Regulator and Redistribution of Wealth down the Pyramid

[Blue Yonder]

Interesting article and Southend and Spurs mentioned in the same sentence…..

Clock ticking on Premier League and EFL redistribution deal, warns new regulator

The government’s preferred candidate to become the independent regulator of English football has warned the Premier League and EFL they have less than 18 months to agree a deal on financial redistribution

www.theguardian.com

 

[basilrobbie]

It's a good article, and a good representation of DK's appearance yesterday, which I watched.

On the backstop power, he's quite right. When people talk about the Bill "forcing" leagues into a particular outcome, they overlook two things :

a) the Leagues are perfectly at liberty to strike a deal before the clock stops ; and

b) they have been free to do so ever since the Crouch Review exposed the inequalities of where we are - four years ago.

In fact, I remember the Junior Sports Minister standing at the Dispatch Box in the summer of 2021 and soberly telling MPs that the Leagues needed to sort something out before the new season started. The reasons they haven't is twofold :

- the EFL want a better deal, but have next to no leverage

- the EPL don't want any change to a highly lucrative status quo that delivers 92% of the broadcast money to around 25 clubs or so (including those getting parachute payments). The parachute clubs get more each year than the whole of League 2 combined. In your Division, you get next to bugger all.

I think that if a deal is to be struck, it will have to be this calendar year ; the nearer the State of the Game Report gets, the more the EFL in particular may think they may as well go to arbitration and take their chances.

Going back to Kogan, he was very interesting - he views the Regulator as a football asset, rather than a policeman. And he sees his first State of the Game Report at the back end of next year as being a Manifesto setting out his office's future work programme.

He's keen on fan empowerment too, which may well mean that he visits your club sooner rather than later. I'm sure the Trust will have plenty of insights to share with him.

 

[Blue Yonder]

On the face of it a helping hand towards sustainability at lower levels of the pyramid. Or just more money to put into wages and transfer fees and the overreaching cycle goes on ?

 

[Holy Joe]

On the face of it a helping hand towards sustainability at lower levels of the pyramid. Or just more money to put into wages and transfer fees and the overreaching cycle goes on ?

My money is on the latter

 

[basilrobbie]

On the face of it a helping hand towards sustainability at lower levels of the pyramid. Or just more money to put into wages and transfer fees and the overreaching cycle goes on ?

A good question.

The IFR has a responsibility to protect sustainability of the pyramid, and the resilience of individual clubs.

The first battle will come when the licensing system is introduced and IFR tells a club its business plan won't do.

 

[maninasuitcase]

On the face of it a helping hand towards sustainability at lower levels of the pyramid. Or just more money to put into wages and transfer fees and the overreaching cycle goes on ?

I remember this coming up many years ago with Peter Kenyan, then CEO of Chelsea, stated that any attempt to regulate the PL independently and redistribute the wealth was a waste of time as clubs lower down the pyramid would just fritter away any extra money on transfer fees and wages. This was when Winston Bogarde was on their books!

My own opinion is that some trickle down money should in some way be ringfenced into improving facilities at training grounds, for women's and youth football, projects in the community and for supporters in general.

Also, it seems that many PL clubs are actively trying to reduce the number of seats available to season ticket holders in favour of selling them to people visiting from overseas as they spend more money in the grounds on match days, and they are much more flexible over kick off times.

Clubs like Southend have to be ready to hoover up disaffected fans of PL clubs but we can only do that with a reasonable product on and off the pitch.