LONDON, Oct 9: UEFA shares the growing concern about spiralling debt in football and has set up a working party to investigate ways of controlling it, General Secretary David Taylor said on Wednesday.

Taylor was speaking a day after David Triesman, chairman of the Football Association, said that English clubs had amassed debts of around three billion pounds ($5.2 billion), that transparency in the game “lies in an unmarked grave” and that even the biggest clubs were not immune from collapse.

“I was very pleased to see the statements from Lord Triesman and we also believe that the European Union shares many of our ideals about the self-regulation of sport in a free market,” he added.

He told the Leaders in Football conference that a working party would meet for the first time next week to begin investigating the issue.

“This is an attempt to find greater financial stability, especially at a time when banks are failing.”—Reuters