I am very happy for clubs to spend money on a range of things, including on agents. I do think over £400m in one year for the EPL is excessive, and I dare say I'm not the only one. It's not spend that is conferring much direct benefit on the game in this country, in my opinion.
Spending on effective regulation, on the other hand, seems a very good thing, and if it ends up costing the EPL clubs half a million each ** (less than half of one percent of what they typically get in broadcasting revenue), I'd say that was good value for something that over time should :
- spread good practice
- promote far better cost control
- give everyone far more access to real time information
- strengthen our ability to root out people who shouldn't be in our clubs
- give fans far more of a say at the local level
- improve confidence in the fairness of the system
amongst other things. Our club says they support its introduction, presumably for similar reasons.
As for a "magic wand", that's just you inventing things again. The main problems in English football are a mixture of the cultural and the structural, and will take years to address, not months. And there will continue to be failures at individual clubs while all that is going on, however good the Regulator is.
Getting a Bill at all is a fantastic achievement, when you think about it. One of the most right-wing Governments we have ever had have been persuaded - by fans - to introduce external regulation into a brand new sector. It also tells you a lot about what a state the game is in that so many people in all walks of life agreed it needed to happen. If you don't believe that, go and talk to a few fans of clubs like Everton, Forest, Leicester and Luton and see how much confidence they have in the current regime.
** this is not entirely new spend either. The EPL clubs already pay for its own internal regulatory function anyway, and probably feel they aren't getting much quality or consistency for their money at the moment.