‘VICTIMS OF ULTIMATUM ON TV CASH’
SIX’ HAS WIDENED
LEICESTER City have been one of the victims of a move by the “big six” that has made the gap between themselves and the rest harder to breach, according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire.
City were charged by the Premier League with an alleged breach of Profitability and Sustainability rules (PSR) last week.
The case will be heard by an independent commission which will make a ruling and decide any potential punishment.
City were also placed under a registration embargo by the English Football League (EFL).
But the club have come out fighting with a statement confirming the start of legal proceedings against both leagues.
If found guilty of a breach, City could face a points deduction at the start of next season if they are promoted back to the Premier League.
The situation came about after City were challenging the top six in the Premier League following their shock title triumph in 2016.
That success led to a 2019 move by the clubs – Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United and Chelsea surrounding international TV money, which has made breaking into the select group an even harder task.
“Leicester have been very unfortunate to not get back into the Champions League and part of the reason for that is, on a proportionate basis, they are struggling against the elite six, the Super League six, the sneaky six,” Maguire explained on the Price of Football podcast.
“Therefore, they feel, as do the owners of Newcastle, Aston Villa, Everton and Nottingham Forest, that if you have an owner who is willing to financially underwrite losses because a club does not have the same global presence as the elite six... what Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and all those clubs have done is absolutely fantastic but why should they be entitled to have a wage bill which is twice, two-and-a-half times that of a club such as Leicester City?
“That’s Leicester’s beef. Did they vote for those rules? Yes they did.
“What has changed since 2016? The way that the Premier League distributes money has been geared, following Leicester’s victory, to giving more money to the big six.
“What happened was that the big six went to the other clubs and said, ‘Unless you give us a bigger share of the international TV rights, we will go off and form a Super League’.
“They have used this as a bargaining chip, as a threat, and the other clubs caved in because there was this genuine fear prior to the Super League debacle that it was going to manifest itself.
“That has been the main change, which has accelerated the gap between those clubs.”
Both Everton and Nottingham Forest have been given deductions of six and four points respectively after being found guilty of financial breaches.
However, Forest have since appealed that decision.
FINANCIAL EXPERT SAYS GAP BETWEEN CITY AND THE ‘BIG