英格兰足球俱乐部的公司治理【外文翻译】

英格兰足球俱乐部的公司治理【外文】 本科毕业论文() 外 文 翻 译 The Corporate Governance of Professional Football Clubs in England We analyze the corporate governance of professional football clubs operating in England’s Premier and Football Leagues. Good corporate governance is essential if clubs are to be managed effectively and to survive in the difficult economic circumstances surrounding the football industry. The past couple of years have been especially testing, as Football League clubs have had to deal with the aftermath of the collapse of the ITV digital contract. Our analysis reveals that while there are some noticeable improvements in governance standards, many clubs would benefit from following best practice guidelines on information disclosure, the appointment of directors, board composition, induction and training of directors, risk management and consultation with stakeholders. Despite improvement in some areas over the past three years, standards of corporate governance in football clubs are significantly below those of listed companies as a whole and there is thus considerable need for improvement. The peculiar economics of football The peculiar economics of professional sports leagues has been long been recognized (see Neale, 1964).Traditionally, the essence of the problem was seen to lie in the fact that sports leagues and the individual clubs that make up the league provide a joint product that depends on effective cooperation between competing clubs. Clubs agree to join and to be regulated by a league because co-operation in the supply of a joint product increases the economic value of the product supplied by each individual club. The output of the league and its constituent members is maximized when there is some degree of competitive balance in the league so that the outcome of matches is uncertain. A second major peculiarity relates to the need to balance financial sustainability on the one hand with playing success on the other. This latter imperative introduces an incentive to “invest” (or gamble) on success, through buying players and paying high player wages to attract and retain the best players. This may provide part of the reason; at least, for most professional football clubs in England being unprofitable, since there will be an incentive to invest any putative profits even before these appear in the balance sheet. At the extreme it can lead to the sort of debt-fuelled expenditure that Leeds United Football Club embarked upon in the early 1990s – “living the dream”, as the then Chief Executive described it. This urge on the part of boards to seek playing success, potentially at the expense of outside shareholders and lenders, places a heavier burden than in other industries on corporate governance institutions as a means of protecting outside providers of finance. A final major peculiarity – in addition to many others perhaps less fundamental differences – lies in the “labor market”, both with the way that players are treated in the company’s balance sheet and the effects of the above competitive pressures on player salaries. In Europe over the past few years, regulatory change in the form of the “Bosman ruling”, giving greater freedom to players to move between clubs, combined with the rise of broadcasting revenues into the game, have led to huge increases in player salaries, at least in the top divisions. All these pressures make all the more important the need for good governance at clubs. The temptation to “live the dream” needs to be kept in check by proper auditing and reporting mechanisms. The need to maintain league balance requires a degree of commitment to common regulatory arrangements, for example with the collective selling of broadcasting rights at present. And the pressure on wages has led to individual clubs and now the Football League introducing guidelines to prevent player wages taking too great a proportion of turnover It is to check the robustness of corporate governance procedures at football clubs, and to consider how well these are managing to deal with the issues that these clubs face, that we have been surveying on an annual basis the corporate governance practices of professional football clubs in England over the past three years. Our survey of corporate governance practices at football clubs The analysis in this paper is based on the following data and information sources: I. The results from our questionnaire survey of all clubs in the English Premier and Football Leagues, including those that had been relegated to the Conference League since 2002. The survey was conducted between May and September 2003. Of the 95 clubs surveyed, 53 responded: a response rate of over 56 per cent, which is extremely high for an in-depth postal survey of this kind. ii. The results from our questionnaire survey of supporter groups, including all supporters’ trusts at English Premier and Football League clubs. Of the 100 supporters’ trusts surveyed, 51 responded, giving a response rate of 51 per cent, which is high for an in-depth postal survey of this kind. iii. Follow-up interviews with selected clubs and supporters’ trusts. iv. Analysis of the corporate governance statements and Annual Reports of clubs listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), AIM and OFEX. v. The results from PIRC’s analysis of the corporate governance statements of all LSE listed companies published in their December 2002 Annual Review of Corporate Governance vi. The collation of financial accounts and performance contained in the latest Deloitte and Touch Annual Review of Football Finance. Our dual surveys of clubs and supporters’ trusts provide comparative data showing analysis and insights from both perspectives. This paper reports results from our third annual review of the corporate governance of professional football clubs based on our dual survey methodology. This paper therefore draws upon a longitudinal data set covering football clubs and supporters’ trusts for these three years. We have provided where appropriate historical comparisons to identify trends in corporate governance in professional football. Assessing and managing risk The Turnbull Guidance was introduced to provide assistance to companies on the types of internal controls they should have in place to comply with the Accountability and Audit Principles of the CC. The guidance requires the board of directors to consider: “the nature and extent of the risks facing the company” (Turnbull Report, point 18), the chances of the risks actually occurring, the level of acceptable risk, measures to reduce risk and the cost of implementing such measures relative to their benefit. The collapse of the ITV digital contract highlighted the changing nature of the risks facing football clubs as they have become more reliant on broadcasting income. Similarly, for Premier League clubs, increased revenue attached to European competitions has opened up new risks for Premier League clubs associated with the uncertainties surrounding qualification for European competitions. We asked clubs about different aspects of their risk assessment procedures (Table 16). Table 16: Risk assessment and management: club survey results Percentage of respondents that indicated they had carried out the following risk evaluation processes List clubs All clubs An evaluation of the nature and extent of the risks facing 71 47 the club The likelihood of the risks concerned materializing 86 41 Specific risk studies and assessment of impact 86 26 Controls and procedures to limit exposure to loss of 100 45 assets and fraud Board approval of a 3-year business plan 86 48 There are two striking features of the results. The first is that 29 per cent of listed companies that responded to our survey do not appear to have a process for evaluating the nature and extent of the risks facing their club. The second is that there is a significant difference in the performance of listed clubs compared to all clubs, with only 47 per cent of football clubs reporting that they have a risk evaluation process that enables them to identify the nature and extent of the risks they face, only 41 per cent undertaking any assessment of the likelihood of identified risks occurring and 26 per cent carrying out specific risk studies. The performance of listed clubs in regard of procedures to limit exposure to loss of assets and fraud is exemplary at 100 per cent, but this drops to 45 per cent for all clubs. A similar picture emerges on the related question of business planning. We asked clubs whether a three-year business plan was put to the board for approval. Almost 15 per cent of listed clubs do not appear to carry out business planning on a three-year time horizon. This figure rises to 52 per cent for all clubs responding to our survey. Overall, the results on risk management and business planning indicate that the majority of clubs that responded to our survey do not have the risk evaluation and business planning procedures in place to manage the risks facing their clubs, and to plan accordingly. A “fit and proper person” test for football? Over the past year there has been much discussion about the need to introduce a “fit and proper person” test for football (see Holt, 2003). Such a test might bar those with certain kinds of criminal records from owning, directing or shadow directing football clubs. It is difficult to estimate how many existing owners and directors might fail to meet the requirements of such a test, but it is likely that the numbers would be small. While such a test would do much to protect the football industry, particularly from the risk of fraudulent or unscrupulous directors, the results of our survey of clubs suggest that it would need to be introduced as part of a wider overall code of corporate governance for football. One area of corporate governance where football clubs are particularly weak regards the need to have clear and transparent procedures for the appointment of directors and non-executive directors, including independent non-executive directors. Clubs are especially weak on the provision of induction and training for new and existing directors. Results from our survey also reveal that clubs need to improve their internal risk control and business planning systems. A set of guidelines-or code of corporate governance -for football that set out clear and manageable standards in these regards would do much to improve the state of the game. Such a code would complement and strengthen the work of the FA’s Financial Advisory Unit. It would also provide a practical mechanism to help clubs stay solvent now that the football league has introduced penalty point deductions for clubs entering administration. A code of corporate governance for professional football clubs The establishment of a best practice code, tailored specifically to the football industry, would help clubs improve their governance structures and procedures. Such a code would be fairly simple to design and the cost of implementing it would be likely to be low. Moreover, unlike most other forms of regulation where predominately third parties benefit from the regulation, the primary beneficiaries of a code of corporate governance for professional football clubs would be the clubs themselves. Supporters and other stakeholders would also be likely to benefit. There are examples of best practice governance structures and procedures that can be found both amongst listed and unlisted clubs, large and small. These examples could be used to design a code with separate provisions for listed companies, unlisted companies, large and small, as well as for clubs owned by supporters’ trusts. A code of governance for professional football could also be developed to take account of the particular role of stakeholders in football. Football is an especially challenging business because clubs have to balance the needs of the business with the desire to achieve success on the pitch. In order to meet this challenge clubs need to be equipped with best practice governance structures. Our analysis suggests that there is considerable scope for improving corporate governance in football that would place clubs in a better position to meet this challenge, bringing significant benefits to clubs and stakeholder groups. The development and adoption of a code of corporate governance in British football would also place British clubs at the forefront of good governance-setting the agenda for other countries to follow, in much the same way that the Combined Code led to most advanced economies following suit by implementing their own codes of corporate governance. Source: Jonathan Michie and Christine Oughton Corporate Governance: An International Review; Jul2005, Vol. 13 Issue 4, pp.517-531. .译文: 英格兰足球俱乐部的公司治理 我们分析了英格兰职业足球俱乐部的公司治理现状，在足球经济困难的时期，俱乐部想要有效的进行管理并且在存活下来，良好的公司法人治理是必不可少的。过去的几年，我们一直在进行专门的研究，像职业俱乐部必须处理的与ITV电视台转播合同破裂的事情。我们的分析表明，尽管公司治理的在改进，但俱乐部的收益仍取决于以下信息的披露:俱乐部董事的委任，董事会的构成，俱乐部的风险管理以及与投资者的交流。尽管在某些领域有改善，但在过去的三年足球俱乐部的治理仍然低于整体上市的公司，俱乐部的法人治理仍需要改进。 足球经济学的独特 职业体育联赛在经济学上的独特是有目共睹的。从传统上讲，该问题的主要特点在于，体育联盟和构成联盟的个别俱乐部提供一种联合产品，而该产品又取决于竞争俱乐部之间的有效合作。俱乐部同意加入联盟，并且遵守联盟的规定是因为双方联合行动能够增加单个俱乐部提供的产品的经济价值。当联盟中的有序的竞争导致比赛带来的结果不确定时，联盟以及它的成员输出的产品才能最大化。 第二个主要特点是需要平衡俱乐部的财务与球场上的成功。而球场上的能够成功地激励投资，通过买新球员和支付球员较高的薪水来吸引并留下最好的球员。这提供了部分俱乐部收益少的原因，至少对于大部分英格兰职业足球俱乐部来说是无利可图的。因为俱乐部会去投资任何潜在的利润，甚至在它出现在资产负债表之前。在极端情况下甚至会导致例如资不抵债的情况，正如利兹联足球俱乐部上个世纪90年代当时的首席执行官描述的在“梦想中生活”那样，这种在球场上成功的要求，对俱乐部的投资者以及债权人俩说，相比于其他产业在投资者所花的费用更多 最后一个最主要的特点是，其他大多数人很少注意到“劳动力市场”谎言的基本差异，很少看到球员在俱乐部资产负债表中以及俱乐部在球员薪水上的竞争压力的影响.在欧洲过去几年，由于“博斯曼法案”使得球员在俱乐部之间的转会更加自由。结合在联赛中不断增长的转播费用，使得俱乐部付给球员的薪水有了大幅度的提高，至少在顶级联赛中是这样的。 这些所有的压力使得俱乐部改善财经营管理变得更为重要。“在梦想中生活”的诱惑需要俱乐部运用适当的审计和报告机制。保证联赛持续经营有需要俱乐部与联赛相互协作，共同管理，例如目前的集体销售电视转播权。球员工资的压力使得俱乐部和联赛管理协会采用某种机制防止球员薪水支出占据俱乐部营业额过多的比例。 过去三年，我们一直在以年度为基础监测职业足球俱乐部的公司治理策略，并检查职业足球俱乐部公司治理的稳健性并且去研究如何解决这些俱乐部所面临的问题。 足球俱乐部法人治理 本部分的分析是基于以下的信息和数据 1 该结果来自我们从英格兰足球联赛包括那些2002年降级的俱乐部在内采取的调查问卷。该调查从五月开始到2003年9月。95个俱乐部参与了调查问卷，有53个俱乐部送回了问卷，有效率为56%。该调查采用的通过邮寄的深入调查。 2 该结果是从我们的支持者发起调查问卷，其中包括所有支持者信任的英格兰职业足球俱乐部。在100名支持者中有51人回应了调查.调查有效率为51%，这在邮件这类调查中的比例是相当高的。 3 进一步采访选定的俱乐部和支持者。 4分析在伦敦证券交易所以及英格兰创业板和未上市证券市场上市的俱乐部的年度报告。 5.PRIC在2002年12月发表的关于分析所有伦敦证券所上市公司的公司治理的《公司治理年度审核报告》 6 最新的德勤公司对足球俱乐部的财务报表和业绩的审核报告以及年度足球财务报告 我们从俱乐部和球迷两个方面的调查提供给我们两种不同的角度分析比较数据。本文的报告结果是在我们调查基础之上的三个年度的公司治理年度审查报告，本文的数据纵向集合了三年内包括俱乐部和球迷的数据。我们适当的采用了历史比较，来确定未来俱乐部公司治理的发展趋势。 风险评估与管理 通过特恩布尔指导意见为公司提供有关内部控制的意见，以及他们必须遵守 的问责制和审计。该意见指出董事会需要考虑的是:“公司所面临的风险性质与类型”;风险实际发生的机会以及在可接受的程度下，采取降低成本与风险的以保证利益的手段。 与ITV的电视转播合同的破裂突出了俱乐部所面临的风险类型的变化，即俱乐部比以往更加的依赖电视转播收入。对于英超足球俱乐部来讲，欧战不断增长的收入同样也给他们带来能否参加此项赛事获得收入的风险。我们询问了他们关于风险评估的不同方面的问题。(表16) 俱乐部风险评估与管理的调查结果 有风险评估程序的俱乐 部比例(%) 上市俱乐全部俱乐部 部 采取风险评估措施的俱乐部 71 47 评估俱乐部风险发生的可能性 86 41 采取专门的俱乐部风险研究 86 26 防止俱乐部资产流失和资产欺诈 100 45 有俱乐部三年商业规划 86 48 这些结果有两个显著的特点。首先是，有29%的回复者并没有对俱乐部所面临的风险类型与性质进行评估。第二个是，上市的俱乐部与所有俱乐部相比有着显著的差异，仅有47%的俱乐部证实他们有自己的风险评估措施，以保证俱乐部能够判断他们所面临的风险的类型与风险大小，仅有41%的俱乐部会评估风险发生的可能性，同时仅有26%的俱乐部会进行专门的风险研究。 上市俱乐部在资产流失以及资产欺诈方面可以做到百分之百的的安全。但当范围扩大到所有俱乐部视，这个比例就降到了51%。同样的情况出现在了俱乐部的商业规划上，我们询问俱乐部董事会是否有一份三年的商业计划书，仅有15%的上市俱乐部没有三年的商业计划，但当这个范围扩大到所有我们所调查的俱乐部时，没有三年计划的俱乐部比例上升到了52%。 整体来看，关于风险评估与管理的调查结果表明，在我们调查的俱乐部中，大多数并没有建立风险评估和制定商业计划来管理俱乐部所面对的风险。 在过去的一年中关于在足球中引入“适当人选”准则的讨论有很多(霍特尔2003)，这种测试可能会阻止俱乐部的直接或间接拥有者的各种违法行为。我们很难估计出有多少俱乐部的董事或者负责人会无法满足这样的要求，但估计这个数字肯定会很小。这个测试将会保护租期产业的健康平稳发展，特别是防止风险欺诈。我们对俱乐部的调查结果表明，该测试需要更为广泛的作为公司治理的一部分引入足球俱乐部的管理中。 鉴于俱乐部薄弱的公司治理，俱乐部在董事以及执行董事包括非独立执行董事的委任上需要更加清晰和透明的程序。俱乐部在新董事和现有董事的培训方面特别的薄弱。我们的调查结果还显示，俱乐部需要提高俱乐部的内部风险控制和商业规划系统。建立清晰明确，易于管理的俱乐部公司治理制度能够加快足球运动的发展，一个这样的制度将补充并且完善俱乐部财务工作。同时它还能提供一个切实可行的机制来帮助俱乐部留在现在的联赛中而不至于因经营问题被联赛管理协会处罚扣分。 职业足球俱乐部的公司治理制度 建立一个专门针对足球产业的公司治理准则将有助于完善俱乐部的公司治理结构和制度。这样的准则是易于设计的并且它的成本又不会很高。同时与其他形式的制度的建立所不同的是，俱乐部公司治理制度的收益方并不是第三方而是俱乐部本身。球迷和其他利益相关者也有可能受益。 无论是上市俱乐部还是没有上市的，大俱乐部或者小俱乐部我们都可以在俱乐部公司治理机构以及制度的建立方面找到许多例子。从这些例子我们可以为上市俱乐部或者没有上市的俱乐部设计出专门的准则，甚至是支持者所拥有的俱乐部。足球俱乐部的公司治理制度的建立同时也需要考虑到在足球中特定不同的利益相关者。 足球俱乐部的管理是个极具挑战性的工作，它需要平衡俱乐部在商业上的需要和球场上的成功。俱乐部需要建立最佳治理结构来解决这个挑战。我们的分析表明多方面的改进公司俱乐部公司治理将使俱乐部更好的迎接挑战，同时给还能给俱乐部以及利益相关团体带来更大的利益。在英国足球经济中采用俱乐部公司治理使英国足球俱乐部在俱乐部治理方面出于前沿水平，使其他国家的俱乐部纷纷效仿，实施符合自身特点的俱乐部治理制度 出处: [英] 乔治森.米奇，克里斯丁.奥顿，《公司治理:国际观点》，第13卷(4), 2005(12):P517-531. .