B-teams back on for lower leagues

THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE are looking for wealthy top-flight clubs to fund their revolutionary proposals for four divisions of 20 clubs.

one of the plans devised by Fl chief executive Shaun Harvey is for the six extra clubs needed — there will be no relegation from league Two, but two promoted from the Conference as usual in the last season before the suggested revamp — to be Premier league b sides.

They would pay £5million a year for the privilege of playing in the Football league, bringing in £30m that would compensate clubs for losing revenue from four fewer home matches.

Harvey is due to unveil his version of Fa chairman greg Dyke’s b-club plans at the Fl clubs’ summer summit in Portugal next week.

a Football league spokesman said: ‘There are currently no proposals for where the six additional clubs would come from. This is a matter for the 72 clubs to discuss and will form part of the debate that begins at our annual conference. If there is an appetite to progress discussions, a final proposal will be submitted to clubs before a vote in 2017.’

However, the all-powerful Premier league oppose b clubs joining the Football league.

ALL the signs point to the Premier League and Football League turning down Aston Villa’s £60million takeover by Dr Tony Xia’s Chinese consortium, on the grounds that they haven’t the funds to do so. Well-placed sources claim that American Randy Lerner, who is trying to offload the club at a knockdown price, has already been told that Xia (above) will not pass the necessary financial tests. TICKETMASTER, who somehow keep winning top sports contracts despite the london 2012 fiasco of their computer software being unable to cope with the demand for online tickets, are once again in the firing line.

They were responsible for selling Hull City’s tickets for the Championship play- off final against Sheffield Wednesday. but the flawed selling process ignored Football league and Wembley instructions to do it strictly block by block. This meant that about 6,000 unsold seats that could have been redistributed to the over-subscribed Wednesday allocation could not be used because of security risks.

TOTTENHAM chairman Daniel Levy is understood to have used Chelsea’s £60m-a-year deal with adidas to up his club’s agreement from 2017-18 by £3m a year. But Levy will still feel angst that adidas are paying Chelsea almost twice as much as Spurs.