City lead the way as Big Six chase cash

PReMIeR League champions Manchester City are confident the Big Six club battle for a greater share of overseas TV rights money will be resolved at the Premier League summer meeting.

City chief executive Ferran Soriano has led the way in claiming that the major clubs who attract most of the foreign interest should receive more of the rights money currently shared equally.

Soriano made clear at the League Managers’ Association dinner how optimistic he is about a settlement being agreed by the 20 clubs in June.

And he says it will happen despite the impasse last October, when a PL meeting was cancelled as it became clear there was no chance of the 14-6 majority needed for a rule change. This concerned the proposed 35 per cent of foreign rights money being distributed on a sliding scale depending on league position.

Only three other clubs — Leicester, newcastle and everton — supported the top six made up of the two Manchester clubs, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool.

PL executive chairman Richard Scudamore has ordered clubs to come up with a solution at next month’s summit. he knows it is only before the start of the season — when relegation fears immediately kick in — that there is any chance of a deal being reached. It will also help Soriano and Co that the three relegated clubs — West Brom, Swansea and Stoke — were all committed to keeping the equal share, while the promoted clubs all have foreign ownership that might be more approachable to the Big Six business model.

splits are already there in the newly reformed England Cricket Board, shorn of the direct county representatives who dead-man-walking chairman Colin Graves (right) was banking on to shore up his fragile position. However, it has emerged that former England women’s Test cricketer Lucy Pearson, one of the new independent directors, opposed the ECB’s appointment of Glamorgan’s Barry O’Brien. This was because of the conflict over the on-going investigation into the £2.5m ECB compensation because Cardiff no longer stage Test cricket. The football disciplinary authorities are going to take a dim view — around insider trading — of Jordan Carson, son of Chesterfield secretary and day-to-day club chief Ashley Carson. Carson Jnr boasted on Twitter of winning £520 having had a £20 bet on Sky Bet at odds of 25-1 on Martin Allen becoming the new manager of the League Two club. The bet was struck at 5.36pm on May 6. An FA spokesman said they are aware of the tweet.

Sport are declining to reveal the number of personnel they will take to Russia for the World Cup until after the tournament, saying the figure could change during the competition. It’s more likely that they don’t want the embarrassment of how many people they send at licence fee payers’ expense being put in the public domain.