Premier League and EFL reform [UPDATE 3 Dec 2020: Rescue Package Agreed]

I can understand why some PL teams may be against the proposal for their own protection. For the life in me though, I can't undertsnad why any EFL club would be against it other than perhaps those who are in receipt of parachute payments.

It's early days and I'm expecting at least one other proposal to be tabled shortly. Then the governing bodies and the clubs can have a meaningful debate on the options .. with or without DCMS.

 

There will be 5 or 6 times that number of EFL clubs which will go to the wall over the next few months without a major injection of cash. The only game in town at the moment on that front is the Liverpool/Man U proposal

 

Overwhelming support from the EFL clubs according to the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54531760

 

As I posted erlier, I cannot understand why any EFL club would vote against it.

In the unlikely event that there are no more proposals from other groups, I'm sure there will be some tinkering around the edges to make the overall deal more palatable to some of the dissenting voices. One detail I don't particularly is the concentration of voting rights in a small number of clubs. There is a need for some checks and balances around that to make it fairer and avoid accusations of vested interests having too much control. Another one I wouldn't like is the access a samll number of clubs will have to the financial affirs of other clubs. That just doesn't feel right. Instead I'd like to see that as the responsibility of an independent governance body whose sole job is to ensure the financial viability of all PL and EFL clubs.

At the end of the day, the EFL clubs need a huge injection of cash to ensure their survival both during the Covid 19 crisis and beyond. I can't for one minute believe the Govt will stump up the cash which leaves the PL itself or some of its clubs to provide the cash. And there will be conditions attached to that both on a footballing front and on the structure of the leagues.

 

No, most of the cash (about £250m or almost two-thirds of the total) which comes from the PL to the EFL via solidarity payments goes in parachute payments to a small number of Championship clubs, ie the former PL clubs. The proposal would stop parachute payments and distribute the cash to all EFL clubs.

As an aside, that's why Rahic once said that the Championship was about the eighth richest league in Europe. He didn't fully understand how it was weighted towards clubs receiving parachute payments and wasn't distributed evenly amongst all 24 clubs.