Look at bigger picture of £250m ‘power grab’
THE former Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel once said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”.
Well, it’s fair to say that the English Football League is currently facing a serious crisis.
Rumours have been circulating for a while that around 20 clubs are in dire straits, while many clubs have wage bills that are completely unsustainable.
Add to this the continued enforcement of football behind closed doors, and you have the perfect financial storm.
Emanuel’s words immediately sprang to mind over the weekend when I read about Liverpool and Manchester United’s proposals for the future of English football, the so-called ‘Project Big Picture’, which has been developed alongside English Football League chairman Rick Parry.
At face value, it is a financial support package of £250 million from TV revenue for the three tiers of English football below the Premier League.
But Project Big Picture comes with some significant strings, which would see the biggest reshaping of the game since the creation of the Premier League in 1992.
Because in return for this share of the Premier League TV cash, Liverpool and Manchester United are proposing a reduction in the number of Premier League clubs from 20 to 18, just two automatic relegation places with the third place facing the third, fourth and fifth placed teams in the Championship
in play-off games, and the abolition of the Community Shield and League Cup.
This, of course, is the most eyecatching stuff. But perhaps the most significant is the proposal to give preferential voting rights to the Premier League’s nine longest serving clubs, the Big Six (Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal), and Everton, Southampton, and West Ham United.
These voting rights would mean that just six of the nine would need to be in agreement to push through or veto any rule changes.
It is a naked power grab designed to shore up their own positions, and raise the drawbridge a little bit further.
Some think these are changes worth making in return for that huge cash injection, but there needs to be a reality check for a number of reasons. Firstly, I don’t trust them to deliver. Who remembers the promise that the creation of the Premier League would benefit the national team and the game as a whole? Well, it hasn’t. And who remembers the work of the Football Task Force and the promise that five per cent of TV revenue would be channelled into grassroots football? Another broken promise.
And secondly, I’m sure that this will be the thin end of the wedge.
Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano is already pushing for Premier League B-teams to be able to compete in the English Football League, something which would completely undermine the principles that underpin the Football Pyramid.
Former Stoke City forward Jonathan Walters has suggested that overseas Premier League fixtures could be back on the agenda, alongside an increase in Champions League fixtures. All of this would soon start to pull back in that £250 million.
Let’s make no bones about it, this is disaster capitalism in action, a shock doctrine for English football. It is no coincidence that they have waited until English Football League clubs are at their weakest before making clear how they view things.
Even the Government has waded in, calling the proposals disappointing, with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport Oliver Dowden even suggesting that they may intervene.
And all of this comes on the back of the £14.95 pay per view plan, so it’s fair to say that the Premier League is not particularly popular right now.
Given that the only competitive football leagues that are allowed spectators at the moment are found in the lower reaches of the non-league game, football fans are starting to take a look and a good many are liking what they see. I’m not suggesting that all of a sudden that say, Alsager Town are going to be the new Wimbledon and storm up through the leagues on the back of newly found popularity. But maybe the disillusionment with those at the top table may have the effect of strengthening the grassroots game.
But back to Project Big Picture, I have to say that it is ironically monikered as it is actually quite narrow in its scope in that it will ultimately benefit a very small number of clubs the most.