Members of the Football League’s board have held meetings with the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore, to seek a fairer distribution of the Premiership’s booming TV money which, following the £625-million secured last week for overseas rights, will total £2,7-billion over three years from next season.
The Football League is so sensitive about the issue it is refusing to comment publicly, but the Premier League confirmed that talks are taking place about a revised funding package once the new deal kicks in.
The discussions centre on four areas: the amount the Premier League provides to Football League clubs for youth development, currently £4,2-million a season; the possibility of funding clubs’ community programmes; re-examining how the £17-million that the Premiership will pay to the Professional Footballers’ Association could be distributed; and a proposal for the Premier League to split with the Football League all money paid to the professional game from the Football Association.
Whether this will result in sufficient redistribution to prevent the Premiership disappearing into a different financial universe remains to be seen. So far there is no sign among the top clubs of an attack of conscience, although an increased proportion of the £2,1-billion domestic element of the next deal, about 7%, will go to grassroots development, including the Football Foundation.
Before the Premier League was formed in 1992 as a breakaway by the then-First Division clubs, the Football League’s TV money was always shared throughout its four divisions.
Crucially, the top clubs were then backed by the Football Association (FA), whose leaders believed a Premier League would strengthen their rule over English football; it has not.
In return the FA asked for nothing from the top clubs: no sharing of the money with the remaining 72 Football League clubs or improved regulation of the game. Graham Kelly, the FA’s CE at the time, has since admitted: ”We were guilty of a tremendous, collective lack of vision.”
Blackburn CE John Williams, who this week announced that his club would slash ticket prices because of falling attendances, is one of the few who would be willing to share more with the lower leagues.
”Most people can now name at the beginning of a season who the top four will be. The Premier League is becoming uncompetitive and we need a change to the way the TV money is distributed to create a more level playing field.”
Williams believes the debate needs to happen now and could include lower-division clubs. ”I believe we should share the money more equally in the Premiership. But it is not mutually exclusive to discuss more even distribution with the Football League at the same time.”
Perhaps most striking is that the FA, the governing body that sanctioned the breakaway in the first place, is no longer in any position to influence it at all. – Â