PREM’S MASTERS SETS OUT FUNDING FEARS...

PREMIER League chief executive Richard Masters has claimed that regulation could harm his organisation’s ability to fund the football pyramid.

Writing in The Times, Masters said a regulator may “imbalance our national sport” and interfere with a “carefully calibrated distribution of revenues”.

“It is a risk that regulation will undermine the Premier League’s global success, thereby wounding the goose that provides English football’s golden egg,” he wrote.

The Football Governance Bill was published by the Government last month, with the legislation including plans to introduce a regulator.

Should the bill pass into law, it would also provide the regulator with ‘backstop’ powers allowing it to enforce a financial redistribution deal if the Premier League and EFL fail to reach an agreement.

Talks between the Premier League and EFL are currently suspended, with as many as ten topflight clubs thought to be opposed to any kind of settlement.

“Premier League clubs are able to give away £1.6 billion every three years - 16 per cent of our total revenues - to the wider game, helping to make it the envy of the world,” added Masters.

“This special aspirational structure made it possible for Brighton & Hove Albion to this season become the 21st club during the Premier League era to rise through the EFL and play in European competition.

“The Government claims its regulator would not interfere on the pitch, but by intervening in the carefully calibrated distribution of revenues and upsetting competitive balance, it would already be doing exactly that.

“It is a risk to rush through complex legislation, especially when there is a danger of it unbalancing our national sport.

“Parliamentarians need time to scrutinise this unprecedented plan, and I hope they will be as determined as I am to ensure that no harm is done to English football. Sensible, light-touch regulation, collaborating with the leagues, could be made to work.”