Most liked posts in thread: Premier League and EFL reform [UPDATE 3 Dec 2020: Rescue Package Agreed]

That's not totally true though. Chelsea and City didn't used to be in that group of the 'powerhouse teams' while the likes of Leeds, Blackburn and Villa were. It does evolve and teams can both fall out of it and also get into that group.

 

Again though it largely comes from Europe. The English clubs are often fine with it being discussed as its a good negotiating tool without them having to do anything. But if we have a quick look at the current Domestic rights deals

League	Value	Tiers covered
English Premier League	£1.665b	1
French Ligue 1	£1.038b	1 & 2
German Bundesliga	£1.030b	1 & 2
Spanish La Liga	£1.010bn 1 & 2
Italian Serie A	£862m	1
Turkish Süper Lig	£393m	1
Brazilian Campeonato Série A	£250m	1
English Football League	£119m	2-4
Portuguese Primeira Liga	£110m	1
Belgium A/B & Womens division	£93m	1-2 + W
US MLS	£71m	1
Dutch Eredivisie	£67m	1

And that's just the top 12. There are a bunch of European countries not yet listed who would have teams in it who get very little. The fact the EFL gets more than alot of the top European leagues tells alot, as does the fact that their value is about 1/10th of some of the biggest leagues in the world such as Spain, Germany, France and Italy

As we also show less domestic games its even better for English teams on a per match basis

Rank	League	Country	UEFA Rank	Number of Live Games	Value Per Game
1.	Premier League	England	2nd	200	£8.75m
2.	Bundesliga	Germany	4th	306	£3.36m (€3.86m)
3.	Ligue 1	France	5th	380	£2.68m (€3.075m)
4.	Serie A	Italy	3rd	380	£2.27m (€2.61m)
5.	LigaBBVA	Spain	1st	380	£1.94m (€2.23m)
6.	Süper Lig	Turkey	11th	306	£1.28m (₺11.05m)
7.	Football League	England	N/A	168	£708k
8.	Ladbrokes Premiership	Scotland	14th	54	£595k
9.	Liga NOS	Portugal	7th	306	£360k (€413k (est.)
10.	Jupiler League	Belgium	9th	240	£280k (€321k)

The EFL jumps up 1 place and is significantly closer on a per match basis to these top leagues (Scotland gets an even better bump mind you)

They see the money in England and see the super league as a way of getting the same kind of money. The English clubs really wouldn't see the same kind of benefit

 

I'm well aware of the which clubs have been powerhouse teams of the past. That's irrelevant to the current proposal. One of the purposes of the Man U/Liverpool proposal is to bake in the current Big 6 and remove the likelihood of any new clubs joining the inner circle and one or more being expelled. What has happened in the past has little relevance moving forward. The investment which the Big 6 have already made in say the past decade to reach that position is, in the owners minds, sufficient justification to hard bake the current Big 6. Whether that's the right thing to do I suspect depends on where owners realistically expect their clubs to be in future years.

It's of no importance to me personally because I have little interest in the PL. But it will be of immense importance to clubs outside of the current Big 6 who will be effectively excluded from joining that group. We'll have to wait and see whether the PL and the the other PL clubs buy into the current Liverpool/Man U proposal or whether it's simply an opening gambit.

 

That's what EFL clubs currently receive in solidarity payments from the Sky/PL TV contract. EFL clubs also receive almost as much again from the quite separate EFL TV broadcasting contract. The Liverpool/Man U proposal wants the PL to have exclusive rights over the broadcasting of all football games including the EFL's and to share that on some basis with the EFL. If that happens then the current solidarity payment (including whatever distribution of the PL's TV contract is agreed) from the PL would need to more or less double to make sure EFL clubs weren't worse off. And realistically, that would mean rmoving the parachute payment regime as David Conn suggest. The big losers in that will be the former PL clubs who receive parachute payments with the winners being the rest of the EFL clubs. As much as I'd like to see more money going into the EFL, I cannot imagine why the majority of the PL clubs would vote for that since some of them would inevitably lose out.

 

The thing is though the smaller Premier League teams have been holding English Football to ransom for years now. As I've already mentioned the plan for the Premier League was always to reduce down to 18 teams. When it came to ratifying reductions the smaller teams dug their heals in, just getting down to 20 saw the ridiculous parachute payment setup which just helps create yoyo clubs and then situations where those who have real issues and even drop out of the Championship to have vast amounts coming in that the others can't compete with.

Getting back to the original plan and distributing the money that goes to the EFL in a fairer way is a positive for all but the clubs that basically abuse the parachute payment situation

 

It's not though. Again as I keep saying we have a small group of clubs who basically spend a lot of time yoyoing who have been controlling English football for only this small group benefit. They hinder English clubs chances in Europe, they hinder the national team and they hinder 99% of the EFL. These clubs benefit massively from the current setup, they get promoted, get a massive payday, don't generally invest, go down with massive parachute payments which then gives them a massive chance of coming back up within the next few seasons and the cycle repeating. The Parachute payments mean even if a club implodes as we have seen with Sunderland they don't even have to take their situation seriously and that until the wage cap (although they get away with ignoring it as they had many of their players on long contracts so they don't get included fully) it meant they had an advantage and that pushed everyone else into overspending.

The parachute payments only exist because the way the voting worked the original plan of the PL couldn't go through without giving them that and it's massively unfair on the rest of the EFL. Teams shouldn't be being run with the sole intention of trying to hold on while banking the large riches and then still banking the riches when they go down. They should be wanting to actually try and improve and win things but it doesn't make sense in the current setup. Sure this does see a move to give 8 clubs who have proven long-term PL pedigree (and then Man City) more power but it also makes the whole setup and the distribution of money much fairer. There will be less need for clubs to look to get into this cycle as it will be a smoother transition moneywise and you will see a fairer more competitive setup across the board.

To highlight the way these 'yoyo' clubs have been looking after themselves look at the whole PPV thing. By all accounts, there were two groups, 8 headed by Ed Woodward who wanted it to be between £5-10 and free access to season ticket holders, and then 12 'smaller' clubs who were calling for north of £15 and no free access to ST holders. No side had the votes to get what they wanted and it ended up with the smaller clubs looking for the biggest cash grab ended up winning out as all the Premier League clubs needed to replace some of the matchday income they are losing (and the threat of the TV money that may be held back) so that's how we got what we did

 

If you read the proposal part of it is about removing that massive cliff that clubs fall off when they drop out of the PL that makes the parachute payments necessary. Even with Parachute payments the EFL currently gets 7% of the PL's income and most of that goes to the clubs that are receiving the parachute payments. Under the proposals, 25% of the PL income will find its way to the EFL. In addition, bundling the TV rights together should significantly increase the value of the EFL rights bringing in even more money.

On West Brom it's good that they are investing in their training setup. As I've said I would have actually liked the infrastructure part of this to include the coaching and medical/sports science side and not just the grounds as especially in League 1 and 2 that's an area that's really lacking but it's not really showing any Ambition by West Brom to do anything but keep yoyoing. Their squad investment has a real feel of 'We will be back in the Championship next year so here are players that either will do a great job there or we will almost certainly be able to sell on for significantly more'. The best they could hope for was copying Sheffield United and hope they have a style that catches people out and gets them a second season but as we are seeing from Sheffield at the end of last season and now this season when teams learn to deal with them they haven't invested in enough PL quality players to keep it up and look like its going to be a real battle for them to stay out of the relegation fight. Them and Fulham were favourites to go down as soon as they got promoted and their business hasn't changed that, unlike Leeds who seem like they have invested with the view of staying in the PL for the long run