League Reform Plans | Page 12 | Vital Football

League Reform Plans

It's like watching a horror movie unfold with all the conflicting reports, governing bodies, independent observers, power plays and general moves starting to emerge.

I dread to think and have no clue how this will all end but I do fear a PL2 where the rest of the clubs are officially cast aside rather than the difficulties of bridging the financial gap that currently exists. Whether that is being overly sensitive to a worse case scenario or a genuine threat is anybody's guess.

I have liked the idea of the German licensing system for a long time and I was not aware that the Spanish government had stepped in with legislation to prevent their big two hoovering up the lion's share of the TV money. Very interesting. That gets me wondering if TV money distribution could legally be legislated into something akin to The Competition Commission to prevent unfair commercial advantage.

If it's good enough for Tesco's and Aldi it should have relevance to Liverpool and Tranmere. The tricky bit is (grits teeth) rewarding the success of clubs fairly and not hampering them from competing financially with other European clubs.

This is going to run for a long while and all the time Covid is eating away at ever dwindling resources. Short term emergency relief package from someone NOW please, w/o strings attached.
Would it be fair to say that the chairmen/ owners who were wetting themselves over the BPP project and sod the consequences ( hello Andy Pilley) are the ones most desperately in need of that relief? Let them wriggle on the hook, despite Gary Neville's comments this is not sustainable.
 
Would it be fair to say that the chairmen/ owners who were wetting themselves over the BPP project and sod the consequences ( hello Andy Pilley) are the ones most desperately in need of that relief? Let them wriggle on the hook, despite Gary Neville's comments this is not sustainable.
I like the sentiment but I can't help feeling nervous about what is being cooked up behind everybody's back. So while that would be great I wouldn't mind a quick resolution to end the uncertainty. But yeah I hope they're squirming in the meantime.

The problem I have is that I can't work out with any confidence who is on whose side and who to trust that has genuine good intentions. I exclude The PL clubs from that of course as I know whose side they are on but the BPP project even shone a light on the extent of the division amongst themselves.
 
COVID might be the catalyst but all this is really just the logical conclusion to what was started with the Premier League breakaway in 1992. Ever more control, money and influence centered on a few ‘big’ clubs, with some crumbs for the rest.

The real solution would be independent governance, based on the interests of all 92 clubs, with an acknowledgement of how important they are within their local communities (Colin Murray talks very well about assets of community value). But that ship has long since sailed.
 
I like the sentiment but I can't help feeling nervous about what is being cooked up behind everybody's back. So while that would be great I wouldn't mind a quick resolution to end the uncertainty. But yeah I hope they're squirming in the meantime.

The problem I have is that I can't work out with any confidence who is on whose side and who to trust that has genuine good intentions. I exclude The PL clubs from that of course as I know whose side they are on but the BPP project even shone a light on the extent of the division amongst themselves.

I think the thing it really showed is how incredibly short term the thinking is at a lot of clubs and by short term I mean "money now is good! I refuse to look at any downside" Of course if they really are going to fold in 5-6 weeks like the Orient chairman declared you have no choice but to think extremely short term but as you say it's impossible to tell if that was merely some cheerleading for his mate at Liverpool or a serious observation.
One things for sure, I expected a lot more clubs in the EFL to be roundly denouncing this proposal on the basis we have been repeatedly been assured by those fed up with the campaign against B-teams in the EFL trophy that "turkeys don't vote for Xmas" and "it will never happen, the clubs just won't vote for it, they are not stupid" and that simply didn't happen. Many clubs simply wanted to open their arms and gave everything they owned away for a short term injection of cash they've repeatedly demonstrated they have no desire to spend sensibly, a thought I find utterly depressing.
 
I think the thing it really showed is how incredibly short term the thinking is at a lot of clubs and by short term I mean "money now is good! I refuse to look at any downside" Of course if they really are going to fold in 5-6 weeks like the Orient chairman declared you have no choice but to think extremely short term but as you say it's impossible to tell if that was merely some cheerleading for his mate at Liverpool or a serious observation.
One things for sure, I expected a lot more clubs in the EFL to be roundly denouncing this proposal on the basis we have been repeatedly been assured by those fed up with the campaign against B-teams in the EFL trophy that "turkeys don't vote for Xmas" and "it will never happen, the clubs just won't vote for it, they are not stupid" and that simply didn't happen. Many clubs simply wanted to open their arms and gave everything they owned away for a short term injection of cash they've repeatedly demonstrated they have no desire to spend sensibly, a thought I find utterly depressing.

It was a shocker how quickly 'everyone unanimously' were in such support when clearly some were not. Clive, Palios, the Accrington chairman had to shout to get their voices heard and put right the misconceptions and untruths that had been said in their name. That they had to do that just added to the sense of desperation and indecent haste about the whole fiasco.
 
On the PPV greed, just seen BT advertising 2 games at £15 each. Around £60/minimum clearly isn't enough for them. Little wonder people seek to bypass them and Sky with other streams.
 
The most obvious one, which most Chairman seemed to 'not fully understand' is:

Nick Harris
@sportingintel

Oct 17
One number really jumped out: the £1.409bn forecast foreign TV revs. Currently PL sells all 380 games to overseas broadcasters for £1.28bn (now Suning deal gone). Under PBP, those 380 will reduce to 162. Yes, DROP by 218 games, as PBP expects value RISE!
 
The bar chart is very sobering. I knew there was a massive difference, but the first 2 columns are a big surprise to me.
I doubt those figures are an encouragement for the "little 14" to get on board and widen the gap.
 


Here ladies and gentlemen in a nutshell is everything that is wrong with football in this country the top 6 have more money than the rest of football in this country put together.

No wonder Liverpool could afford to charter a plane to fly up from Southend to Liverpool and then to Waddington and do it all in return for a match paying huge landing fees I suspect s well.

This is why the football trophies generally end up with the same few clubs and why I loathe the PL.
 
The most obvious one, which most Chairman seemed to 'not fully understand' is:

Nick Harris
@sportingintel

Oct 17
One number really jumped out: the £1.409bn forecast foreign TV revs. Currently PL sells all 380 games to overseas broadcasters for £1.28bn (now Suning deal gone). Under PBP, those 380 will reduce to 162. Yes, DROP by 218 games, as PBP expects value RISE!

A quick bit of maths (and apologies up-front if I have some of my assumptions incorrect - feel free to correct them) gives the following reasonable rough calculation based on the numbers above,

162 games to sell out of 380 is 42.6%
42.6% of £1.28bn is £545,280,000
25% of a pro-rata TV deal (as calculated above) is £136,320,000
The League One share of that is 15% or £20,448,000
This equates to £852,000 per club per season.

This is half of the £2m per League One club that would be available should the TV deal be re-negotiated at exactly the same rate. I am not sure whether this was the figure clubs were thinking they would have received under PBP, but if it is, it looks unlikely that it is attainable.

Another point is that if, as I have read, the proposed £250m bailout fund was only grants and loans and would therefore need paying back, it would take 2 years' worth of payments just to cover paying back the loan.

Somehow I think there must be some error somewhere, because on these calculations it shouldn't just be a handful of EFL clubs that think this is a non-starter that won't help them achieve stability.

I have just noticed that the figures relate to 'forecast foreign TV revs', not all TV revenues. I presume therefore that there is a further £1.66bn revenue to add to this to make the final amount that the EFL would be entitled to 25% of (I am further presuming that the EFL would receive no element of anything that the 'big six' sell directly). The UK element looks like £2.6m per League One club - minus any amount for any reduction in the achievable revenue from the smaller number of games available.. Then there is the existing deal to come off the total. So maybe £3.4m minus whatever they were getting already and any reduction in the UK broadcasting TV deal.
 
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A quick bit of maths (and apologies up-front if I have some of my assumptions incorrect - feel free to correct them) gives the following reasonable rough calculation based on the numbers above,

162 games to sell out of 380 is 42.6%
42.6% of £1.28bn is £545,280,000
25% of a pro-rata TV deal (as calculated above) is £136,320,000
The League One share of that is 15% or £20,448,000
This equates to £852,000 per club per season.

This is half of the £2m per League One club that would be available should the TV deal be re-negotiated at exactly the same rate. I am not sure whether this was the figure clubs were thinking they would have received under PBP, but if it is, it looks unlikely that it is attainable.

Another point is that if, as I have read, the proposed £250m bailout fund was only grants and loans and would therefore need paying back, it would take 2 years' worth of payments just to cover paying back the loan.

Somehow I think there must be some error somewhere, because on these calculations it shouldn't just be a handful of EFL clubs that think this is a non-starter that won't help them achieve stability.

I have just noticed that the figures relate to 'forecast foreign TV revs', not all TV revenues. I presume therefore that there is a further £1.66bn revenue to add to this to make the final amount that the EFL would be entitled to 25% of (I am further presuming that the EFL would receive no element of anything that the 'big six' sell directly). The UK element looks like £2.6m per League One club - minus any amount for any reduction in the achievable revenue from the smaller number of games available.. Then there is the existing deal to come off the total. So maybe £3.4m minus whatever they were getting already and any reduction in the UK broadcasting TV deal.

Some of those clubs need that money in the next few weeks, in some senses it doesn't matter how bad the deal is, without it they won't be around to negotiate a better one in the early new year, hence their keenness to get it through.

It will make their books look good enough for just long enough for their owners to shovel the club off to some utter conman like Steve Dale for instance...
 
They'll be all sorts of leaked emails over the next few weeks/months.

It's not a wonder most stay quiet on these things because they'll all be scheming one way or the other.
 
Meanwhile, we're busy showing the true beauty of the League Pyramid, something the PL and Big 6 want to prevent from happening so they can make (even more, ffs) money.
 
Gary Neville did an excellent piece on Monday Night Football last night if anyone is interested. Twenty minutes or so but worth the watch.