Kate WhannelPolitical reporter
The culture secretary has apologised for breaking rules by failing to declare she had received donations from the man she picked to run England’s new football regulator.
On Thursday, the commissioner for public appointments published a report which found that David Kogan had made two separate donations of £1,450 to Lisa Nandy, when she was running to be Labour leader in 2020.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Nandy said: “We didn’t meet the highest standards – that is on me.”
The Conservatives have said Nandy’s actions were “a serious breach of public trust” and called for a further investigation into Sir Keir Starmer, who also received donations from Mr Kogan.
In a statement, Mr Kogan has said: “As the commissioner states, my suitability for the role has never been in question, and at no point was I aware of any deviation from best practice.”
Mr Kogan, a sports rights executive, was initially longlisted for the football regulator role under the previous Conservative government.
Nandy became involved in the process after Labour won the 2024 general election and she took on the role of culture secretary.
In April, she announced that Mr Kogan would be her preferred pick to fill the £130,000-a-year role.
However, a month later she removed herself from the appointment process after Mr Kogan revealed to a parliamentary committee that he had donated “very small sums” to Nandy in 2020.
In his report, commissioner for public appointments Sir William Shawcross said Nandy had “unknowingly” breached the code and should have checked if Mr Kogan had given her money before choosing him as her preferred candidate.
The contributions were part of total donations worth £33,410 to Labour and the party’s candidates in the five years prior to his appointment, the commissioner said.
Mr Kogan’s donations to Nandy were below declaration thresholds set by the Electoral Commission and by Parliament.
Asked why she had not declared the donation during the appointments process, Lisa Nandy told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she had not known about the money at the time it was given.
She said that during her leadership campaign she had been “out on the road” doing hustings and interviews.
“I wasn’t involved in fundraising for the campaign, and as soon as I found out I declared it and recused myself and I complied fully with the process.”
She insisted Labour was different from the Conservatives saying: “When we make mistakes – and we will make mistakes, we are human beings- we put ourselves through independent processes, we respect the outcome and we take the consequences.”
In his report, Sir William said: “It need not be true that the donations actually influenced the secretary of state’s decision-making – only that the risk of this perception should have been mitigated by declaration of this financial interest.”
He found the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had breached the rules by failing to declare Mr Kogan’s previous donations to Labour when he was named as the government’s preferred choice for the job.
The department also breached the rules by not discussing the donations to Nandy when Mr Kogan was interviewed for the job, Sir William found.
After the report was published, Nandy wrote a letter to the prime minister saying: “I deeply regret this error. I appreciate the perception it could create.”
In his reply, Sir Keir Starmer wrote: “I know you to be a person of integrity and on the basis of your letter, it is clear you have acted in good faith.”
In May 2024, Mr Kogan donated £2,500 to the prime minister’s local Labour branch of Holborn and St Pancras.
The Conservatives have asked the government’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus to investigate whether Sir Keir’s role in Mr Kogan’s appointment broke ministerial rules on transparency.
Downing Street said Sir William Shawcross had already carried out an extensive review and “found no breaches aside from those set out in the report”.
The football regulator role was set up following a fan-led review into the management of football clubs.
The regulator has been tasked with improving the financial sustainability of clubs and safeguarding “the heritage of English football”.