US lawyer Bruce Buck was catapulted into the media spotlight last month when he became chairman of Chelsea Village, the holding company for Roman Abramovich's Chelsea FC.Philip Hoult explains why it can be handy for football clubs to have lawyers on board

Bruce Buck, managing partner of the London office of US firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, must be a candidate for the most high-profile US lawyer in the UK.

Adviser to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, he was appointed chairman of Chelsea Village, the holding company for Chelsea football club, last month.

Within a matter of weeks, he was dragged into a media scrum with the very public departure of his predecessor, Ken Bates.

If Mr Buck - a Chelsea fan before his involvement with the club at board level - had laboured under any illusions about what he was letting himself in for, he could have had a word beforehand with Maurice Watkins, senior partner of Manchester firm James Chapman & Co and long-time director of Manchester United.

Mr Watkins can attest to the explosion of media interest in football over the past decade and a half, having been the club's legal adviser and spokesman for many of its most delicate situations since he joined the board in 1976.

These include the fallout from Eric Cantona's 'karate kick' on a member of the crowd after he was sent off in a match against Crystal Palace in 1995, and, more recently, Rio Ferdinand's suspension after he failed to attend a drugs test.

'Everything changed when England got to the semi-final of the World Cup in 1990,' he says.

'Up to that point, the game had been in the doldrums following events such as the Bradford fire and the Hillsborough and Heysel tragedies.

With the England team performance, the game became politically acceptable.'

The formation of the FA Premier League in February 1992, with the involvement of broadcaster BSkyB, was another key moment.

'Initially BSkyB's arrival was viewed with a great deal of suspicion, but their impact has been tremendous,' says Mr Watkins.

'The media pressure is something you have to get used to quickly - I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like the Cantona incident.'

Of course, it is not just the media that directors of football clubs have to contend with.

'One of the unusual dynamics is that you have the owners who technically own the corporate structure, but then you have the fans who pay their money and should have some degree of choice,' says DLA partner Michael Fiddy, who was managing director of Premiership side Fulham from March 2000 to October 2001.

'In football, it is very difficult to do well enough.

You have very vociferous customers, and people are encouraged to make their point of view known.'

Mr Fiddy describes running Fulham as 'all-consuming for 365 days of the year', adding that he had assumed before joining the club that he 'would get the summer off', only to find that it was busier than the season itself.

But it is not just at the rarefied heights of the Premiership that these pressures exist.

According to Chris Haddock, sole principal at Halifax firm Haddock & Co and a director of Nationwide Conference side Halifax Town, it is equally true for lawyers active in the sport at the other end of the football pyramid.

Mr Haddock's involvement with Halifax dates back to February 2002, two months before it went into administration, when he helped set up a supporters' trust to save the club.

The trust used his offices as its headquarters and when, in return for bailing the club out, it was given a seat on the board, Mr Haddock was duly elected as its representative.

'I have been doing extraordinary things I never would have dreamt I would have been doing,' he says.

When the club chairman handed in his resignation last month, the board decided to appoint him as club spokesman, and in the morning the Gazette spoke to him, he had already been on the radio three times.

To cap it all, Mr Haddock has also been given the job of match summariser for west Yorkshire radio station Pulse.

'The station rings me half a dozen times during a game,' he explains.

'What they get depends on what emotions I am feeling.

If they join me at the wrong time, they tend to get what they get.'

Over the course of the last decade, the influence of the law - and European law in particular - over football has grown enormously.

Mr Watkins points to the impact on the game of the Bosman ruling by the European Court of Justice in December 1995.

'The Bosman ruling did not just say that players at the end of the contract could move without a transfer fee,' he says.

'It also changed the rules that restricted the number of European Union nationals you could have playing in your team.'

Two years ago, the European Commission also forced the game's governing bodies to implement new rules on transfers.

'The legal work often has a global aspect now and it is very important that you understand the FIFA rules,' he says.

The commission has also had the game's television deals in its sights.

Mr Watkins is one of a select number of lawyers on the Premier League's legal working party set up by former chief executive Rick Parry.

The other members are Peter McCormick, a former director of Leeds United and founder of the eponymous Yorkshire firm, and Trevor Nicholls, a former Norwich City director.

Michael Jepson, a Coventry City director and consultant at City firm Gordon Dadds, was also on the working party until his club was relegated to division one.

Although its remit has diminished following last year's appointment of Simon Johnson as director of legal and business affairs, the working party still gets involved in dealings with FIFA and UEFA, as well as commercial and intellectual property issues.

Fittingly, given that a solicitor called Ebenezer Cobb Morley drafted the first laws of the game, the working party also revises the league's rules when necessary, most recently to deal with clubs that go into administration.

In many cases, solicitors' involvement has not just been a case of using their legal skills for the benefit of a team they have supported since childhood or for the good of the game, but also as a springboard for the development of a sports practice.

Mr McCormick admits he deliberately targeted Leeds in the mid-1980s as a potential source of work, beginning by advising some of the players and by taking an executive box.

On the back of this, he has been able to build a practice advising a number of football clubs other than Leeds, where there is no conflict with the work handled for the Premier League, and has seen him branch out into other sports.

This is something James Chapman & Co - primarily a defendant insurance practice - has also achieved.

'Acting as a director certainly helped me understand the business,' Mr McCormick says.

'When clubs are facing significant issues, it must be an edge.'

Trevor Watkins, a partner in the sports department of south-west firm Clarke Willmott, is another solicitor to have seen the spin-off from a close involvement with his club.

A life-long supporter of division two side Bournemouth, he got involved when the club hit financial difficulties in 1997.

Leading a successful rescue bid, he spent five years as chairman - time that, he says, paid huge dividends.

'The practical experience has made me what I am now,' he says.

'People are looking for those who understand the business, which is why they are not just looking for a lawyer.'

If there is one thread that is common to the diverse group of lawyers who have become directors of football clubs, however, it is just how addictive the involvement becomes, even among those whose initial loyalties may have been with another club.

Gordon Dadds' Mr Jepson says his appointment to the board at Coventry was initially only meant to help a shareholder client, Peter Robins, obtain a majority on the board.

Some 15 years later and counting, he is still there - most recently helping the club reach an agreement with the local council over a new 32,000-seater stadium.

'I did not have any connection with Coventry beforehand,' he says.

'But when you get involved, you get passionate about it - even my wife and children became fans.'

The high profile that the role of director of a club attracts may not always be welcome, but it seems it is a transfer fee worth paying.