Why the abject EFL should be renamed the Bin Fire League
The BFL. That’s what they should call it. Not the eFL. The Bin Fire League. That’s what it is. A blaze in an abandoned dumpster, masquerading as a football pyramid.
Sheffield Wednesday breached profit and sustainability rules chasing promotion in 2018-19: 12-point deduction from the BFL. Sheffield Wednesday defaulted on player wages last month: so far, not a dicky bird.
That’s the BFL all over. Spend and they have a thousand rules to stop you; bleed a club dry, or swindle the staff, and nothing. Sheffield Wednesday’s players were given a maximum of £7,000 each for November, with the promise of the balance later. There was a similar situation in June, apparently.
Neither event incurred sanction from the BFL. Wednesday’s docked 12 points — reduced to six on appeal — are a result of skulduggery around the timing of a stadium sale to owner Dejphon Chansiri. And if it’s illegal, it’s wrong. But so is defaulting on legitimately earned wages. Yet the BFL are always toughest on ambition.
Rick Parry, the BFL chairman, wants the power to pursue wrongdoers all the way to the Premier League. A club that transgresses in the Championship, but wins promotion — like Leicester and Bournemouth and perhaps Wolves or Aston Villa more recently — could then be docked points in their new surroundings. It’s called a jurisdictional bridge.
Leicester probably wouldn’t have won the league had it been in place — they might even have been relegated the previous season. The Bournemouth fairytale would have been over before it had begun and Aston Villa might have gone last season, too.
Owners with ambition, restored to the clutches of the Bin Fire League, dancing to the tune
of the mediocre and least ambitious.
One Premier League club estimates that the Championship’s proposed £18million salary cap would put most players on no more than £12,000 a week — so the promotion winners would be cannon fodder.
They would have to spend hugely in advance of Premier League finance in the summer, or compete with a handicap.
And if one of the clubs that hadn’t been promoted were unfortunate enough to fall into the BFL, they would have to abide by restrictions or risk being pursued across the jurisdictional bridge for breaking rules they had no part in making. The elite six will not care, because this will never be their problem, but the other 14 would be insane to allow the BFL a say in Premier League affairs, particularly relegation. Parry can barely keep his own clubs safe, let alone viable.
Take events at Sunderland this week. The League One club lost eight players to a Covid outbreak prior to their match against AFC Wimbledon. One player tested positive, two were displaying symptoms and five more were deemed close contacts who should isolate.
Sunderland contacted the BFL seeking permission to postpone. It did not arrive. Sunderland were told they could make the decision unilaterally, but there would then be an investigation into the legitimacy. having failed to receive clarity on the penalty for failing to fulfil a fixture, and fearing a points deduction, Sunderland took the risk and went ahead. Of course they did.
Imagine being stuck in League One another season over the margin of a three-point penalty. have a look at the salary cap conditions being introduced there. Sunderland would have played Typhoid Mary at no 9 rather than risk another year in that competition.
And on it goes, Parry’s BFL. They’ve had the best part of a year to come up with clear protocols around Covid postponements, but nothing; 18 months since the demise of Bury to set out meaningful procedures and penalties for failure to meet contractual liabilities.
yet where are they on Sheffield Wednesday? The club has promised to pay the wages within days, but that pledge was made to the Professional Footballers’ Association. There is no evidence the BFL are even party to the conversation.
no disrespect is intended. There are fine clubs outside the Premier League, great some of them, and good people. Trevor Birch, the incoming chief executive, is certainly an impressive figure and we must hope he knows what he is walking into.
It’s the BFL. he’ll need broad shoulders and a big bucket.