English football finished?
“ENGLISH football is finished” unless it continues to be “competitive and sustainable” financially, says Peter Ridsdale.
Premier League clubs met on Monday but were unable to agree on a funding deal with the English Football League.
The clubs were recently told that failure to reach a deal with the EFL would mean one being imposed on them.
“There is no offer,” Ridsdale, an executive director at Preston North End, told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“It’s very frustrating for the whole of English football.” It had been expected the Premier League would emerge from a meeting on Monday with tangible proposals to put forward to the EFL.
The overall sum, which would be partly tied to future TV revenues, is expected to be about £900m over six years.
“There is no disagreement with the EFL clubs - it is with the Premier League clubs as to how much of the money is going to come down and where it is coming from, ie, which of the Premier League clubs are going to give us the money,” added Ridsdale, one of three elected representatives from the Championship on the EFL Board.
“We’ve made it clear to the Premier League that if they put their proposals into a formal offer, we would recommend acceptance. We’re sitting here today and we have not had that offer. Despite the fact we were told it was coming last September.”
One of the key parts of any deal for the EFL would be the removal of parachute payments
“All we want is to make sure we have a sustainable and competitive EFL and obviously you see the cliffedge between the Premier League and the Championship, with the parachute clubs coming down getting something like £50m in the first year and £40modd in the second year, having got relegated,” Ridsdale said.
“We’ve got teams at the top of our division paying five times more in
EFL wages than we [Preston North End] are, and that’s showing because they’re at the top end of the Championship - and they’re doing that based on parachute payments that are coming down from the Premier League.
“The top three teams are Leicester City, Leeds United and Ipswich, then Southampton are fourth. Three of those four came down last year and have got parachute payments.
“If we don’t keep it competitive and sustainable, then English football is finished.” In relation to conversations around a deal in September that Ridsdale refers to, BBC Sport has been told in that correspondence, the EFL told the Premier League that within the proposals presented at the time, there were 15 issues that needed to be resolved before they would consider putting it to their member clubs, one of which was regarded as a deal breaker.
Should Leicester, Leeds and Southampton all be promoted this season, it would be the first time all three relegated clubs have returned to the Premier League at the first opportunity.
Ridsdale spoke a day after Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, accused top-flight clubs of “parking the bus”.
“They’re parking the bus in the sense that they haven’t delivered anything to us yet despite the fact that in September that said they would,” Ridsdale said. “They’d outlined what it would be and we said we would accept it.
“We have to have a sustainable pyramid in this country. We’ve got 92 clubs, 20 of which are in the Premier League, and the vast amount of that money is staying with the top 20 clubs.
“I think it is essential for all communities in this country that all the football clubs are sustainable - and they can’t be on the current split of funds going into English football.”—