history ended by unsuitable ownership and a rescue that never came. BBC Sport Derby County: administration, 2021 A 12-point deduction and months of existential uncertainty after years of overspending. BBC Sport The ITV Digital collapse, 2002 A broadcaster's failure left dozens of lower-league clubs facing ruin, and points deductions replaced help. External shocks count too. FourFourTwo Blackpool under the Oystons Owners found by the High Court to have improperly extracted millions. It took the courts, not football, to act. BBC News Owners who fell from grace Convicted owners kept their grip on clubs because the old test could not be applied retroactively. BBC News Chester City under Stephen Vaughan An owner later disqualified as a director for 11 years still passed football's checks to buy a second club. North Wales Daily PostThe forms, with the hard parts marked.
The IFR publishes the templates. What it doesn't publish is which answers cause supervisors to come back asking for more.
Strategic business plan
Substantive, evidenced answers on business model, infrastructure, ownership intentions, group structure, funding, fan consultation and governance. The group structure diagram is where most clubs underestimate the work.
Financial forecast template
Balance sheet at six-monthly intervals, P&L and cash flow quarterly, out to 30 Jun 2028, on a 30 June year end even if your statutory accounts say otherwise. Assumptions must be stated and defensible.
Personnel statement
Shareholders, ultimate owner, and every senior manager mapped to a Senior Management Function. Approval means the IFR accepts it is accurate, rather than auditing the suitability of those named. It goes on your website.
Declaration
Signed by a director or an individual with authority, confirming accuracy and undertaking to notify the IFR of material changes. Personal accountability attaches here.
Are you ready to apply?
Twelve questions, taken from what the application actually asks. Tick what's true today.
0 of 12. Tick the ones that are true.
Take the full 45-question assessmentRegulation is new to football. It isn't new to us.
Fideo Global builds compliance, risk and governance capability for regulated industries: financial services, digital assets, gaming, and now football. Board workshops, licence readiness reviews, and training your directors will actually finish.
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