Lagom Sports Compliance launches dedicated fan engagement service and appoints Nicola Andrews as Head of Fan Engagement
New service line helps English clubs meet the fan consultation condition of the IFR operating licence, with the provisional application window opening on 2 November 2026.
LONDON, 6 October 2026 -- Lagom Sports Compliance, the leading governance, risk, compliance and anti-financial crime consultancy built exclusively for professional football, has launched a dedicated fan engagement service for English clubs and appointed Nicola Andrews as Head of Fan Engagement.
The launch addresses one of the least understood requirements of the new licensing regime. Under the Football Governance Act 2025, regular consultation with fan representatives is a mandatory condition attached to every Independent Football Regulator operating licence. Clubs in the top five tiers of English men's professional football must consult people elected by their fans, or accepted by the regulator as representing them, on the club's strategic direction and objectives, its business priorities, operational and matchday matters including ticket pricing, its heritage, and its plans for further fan engagement. Material changes to a club's crest or predominant home shirt colours require reasonable steps to establish majority fan support.
The provisional licence application window opens on 2 November 2026 and closes on 26 February 2027. Every regulated club must hold an operating licence to compete from the 2027/28 season, and the fan consultation condition applies for as long as the licence is held.
A requirement most clubs are closer to failing than they think
Almost every club already talks to its supporters. Far fewer can evidence that the conversation was representative, that it happened before decisions were taken, and that the board genuinely considered what fans said. In Lagom's experience the gaps fall into four patterns: strategies written quickly by someone without specialist engagement expertise, often alongside a communications or ticketing role; plans that lapse in delivery; consultation that takes place but is never properly recorded; and records that are incomplete, held by one individual and lost when that person leaves.
The inconsistency is not a matter of size or budget. Some smaller clubs have deep, long-standing relationships with supporters and very little on paper to show for them. Some larger clubs have well-resourced structures that are thinner in substance than they appear. Under the licensing regime, both positions carry risk.
The service
Lagom's fan engagement support is offered at three levels, each building on the one before, and clubs can start at any level and move up:
Foundation: an independent audit of current arrangements, a review of existing representative structures and consultation records, a gap analysis against the Act's requirements, benchmarking against effective practice, and a bespoke fan engagement strategy presented to the board.
Managed: everything in Foundation, plus retained management of the consultation programme, with fan forums planned, facilitated and documented, and an evidence record maintained for licensing and annual reporting.
Outsourced: everything above, plus a Fractional Fan Engagement Officer resourced into the club for set days each week or month, with fan base profiling, day-to-day engagement with supporter groups and regular board reporting.
The service can be commissioned on its own or bundled with Lagom's wider IFR licensing support, so that fan engagement evidence is built to fit the rest of a club's licence application rather than assembled separately. The fan engagement services can be viewed in depth here.
Appointment
Nicola Andrews joins as Head of Fan Engagement and leads on fan engagement strategy and consultation design. She brings two decades of experience in internal and customer communications, employee engagement and change implementation, including running elected consultation structures and leading communications for regulatory change programmes in financial services. She holds an MA in Human Resource Management and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
That combination is deliberate. Elected representative structures, consultation that has to withstand scrutiny, and change programmes delivered under regulatory pressure are the substance of the fan consultation condition, and they are disciplines football has rarely had to import from outside the game.
Fan engagement is the licence condition clubs are most likely to assume they already satisfy. Most have a forum, most have a supporter liaison officer, and most genuinely care what their fans think. The regulator will not be assessing sentiment. It will be looking for evidence that the right people were asked, at the right point, and that the board took the answer seriously. That is a design and documentation problem, and it is one clubs have very little time left to solve.
Jonathan Greenstein, Co-founder and Director, Lagom Sports Compliance
Fan engagement is often treated as a communications task, when it's really a change challenge: asking people for a view, and genuinely letting it shape the decision. I'm thrilled to bring my experience of elected consultation structures and regulatory change at such a critical time for this industry. Football has a real advantage most sectors don't: fans who already care deeply about the outcome. Getting this right isn't just about meeting the regulation, it’s about building the kind of trust with supporters that lasts well beyond any single decision.
Nicola Andrews, Head of Fan Engagement, Lagom Sports Compliance
Full detail of the service is available at lagomsportscompliance.com/fan-engagement-support-for-football-clubs. Clubs can also assess their wider licensing position using Lagom's free IFR Licensing Readiness Checker.
Notes to editors
The Football Governance Act 2025 established the Independent Football Regulator for the top five tiers of English men's professional football. Fan consultation is a mandatory condition attached to every operating licence. The provisional licence application window opens on 2 November 2026 and closes on 26 February 2027, with licensing binding from the 2027/28 season.
The Act specifies the matters clubs must consult on: strategic direction and objectives, business priorities, operational and matchday issues including ticket pricing, club heritage including home ground, crest, home shirt colours and team name, and plans for further fan engagement.
A regulated club must not make material changes to its crest or predominant home shirt colours unless it has taken reasonable steps to establish that a majority of its fans in England and Wales support the change. A change of team name requires Football Association approval.
About Lagom Sports Compliance
Lagom Sports Compliance is the leading specialist governance, risk, compliance and anti-financial crime advisory firm built exclusively for professional football. Founded by Jonathan Greenstein and Isabel Lemes, the firm advises clubs, agents and investors across the United Kingdom and the European Union on Independent Football Regulator licensing under the Football Governance Act 2025, fan engagement, EU anti-money laundering obligations under Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, UEFA financial sustainability requirements, football agent regulation and operational resilience. Its consultants come from regulated financial services backgrounds and provide hands-on delivery capacity alongside advisory support. Lagom Sports Compliance is a trading style of Lagom Consultants Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 15527181. lagomsportscompliance.com
Media contact
Jonathan Greenstein, Co-founder and Director, Lagom Sports Compliance. jg@lagomsportscompliance.com.