Leeds owner calls for ‘Premier League 2’

LONDON: Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani says it is time to create a “Premier League 2” to boost TV revenue for struggling Championship clubs.

The English Football League’s current deal with Sky is worth almost ?0 million ($119 million) a season but will rise to ?20 million a season from 2019-2024.

Championship clubs -- playing in England’s second tier -- get the lion’s share of that, as they do with the money the Premier League gives the EFL in solidarity payments, but this only adds up to about ? million for each club.

Premier League clubs, however, get at least ?00 million each from the league’s domestic and international broadcast deals.

Radrizzani, who bought former English champions Leeds in 2017 and recruited mercurial Argentinian coach Marcelo Bielsa, thinks the gulf in income is too wide.

“The model of the Championship should be reconsidered because to keep changing owners every one, two, three years is not a fair system for the fans, for the clubs,” he told the Sport Business Summit in London.

“It is really not sustainable to stay in the Championship. There are huge gaps between clubs coming down from the Premier League with parachute payments to the other teams on lower budgets. And the money generated from TV rights is small because it is split between 72 clubs (across three divisions).

“Maybe they need to consider another way to create value, Premier League 2 or something, that is sustainable even for the people who are not promoted.

“I think we should consider that a club like Leeds, that is watched by 500,000-600,000 people live on Sky, is getting only ?-2.5 million from the league (in TV rights) and actually penalises us because we’re always on TV, maybe more than 20 times,” he added. “It doesn’t work.”

In a statement, an EFL spokesman said the Championship “remains one of the most competitive and unpredictable divisions in world football”, with attendances and revenues that beat many top divisions across Europe. - AFP