Football's Magic Money Tree

[Chester Perry]

An end to parachute payments and clubs to hold money in the bank incase of relegation?
Interesting.

So I assume as and when West ham get relegated again, for example, another club takes their place in the group of 9?

yes, looks like the count starts from last promotion

Seasons spent in Premier League

28 – Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Everton
25 – Aston Villa, Newcastle
24 – West Ham
23 – Man City
21 – Southampton
18 – Blackburn
16 – Sunderland
15 – Middlesbrough
14 – Fulham, Leicester
13 – Bolton
12 – Leeds, West Brom
10 – Stoke

Years since last Promotion to Premier League

28 – Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Everton
19 - Manchester City
9 - Southampton, West Ham
8 - Crystal Palace
7 - Leicester
5 - Burnley
4 - Brighton. Newcastle United
3 - Wolves
2 - Aston Villa, Sheffield United
1 - Fulham, Leeds, West Brom

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Didn't City hit league 1

[Chester Perry]

Didn't City hit league 1

yes they did - edit out that bit now as was irrelevant to what I wanted to post

[Chester Perry]

@TheEsk comes up with a very interesting suggestion for the cost of games on the Sky/BT apps

https://twitter.com/theesk/status/1315226105616371714

not sure all the 140+ remaining games could:
- generate enough money to it a worth-while proposition
- that Sky/BT would be happy at the prospect of losing so much potential advertising for it's own paid for matches
- sponsors of smaller clubs who may have more games on these platforms would want to keep paying for as many as 10 - 14 home games
- key sponsors (like LoveBet) whose target market is the Far East or North America would want to sponsor domestic broadcasts

[Chester Perry]

The Independent suggest that the Premier League is not happy that the news of the "Big Project" has broken - they never like to see anything in public that has not been formally been approved by it's members

Premier League downplays reports of ‘damaging’ plans to restructure football in England
Reports today suggested Liverpool and Manchester United were leading calls for drastic changes as part of a plan known as ‘Project Big Picture’

Jack Rathborn - Assistant Sports Editor - 2 hours ago


The Premier League has downplayed reports of “damaging” proposals to drastically change the structure of English football.

As first reported in the Telegraph today suggested Liverpool and Manchester United were driving a revolutionary plan labelled "Project Big Picture”.

The main concepts would include reducing the number of teams in the Premier League to 18 and increasing the power held by the biggest clubs.

But the Premier League has now downplayed reports and criticised EFL chairman Rick Parry for supporting the plan on the record.

"We have seen media reports today regarding a plan to restructure football in this country," read an official Premier League statement.

"English football is the world’s most watched, and has a vibrant, dynamic and competitive league structure that drives interest around the globe. To maintain this position, it is important that we all work together. Both the Premier League and The FA support a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the game, including its competition structures, calendar and overall financing particularly in light of the effects of COVID-19.

"Football has many stakeholders, therefore this work should be carried out through the proper channels enabling all clubs and stakeholders the opportunity to contribute.

"In the Premier League’s view, a number of the individual proposals in the plan published today could have a damaging impact on the whole game and we are disappointed to see that Rick Parry, Chair of the EFL, has given his on-the-record support.

“The Premier League has been working in good faith with its clubs and the EFL to seek a resolution to the requirement for COVID-19 rescue funding. This work will continue.”

Further reported details of 'Project Big Picture’ would see the Premier League agreeing to give 25 per cent of its future TV deals to the EFL and bringing an end to parachute payments.

The Championship play-offs would include the 16th-placed Premier League side, who would then compete to stay up with three teams from the second tier.

In return for increased financial security, the Premier League’s voting structure would be ended, changing away from one club, one vote and a majority of 14 required to pass new rules, to a new system with “long-term shareholder status”, held by the nine longest-serving teams in the league.

The big six would be joined by Everton, Southampton and West Ham United and only six of these nine would be required to push through changes.

The League Cup and Community Shield would be scrapped, while there could be a new “Premier League summer tournament”.

[Chester Perry]

AC Milan join the list of European Clubs in announcing enormous financial losses for the 2019/20 season

https://www.rossoneriblog.com/2020/10/0 ... -the-club/

[Chester Perry]

@UglyGame with a thread about "Project Big Picture" as you would expect he is somewhat sceptical of it and the intentions of the Big 6

https://twitter.com/uglygame/status/1315368788905414656

[Royboyclaret]

AC Milan join the list of European Clubs in announcing enormous financial losses for the 2019/20 season

https://www.rossoneriblog.com/2020/10/0 ... -the-club/

A Net Loss of Euros 195m is scary even for a club the size of AC Milan. Not sure that Covid-19 is entirely responsible for such a hefty figure and it would be interesting to see some detail behind that headline figure.

Without doubt we at Burnley will report a Loss for our extended financial year but nothing of the level of that at AC Milan.

[Chester Perry]

Without doubt we at Burnley will report a Loss for our extended financial year but nothing of the level of that at AC Milan.

Still not convinced by that Roy - I have said all along if full Central Distribution monies are paid in 2019/20 then we will post a profit, and record revenues

Unless, you tell me that provisions for the rebates we know are coming this season and next season can affect the 2019/20 results

[Chester Perry]

The FSA with a statement on Project Big Picture


FSA Statement: Response to media reports on “Project Big Picture”
Posted on 11th October 2020

Earlier today it was reported that clubs at the top of the Premier League had been planning in secret to pursue a wide-ranging restructure of the English footballing pyramid named “Project Big Picture”. Below is an initial statement of response from the Football Supporters’ Association.

We will be providing further updates on the issue in the coming weeks once we have had the chance to digest the details of these proposals further:

“The Football Supporters’ Association notes with grave concern today’s press reports of proposals for a major restructure of the Premier League, with far-reaching consequences for the whole of domestic football.

“Once again it appears that big decisions in football are apparently being stitched up behind our backs by billionaire club owners who continue to treat football as their personal fiefdom. Football is far more than a business to be carved up; it is part of our communities and our heritage, and football fans are its lifeblood. As football’s most important stakeholders, it is crucial that fans are consulted and involved in the game’s decision-making.

“We have welcomed the government’s commitment to a ‘fan-led review of the governance of football’; we would argue that today’s revelations have made that process even more relevant and urgent.

“We will of course study the detail of the new proposals, we remain open-minded to any suggestions for the improvement of the governance and organisation of the game, whatever their source, and we will continue to engage constructively in all discussions around reform. We would however emphasise that in our discussions so far, very few of our members have ever expressed the view that what football really needs is a greater concentration of power in the hands of the big six billionaire-owned clubs.”

[Royboyclaret]

Still not convinced by that Roy - I have said all along if full Central Distribution monies are paid in 2019/20 then we will post a profit, and record revenues

Unless, you tell me that provisions for the rebates we know are coming this season and next season can affect the 2019/20 results

Like to think I've been consistent all along with my thoughts on this, Chester. If I were Financial Accountant at Turf Moor then all such rebates that relate to last season MUST be provided for in the accounts irrespective of when those rebates will be settled. If for no other reason than even heftier broadcast rebates can be anticipated this season and beyond.

[Chester Perry]

The Premier League with a statement on Project Big Picture

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1860125

Premier League statement
11 Oct 2020

League urges football's stakeholders to work together for the good of the game

We have seen media reports today regarding a plan to restructure football in this country.

English football is the world's most watched, and has a vibrant, dynamic and competitive league structure that drives interest around the globe.

To maintain this position, it is important that we all work together.

Both the Premier League and The FA support a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the game, including its competition structures, calendar and overall financing particularly in light of the effects of COVID-19.

Football has many stakeholders, therefore this work should be carried out through the proper channels enabling all clubs and stakeholders the opportunity to contribute.

In the Premier League's view, a number of the individual proposals in the plan published today could have a damaging impact on the whole game and we are disappointed to see that Rick Parry, Chair of the EFL, has given his on-the-record support.

The Premier League has been working in good faith with its clubs and the EFL to seek a resolution to the requirement for COVID-19 rescue funding.

This work will continue.

[Chester Perry]

Some interesting nuances picked up by @TariqPanja in his piece in the New York Times regarding Project Big Picture

Premier League Reform Plan Seeks to Reshape English Soccer
A proposal engineered by Liverpool and Manchester United would yield an 18-team Premier League and hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to lower leagues. But key players are not on board.

By Tariq Panja - Oct. 11, 2020 - Updated 12:56 p.m. ET

Taken together, the proposals amount to the biggest changes in English soccer in more than a quarter of a century. An 18-team Premier League. Hundreds of millions of dollars in extra payments from Premier League clubs to their poorer rivals. And an end of direct payment to clubs relegated from the top division.

The reform plan — the brainchild of the American owners of England’s two biggest and most successful clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool — would remake the structure that governs English soccer’s four professional leagues and replace it with what those behind the idea have pitched as a more sustainable model.

The biggest changes would be that the Premier League shrink to 18 teams from its current 20, perhaps as soon as 2022, and transfer critical decision-making power in the league from the consensus-driven model that has been at its core for three decades to one in which a handful of the richest teams get a bigger say.

The details were first reported by The Daily Telegraph and later confirmed by the English Football League, the organization that represents the 72 clubs below the Premier League.

Liverpool and Manchester United did not respond to requests for comment. But Rick Parry, the chairman of the E.F.L., who had been involved in the talks, gave a full-throated endorsement to the proposals.

Although senior officials from Liverpool and Manchester United had discussed ideas in secret for several years before putting together a tentative proposal, other leading clubs and the Premier League were brought into the talks only recently. Some executives and administrators learned about them only late last week, and others found out on Sunday after reports in the news media.

The Premier League reacted with frustration on Sunday, saying in a statement that the talks should have been carried out in a more open and inclusive manner, even as it said it supported “a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the game, including its competition structures, calendar and overall financing.”

Still, it said, “in the Premier League’s view, a number of the individual proposals in the plan published today could have a damaging impact on the whole game and we are disappointed to see that Rick Parry, chair of the E.F.L., has given his on-the-record support.”

The British government also expressed its displeasure, accusing the clubs behind the plan of cooking up “back room deals” that would, according to a spokesman for the department responsible for sports, “create a closed shop at the very top of the game.”

The government’s apparent rejection of the idea comes amid complaints that it has done little to support the ailing sports sector.

John W. Henry, the billionaire owner of Liverpool, and his Manchester United counterpart, Joel Glazer, are hoping to seize on the chaos wrought on professional soccer in England by the coronavirus, which has caused millions of dollars of losses for the top teams and threatened the financial viability of some smaller ones, to crystallize their ideas and push through the changes they seek.

The current plan promises 250 million pounds ($326 million) in emergency funding from the Premier League to the three professional divisions immediately below it, and includes a pledge that those leagues would receive 25 percent of the total income of the Premier League from the first season under the new framework, which the reform plan’s backers hope would be as early as the 2022-23 season.

The Premier League currently requires the consent of 14 of its 20 clubs to approve decisions large and small, a setup that has strained the bond between the biggest teams and the rest. Under the reform proposal, a group of as many as nine of the longest serving members of the Premier League would have greater say over how it is run, including the right to veto new owners from buying control of clubs in the league.

To sweeten the deal, the plan also promises to share money with another key stakeholder: England’s Football Association. To secure its approval, or at least fend off its opposition, the F.A., which governs the sport in England, would receive a one-time payment of 100 million pounds ($130 million) to help mitigate the damage inflicted on its finances by the coronavirus pandemic.

That Liverpool and Manchester United are at the heart of the reform movement immediately led to criticism on social media, with fans and commentators suggesting that the two clubs are looking to further entrench their interests and positions atop global soccer.

The push to reduce the league to 18 teams mirrors the views of Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of the Italian champion Juventus and the leader of the influential European Club Association, a lobby group for top division teams. Agnelli has said that he favors reducing the size of domestic leagues to create space for more meaningful games between Europe’s elite teams, but he has also been one of the biggest proponents of shifting power in European soccer to the clubs that dominate it.

One of the drivers behind the Premier League proposal, beyond increasing the power of the wealthiest teams, is to reduce cases of risk-taking by clubs in the second-tier Championship as they try to win promotion to the Premier League. Access can bring huge rewards, in the form of television and sponsorship revenues and even so-called parachute payments — worth tens of millions of dollars for years — if they are relegated back to the Championship.

The problem, English soccer has found, is eager teams have at times piled up huge losses in the hope of building a squad capable of reaching the Premier League or competing with rivals who have, reaped that windfall, and then returned.

Under the reform proposal, parachute payments would be scrapped and the annual riches provided by the Premier League would be shared more equitably with the teams in the second tier. Clubs in the next two divisions would benefit as well, with about 25 percent of the total shared by the Premier League reserved for them.

The proposal also calls for the abolition of the League Cup, a cup competition reserved for professional teams that has long lost its luster among elite clubs, and the Community Shield, the traditional curtain raiser to the league season, which matches the previous campaign’s Premier League champion against the F.A. Cup holder.

It also discusses financing for a women’s professional league independent of the Premier League and the Football Association. And perhaps fearful of a fan backlash, those behind the proposals have added elements aimed at winning the support of match-going spectators, including a cap of $26 on ticket prices for visiting fans, a commitment to introducing safe standing areas in stadiums and subsidized travel for supporters who attend away matches.

The changes outlined in the reform plan in England come at a moment of wider discussion in global soccer about the future of the game, with representatives at FIFA, the game’s global governing body, and UEFA, its counterpart in Europe, plotting their own road maps for the future. Some of the top English teams have expressed interest in playing in a larger, restructured Champions League, the elite European club tournament that will be reformed for the 2024 season.

Parry, the E.F.L. chairman, suggested that change was inevitable, and that he would support the proposal because the clubs he represents would benefit from it.

“This is a huge idea,” he told reporters on Sunday during a conference call. “It’s not going to be popular with everybody, but there’s enough in this that’s worth fighting for.”

[Chester Perry]

Like to think I've been consistent all along with my thoughts on this, Chester. If I were Financial Accountant at Turf Moor then all such rebates that relate to last season MUST be provided for in the accounts irrespective of when those rebates will be settled. If for no other reason than even heftier broadcast rebates can be anticipated this season and beyond.

You have been consistent Roy and if the rebates are included as you suggest (your accountancy knowledge being far far greater than mine is ever likely to be) then I can agree that is is likely we will post a loss for 2019/20.

[Royboyclaret]

You have been consistent Roy and if the rebates are included as you suggest (your accountancy knowledge being far far greater than mine is ever likely to be) then I can agree that is is likely we will post a loss for 2019/20.

What wouldn't we give to have a sneak look at our financial accounts to July'20. Unlike clubs like AC Milan and even Hull City ( in the last few days ), our BoD will insist on secrecy until April of next year, even though I'm well aware they not only have been completed but also audited.

2019/20 was an exceptional year for our Club in terms of financial accounting made even moreso with the unique decision to extend the financial year by one month to July'20 for effectively a 13 month financial year. Be interesting to see how that pans out particularly with the Profit & Loss account, but nevertheless one thing we know for sure is that certain costs which will reduce our broadcast Income related clearly within the timeframe of the accounts.

One in particular (and I recollect that you referred to others) was the Suning PPTV broadcast amount of some £14m that failed to materialise in March and in itself is sufficient to convert any potential Profit into a Loss for the year, even though (as you rightly stated) we were on course for a potential highest-ever Turnover figure. I guess patience is going to be necessary for six months or so, if we can wait that long.

[TVC15]

I’m estimating a wage bill of £95m in our 2020 accounts and a reported loss of between £15m and £20m. Though would not be surprised to see a higher loss to be honest.
The higher wage bill is just really a rough extrapolation of the previous years 12 month number. We know our actual wage bill now with the out of contract players leaving will probably be nearer to £80m.

I’m sure the chairman will already have some draft year end accounts which will be pretty accurate. Whilst of course he cannot divulge any of this it would be really useful if we could get an updated statement from Garlick on the clubs financial position now he knows some of the risks he mentioned earlier in the year have now crystallised and others have gone away with project restart last season etc.

[Chester Perry]

I’m estimating a wage bill of £95m in our 2020 accounts and a reported loss of between £15m and £20m. Though would not be surprised to see a higher loss to be honest.
The higher wage bill is just really a rough extrapolation of the previous years 12 month number. We know our actual wage bill now with the out of contract players leaving will probably be nearer to £80m.

I’m sure the chairman will already have some draft year end accounts which will be pretty accurate. Whilst of course he cannot divulge any of this it would be really useful if we could get an updated statement from Garlick on the clubs financial position now he knows some of the risks he mentioned earlier in the year have now crystallised and others have gone away with project restart last season etc.

I think 2019/20 wages will be closer to £100m - new deals, probably even more staff in the backroom and Academy and that bonus for 10th

If we stay up this season the circa £80m for wages should be about right

[TVC15]

You could well be right there CP.
What’s your estimate on the losses we will post ?

We can compare our guesses when the results are out !!

[Chester Perry]

I have been trawling back through historical podcasts, at Unofficial Partner and came across this with Alex Fynn who initially came up with the concept that became the Premier League (he wanted a proper pyramid not a single distinct entity) he also came up with the idea that was watered down as the Champions League but which in it's purer form is what the ECA and Andrea Angelli wants to implement - It is a fascinating podcast and a real insight into history and how intentions are distorted

https://blubrry.com/unofficialpartnerpo ... alex-fynn/

If you have looked at Project Big Picture and though that some of that looks really good and should be implemented, yet some of it should be avoided at all costs - Then I would suggest that all the good parts are strikingly reminiscent of what Alex Flynn proposed to Irving Scholar in the early 1980's and that all the bad parts are everything he says are bad for the game, and he was saying they were bad for the game all the way back then.

[Chester Perry]

You could well be right there CP.
What’s your estimate on the losses we will post ?

We can compare our guesses when the results are out !!

The hard things to estimate are (in order of difficulty) the size of the rebates to be accounted for, how much was lost in commercial income (particularly advertisers and sponsors) and the amortisation for the year.

For the rebates do you take the £13.4m in the handbook or the whole share of what is still owed to BT and SKY. Would you also treat a share of the missing £160m from PPTV as a loss (adding it back at a later date, if it ever materialises as a result of the pending court case).

In a year we were expecting to see yet more growth (think 50% in shirt sponsorship) sponsorship is still likely to have not dropped even with the impact of covid, advertising, retail sales and event Income at the turf will have fallen by anything up to as much as 30% I would suggest

Amortisation had around £8m added to it for the singings of Jay Rod, Brownhill, Peacock-Farrell and Pieters, but the extensions for Wood and Barnes and the sale of Wells would have taken some off also - I think this will still be around £47m+ for 13months

for Income I would be expecting us to break £150m for the first time given the £124.4 m central payment

[Chester Perry]

A couple of interesting takes on Project Big Picture - first up Jason Burt in the Telegraph

Premier League 'Project Big Picture' is a brazen power grab, a hostile takeover spun as a rescue package
JASON BURT OCTOBER 11, 2020

What is so stunning about 'Project Big Picture' is its complete lack of perspective. There are some apparently good ideas sugar-coating a poison pill that would surrender control of English football to a small number of big clubs. This is what a cartel looks like. Make no mistake it is a hostile takeover dressed up as a rescue.

Apparently the insistence from its driving forces, Liverpool and Manchester United (and the fact both have American owners will not be lost on the other clubs), that the pay-off for the radical changes revealed by The Telegraph is not a greater share of revenue for themselves but more authority is in itself remarkable and not least because power obviously equates to money.

It also does not add up. The claim appears pretty dubious – big clubs will unquestionably get more given the method of distribution - while the spin that the plan will redistribute money more fairly is nonsense given it is other clubs' cash that they are proposing to give away in the first place. The ‘Big Six’ are not digging into their own pockets.

“The fact that our two greatest clubs are showing leadership at a time when the game is crying out for it is fantastic,” says Rick Parry, the chairman of the English Football League but is this the kind of leadership we need? A leadership in which the ‘Big Six’ clubs can effectively do what they like, even block the takeover of other clubs and hire and fire the Premier League chief executive, enforcing their will on the game?

There are some interesting ideas – as there often are in the most sinister of projects. It seems even those behind it realise it is so brazen that there have to be some juicy carrots to entice the desperate into agreement. Although how they would try to push these changes through beyond threatening to break away remains unclear. But, unequivocally, it is a naked power grab and follows years of dancing around the subject with side meetings and veiled threats from Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea. Winter is coming. Yet we did not quite expect this.

First the good news: yes, to the redistribution of money, the additional cash proposed for ‘good causes’ including the Football Association, the bail-out for the EFL, the finance for stadium improvements, the women’s professional league independent of the Premier League and the FA, and a fan charter. They are fantastic proposals. Go for them all now.

It is hard to disagree with the argument that the current funding model is not working although the irony will not be lost on many people in football that Parry was the first chief executive of the Premier League who oversaw the disproportionate distribution of wealth in the first place. The Premier League has been a good thing; it has been an incredible, resounding success; one of the UK’s greatest exports. It needs to re-examine how the wealth is distributed. But not at the cost being demanded.

As for other ideas: the toss can be argued over changing the mechanism for promotion and relegation, even reducing the Premier League to 18 clubs and at the price of losing two from the EFL. We can debate scrapping the League Cup and the Community Shield although surely not to simply allow the ‘Big Six’ to embark on longer and more lucrative pre-season tours.

Then there is the rub, the important stuff: abolish the principle of one-club, one vote with huge power placed in the hands of nine clubs - the ‘Big Six’ as well as Everton, Southampton and West Ham who will be afforded “long-term shareholder status”.

But even that, in fact, is window-dressing as only six votes would be needed to effect change. The ‘Big Six’ would be firmly in control, then.

Those six clubs would be able to take over football. They would take charge of broadcasting contracts and financial controls; they could kill the competition. They would own the Premier League.

Is it a coincidence that the plan is being pushed after the champions Liverpool were beaten 7-2 away by Aston Villa? The Premier League has sold itself as the most competitive in the world – and the TV deals have come on the back of that – because shock results like this happen which is why the viewing figures are so extraordinary.

This plan kills that, harms the product and, therefore, future revenues. It also kills Leicester City's chances of winning the league or even getting into Europe. It may seem to help out the EFL but it will make it almost impossible for clubs such as Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leeds United to win promotion and challenge. The EFL may get more money but where will their clubs go with it?

It is not a rescue plan. It is an anti-competitive takeover born of self-interest.

[Chester Perry]

Perhaps the most surprising Project Big Picture response I have come across to date is this from David Conn in the Guardian

Plan to mend football pyramid's great crack should not be swept off table
David Conn

Liverpool and Manchester United have infuriated the Premier League, which was kept in the dark, but the premise of their proposal to reunite with the EFL is sound

Sun 11 Oct 2020 20.35 BST Last modified on Sun 11 Oct 2020 23.45 BST

There are so many extraordinary elements in the Liverpool and Manchester United proposals to reshape English football, and so much understandable scepticism, that the historic move at the heart of it is in danger of being missed.

So, for clarity, it really is true that the US owners of these two fabulously rich football corporations have produced an offer that has not been forthcoming and never seemed possible from any Premier League leadership figures for 28 years.

There are, undoubtedly, some self-serving elements to their prospectus but by far the most significant is the proposal that the Premier League should share a net 25% of its future TV deals with the English Football League, and provide £250m immediately to help the 72 EFL clubs through their financial crisis.

That is an offer, finally after a generation, to rejoin the top division with the three below and repair the vast, calamitous financial gap caused by the breakaway of the First Division from the Football League to form the Premier League in 1992.

The wholly negative reaction of the government to this plan for huge financial reparations, which also includes increased money for the FA and grassroots good causes – approximately 8.5% of annual net Premier League TV money – seems bizarre.

For months throughout this pandemic and its financial crisis for the game and its cherished pyramid, the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, has been urging the Premier League to use its financial might to help the “football family”.

The Premier League has dithered, delayed and produced nothing solid, despite being told in the spring the EFL had an immediate £250m hole and that many clubs face ruin through a Covid-19 winter of matches in empty grounds. Steve Parish, the chairman of Crystal Palace, recently argued that “Premier League clubs are being unfairly singled out” and should not have to share their money.

“No other industry is asking firms to bail out competitors,” Parish wrote in the Sunday Times before offering some comparisons. “The supermarkets aren’t instructed to help the corner shops. Deliveroo aren’t bailing out your local cafe.”

Quite apart from the assumption that Selhurst Park counts as a supermarket among corner shops, these are dreary arguments that do not merit earnest engagement. It is the kind of reasoning, for the maintenance of inequality, that also makes it more difficult for the Premier League’s middling clubs to be outraged about Liverpool, United and the rest of the big six looking to cement their own power.

With these proposals, United and Liverpool, whose majority owner, John W Henry, is said to have been contemplating the great crack in the English football pyramid for years, have thumped through the last months of stagnation and presented a coming together that has not seemed possible for 25 years.

The idea of the EFL having anything like a 25% share of Premier League TV deals last disappeared in the dust in 1995, when with Rick Parry as the chief executive, the top flight did offer 20% but the Football League board, to the fury of many clubs, rejected it.

When Parry took on the chairmanship of the EFL only one extremely long year ago, he appreciated that the root cause of the 72 clubs’ various financial agonies is the eye-watering gap with the Premier League and the parachute payments that further distort the landscape in the Championship.

When he has spoken up and made that plain, including calling parachute payments “an evil that needs to be eradicated”, he has generally been patronised. The Premier League’s administrators and smaller clubs seem to have been proceeding on the basis they would not be seriously pressured into sharing their money more equitably, as they haven’t for the past quarter-century.

To be fair, nobody except Parry seems to have been aware that Henry, across the Atlantic, was informing himself about all of this, apparently becoming more knowledgeable about the bitter 1992 breakaway than many English football people who really should know that history better. And of all people who could be expected to support the idea of putting the game back together, it turns out to be Joel Glazer, of the family whose £525m debt-loading, 2005 takeover of United has been such a burden at Old Trafford and caused so much rancour and unhappiness.

Of course it is also true this proposal does not come without some pain but that Henry and Glazer do not envisage feeling any of it themselves. There is a planned consolidation of voting power within the Premier League of the big six plus the three outside clubs that have been in the top flight longest, Everton, Southampton and West Ham, and that is simply not a good look. The 25% for the EFL is mostly to be found by reducing the Premier League to 18 clubs – the original 1990 FA proposal that was never implemented – and scrapping parachute payments, rather than ceding the money out of Old Trafford or Anfield revenues.

United and Liverpool envisage their time being freed for more Champions League matches, which will happen anyway from 2024 when Uefa’s competition is inevitably expanded, and lucrative pre-season tours. They insist their proposals are not an effort to seize more of the Premier League TV money but it is likely other Premier League clubs will get less. It will make it more difficult to break into the top six; the more even competition will be created in the relegation zone.

So, quite rightly, there should be a battle over the detail of these proposals. If the other 14 Premier League clubs want to fight for the maintenance of the one club, one vote system that is understandable; most football people would agree with it.

But the heart of the plan should not be swept off the table, which is for the Premier League to finally reconnect with the EFL, mend the gap and ease the senseless worry that loved and historic clubs will go bust in the time of football’s greatest boom.

[Chester Perry]

An recent survey has looked into what the effects a gambling orientated shirt sponsor has on intended purchases of team shirts - from the Guardian - The question boardroom figures would ask is - would the impact on shirt sales make up for the likely loss of sponsorship income from a non-gambling orientated sponsor, especially as the increase in sales is hypothetical and the sponsorship money is more of a certainty

Third of UK football fans put off buying kit if it has betting sponsor
Survey reveals support for disentangling sport’s ties to gambling industry

Rob Davies - Sun 11 Oct 2020 15.19 BST Last modified on Sun 11 Oct 2020 19.17 BST
Shares

A third of football supporters are put off spending money on their team’s shirt if it has a betting sponsor, according to a survey that reveals widespread support among fans for disentangling the sport’s ties to the gambling industry.

Of the 44 top teams in English football, 26 have a gambling company logo on their chest, as betting firms vie for visibility during games broadcast to billions of people around the world.

But fans in the UK have grown tired of the industry’s strategy of targeting the world’s most popular clubs, according to a poll by Survation, shared with the Guardian.

The survey of more than 1,000 football fans found that a third said they would rather not buy their club’s kit if it has a gambling sponsor.

Nearly half support a ban on shirts emblazoned with gambling company logos, a measure that was proposed by the former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, who has since taken a job with Flutter, the world’s largest online gambling company.

The Betting and Gaming Council – led by Watson’s close friend and former Labour MP Michael Dugher – said the industry’s “whistle-to-whistle ban” on ads during sport shown before 9pm had reduced commercials during those times by 97%.

But the survey shows two-thirds of fans feel the measure has not done much to reduce the overall level of advertising, with the same number saying betting and online casino or slot machine firms advertise too much to football supporters.

The survey was commissioned by the campaign group Clean Up Gambling as part of the launch of a new coalition against gambling adverts. The partnership brings together multiple groups including the football-focused pressure group the Big Step and Gambling With Lives, set up by Liz and Charles Ritchie after their son Jack took his own life following a gambling addiction.

The director of Clean Up Gambling, Matt Zarb-Cousin, said: “The government would have the backing of football fans if it decided to move against gambling ads, and clubs would benefit from an increase in shirt sales.”

A spokesperson for the BGC said: “While betting helps to provide sports such as football with funding, it also enables TV channels to broadcast more sport than would otherwise be possible and plays a vital role in differentiating legally licensed operators from those in the black market who have none of the safety protections in place with UK operators.

“The BGC has introduced tough new measures to further prevent under-18s viewing betting ads online and our members have agreed that at least 20% of their TV and radio adverts must be safer gambling messages.

“The BGC is determined to drive up standards across the betting and gaming industry and looks forward to working with the government on its forthcoming gambling review to do just that.”

[Chester Perry]

The chaps at Vysyble with a thread looking at the big 6 and why Project Big Picture is attractive to them

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1315302308146810883

[Chester Perry]

TwoHundredPercent.com run the rule over Project Big Picture and are not choosing to mince their words on the matter

Rick Parry & The Megaclubs: Best Buddies Forever
by Ian | Oct 11, 2020

Credit where it’s due, it’s sly. A thin veneer of togetherness draped over the greatest power grab that association football has ever seen. But Project Big Picture, the now-leaked plans for how the longest-standing members of the Premier League intend to exchange putting much-needed money into the EFL now for seizing control of the professional game in perpetuity, should be seen for what it truly is. It’s the mother of all land grabs, a flagrant plan to perpetually tilt the scales still further towards preserving the positions of the currently wealthiest clubs.

It’s not implausible that prior awareness of the leaking of this document might even have been behind the Premier League’s counter-intuitive stupid decision to announce on Friday that they would be making matches pay-per-view at £15 a match. Perhaps the stink from that would obscure the stink from this. This, however, is far from a bad smell. This is, in short, a declaration of invasion, and this would be problematic enough were it not for the fact that it is believed that the chairman of the EFL are on board with the idea.

Let’s have a look at those proposals in a little more detail, though:

- £250 million immediately to the EFL to compensate its clubs for lost matchday revenue, deducted from future television revenue earnings and financed by a loan taken out by the Premier League. That is about the annual television and prize money for two and a bit clubs. For one season. Just in case you were wondering exactly how little they would actually be paying, here.

- Special status for the nine longest serving clubs – and the vote of only six of those “long-term shareholders” required to make major changes, including amending rules and regulations, agreeing contracts, removal of the chief executive, and a wide-ranging veto including on club ownership. -
- So the “Top Six” (Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City and Spurs) and three others will get to decide who the CEO is, what the league rules are, and who can and can’t own a club?

- Premier League to go to 18 clubs from 20. In order to free the biggest clubs to pursue even more money through what is expected to be an expanded Champions League or European Super League.

- £100 million one-off gift to the FA to cover its coronavirus losses, the non-league game, the women’s game, the grassroots. This is one-seventeenth the annual value of the current domestic television contracts.

- 8.5 per cent of annual net Premier League revenue to go on operating costs and “good causes” including the FA. Because with this proposal the reduction of the FA is to just being “those people who run the FA Cup and the men’s national team.”

- From the remainder, 25 per cent of all combined Premier League and Football League revenues to go to the EFL clubs. So in this brave new world 75% of television revenues got to 20% of clubs, then. And we can likely expect there to be an asterisk next to that 25% which will make it more likely to go down than up in the future.

- Six per cent of Premier League gross revenues to pay for stadium improvements across the top four divisions, calculated at £100 per seat. Welcome, but financially sustainable clubs in the both the Premier League and the EFL should be able to carry ground improvements as part of their normal operating costs.

- New rules for the distribution of Premier League television income, overseas and domestic, including proposals that base one portion on performance over three years in the league. Ripping up the relatively equal television contract conventions to pay a greater proportion to… you guessed it, the biggest clubs.

- The abolition of the League Cup and the Community Shield. Because who cares about winning trophies when there’s money to be made by finishing 13th in the table every year in perpetuity?

- 24 clubs each in the Championship, League One and League Two reducing the professional game overall from 92 clubs to 90. Trickledown economics, Premier League-style: this will press down and down through the divisions.

- A women’s professional league independent of the Premier League or the FA. The rationale for this probably needs to be explained. Since the biggest clubs have spent a relatively small amount of money buying up the places at the top of the Women’s Super League, should we assume that they also want to run the women’s game with no oversight?

- Two sides automatically relegated from the Premier League every season and the top two Championship teams promoted. The 16th place Premier League club will enter the play-offs with the Championship’s third, fourth and fifth placed teams. So that’s two and a quarter relegation places from the Premier League. And we can only wonder how long it will be before the “and a quarter” vanishes from that.

- Financial fair play regulations in line with Uefa, and full access for Premier League executives to club accounts.
- A fan charter including capping of away tickets at £20, away travel subsidised, a focus on a return to safe standing, a minimum away allocation of eight per cent capacity. Again, this will cost them next to nothing. And they should have been strongly supporting safe standing for the last ten years.

- Later Premier League start in August to give greater scope for pre-season friendlies, and requirement for all clubs to compete once every five years in a summer Premier League tournament. The introduction of a Premier League summer tournament speaks volumes about the amount of bad faith on display when anyone within the game has ever complained about “fixture congestion” in the past.

- Huge changes to loan system allowing clubs to have 15 players out on loan domestically at any one time and up to four at a single club in England. Sounds like Premier League B teams by the back door, to me. Indeed, such a rule change looks exactly the sort of thing you introduce when you expect to be able to expect to be able to ride roughshod over it at an unspecified date in the future.

Obviously, the small number of changes that would benefit the EFL – 25% of cumulative television contract money, for example – would be good things in and of themselves, but we should make no mistake that these would be scraps from the table in comparison with what the biggest clubs would take from it all. These nine clubs would control who could own any of their rivals. They could decide any further rule changes between themselves without even needing to consult with anybody else. They’d get fewer Premier League matches per season, opening up a little more space to pursue their European ambitions and, of course, with other rule changes there’d be no-one to get in the way of them pursuing a European Super League whilst playing B teams in the domestic league.

Parry, who presumably must be aware of how all of this will go down with the supporters of many clubs, seems to have chosen this as his hill to die upon:

What do we do? Leave it exactly as it is and allow the smaller clubs to wither? Or do we do something about it? And you can’t do something about it without something changing. And the view of our clubs is if the six get some benefits but the 72 also do, we are up for it.

Well, the big issue here is that it isn’t a binary question. All of this has been going on without any consultation with supporters, which should give us all some idea of where we stand in this overall food chain, but the idea that this power grab is only conceivable alternative to the EFL withering on the vine is preposterous.We can only reiterate that the government should be doing more to help clubs in League One and League Two, which are on the whole far more similar to clubs in the National League than they are to those in the Premier League, than merely standing back and barking, “the Premier League should be paying for it.” Presumably, were the EFL to vote against it, they would step in with funding on the basis that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, something of which they’ve been regularly reminding us for the last four or five years.

Indeed, the proposal that has been leaked, if anything, makes the EFL look somewhat redundant. If television money is being pooled between the two, then why not just give all control of the entire 92 (soon to be revised down to 90) to the Premier League? “It is definitely going to be challenging and it is an enormous change so that won’t be without some pain”, Parry told the Telegraph, presumably secure in the belief that he won’t be experiencing any of this pain himself. He may change his tune, should it be decided that the EFL is surplus to requirements in five years time. Or perhaps he might be working for the Premier League again by then. After all, he was the Premier League’s first CEO and a former CEO of Liverpool, one of the two big clubs reported as being behind these proposals.

The Premier League has already issued a statement seeking to play down the proposals:

We have seen media reports today regarding a plan to restructure football in this country. English football is the world’s most watched, and has a vibrant, dynamic and competitive league structure that drives interest around the globe. To maintain this position, it is important that we all work together.

Both the Premier League and The FA support a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the game, including its competition structures, calendar and overall financing particularly in light of the effects of COVID-19.

Football has many stakeholders, therefore this work should be carried out through the proper channels enabling all clubs and stakeholders the opportunity to contribute. In the Premier League’s view, a number of the individual proposals in the plan published today could have a damaging impact on the whole game and we are disappointed to see that Rick Parry, Chair of the EFL, has given his on-the-record support.

The Premier League has been working in good faith with its clubs and the EFL to seek a resolution to the requirement for COVID-19 rescue funding.

This work will continue.

It’s difficult to find any way of looking at this that doesn’t conclude with the word “extortion”, though. Premier League clubs have told us all exactly what they think of us, over the last few days. The fact that these conversations have been going on since 2017 with no supporter consultation – because hey, we’re only the people who pay for this whole carousel to keep spinning in the first place – speaks volumes, especially when coupled with their decision to charge supporters, including season ticket holders, the extortionate – that word again! – price of £15 per match to watch matches on TV while stadiums stay closed.

But if Rick Parry wants to hand English football to the biggest clubs in the Premier League, then perhaps he should go and work for one of those clubs rather than leading an organisation which will, frankly, become irrelevant should the plans that he is championing go through. The price of a small donation from the Premier League to the EFL will be for the EFL to surrender itself to English football’s biggest clubs, for good. And we should be clear that, whilst there are good things in the proposal, it should be absolutely clear to anybody reading this that none of those have a cat in hell’s chance of proceeding unless all the worst things are also included, and that all of the good things could easily get watered down in the future.

Should this ever come to fruition, the EFL will have ceased to hold any relevance beyond its name. And at that point it might even be worth smaller clubs wondering whether it’s even worth continuing to throw their lot it with others who will not be happy until all clubs are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the biggest and shiniest, and who will continue to tilt the scales against them until this eventuality. And for supporters, who’ve been looking at forlorn pictures of empty grounds for the last seven months, there is a similar question – at what point does this simply become not worth the effort any more?

[Chester Perry]

It is that time of year when Gazetta dello Sport released the findings for Serie A wages in the current season (not that I can find it on their web pages), here is a thread including a run down by player and team

https://twitter.com/Lu_Class_/status/13 ... 3165803522

they do the same thing for managers too - what is startling is just how low managers/coaches salaries are in contrast to the Premier League, where our Sean doesn't make the top 10 but would be highly placed over there - again I cannot find it in Gazetta dello Sport

https://sempremilan.com/gds-serie-a-man ... are-shocks

[Chester Perry]

The EFL's statement on Project Big Picture - https://www.efl.com/news/2020/october/e ... g-picture/

EFL statement: Project Big Picture
8 Hours ago

The English Football League today confirms that it has been working on an innovative proposal titled ‘Project Big Picture’ with a number of Clubs in the Premier League that looks to reset the economics and governance across the English football pyramid and in the process, protect the game in both the short and long term.

EFL Chair Rick Parry said:

“The need for a complete rethinking regarding the funding of English professional football predates the Covid-19 crisis. Discussion and planning around ‘Project Big Picture’ has been ongoing for quite some time, unrelated to the current pandemic but now has an urgency that simply cannot be denied.

“The revenues flowing from the investment and work of our top clubs has been largely limited to the top division creating a sort of lottery, while Championship clubs struggle to behave prudently and Leagues One and Two are financially stretched despite enormous revenues English football generates. This plan devised by our top clubs and the English Football League puts an end to all of that.

“The gap between the Premier League and the English Football League has become a chasm which has become unbridgeable for Clubs transitioning between the EFL and Premier League. In 2018/19, Championship clubs received £146 million in EFL distributions and Premier League solidarity payments. This compares with £1.58 billion received by the bottom 14 Premier League clubs - 11 times as much.

“At the same time, Parachute Payments received by the eight recently relegated clubs totalled £246 million. This represents one-third of the total Championship turnover and creates a major distortion that impacts the League annually.

“In an effort to achieve promotion from very small media monies in the Championship to extraordinary sums at the bottom of the Premier League, Championship clubs spent 107% of their income on wages last season, a figure that is unsustainable by any analysis but by no means a new phenomenon. The figure has been 99% or above in each of the last four seasons. Consequently, our Clubs incurred operating losses of £382 million last season.

“In the last 12 months, owners have had to inject some £384 million in capital – all before a pandemic created the current financial crisis and impacted Clubs, alongside many of the businesses that help fund them.

“Project Big Picture takes a huge step by sharing 25% of Premier League media net revenues with the EFL in order to correct this imbalance going forward. Coupled with the introduction of strict cost controls, Clubs at every level of the EFL will become properly sustainable even in the face of a major crisis – and more importantly – beyond.

“Just as importantly, the financial gap between the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship will be substantially reduced. This will create a much softer landing for relegated clubs. The elimination of Parachute Payments will create fairer competition and discourage irrational behaviour.

“The creation of a short-term rescue fund of £250 million to replace lost match day revenue this season and last will enable every Club to plan to continue to play and move forward with certainty. As an advance against increased, future revenues this is not a loan and therefore does not need to be repaid. It could never have been repaid under the existing terms and revenue of the English pyramid.

“Now is the time to address both the long-term health of the game and the most challenging short- term crisis it has ever faced. Project Big Picture provides a new beginning which will revitalise the football pyramid at all levels. This new beginning will reinvigorate clubs in the lower leagues and the communities in which they are based.

“The whole of English football has been negatively impacted by this pandemic and the English football pyramid as a whole is only as healthy as those at its base. Through this proposed restructuring we aim to strengthen those who need it most at a time when they need it most. This is about building on what is good and making the most of what works well in order to benefit the game as a whole, while simultaneously tackling those issues which trouble all of us. This is a blueprint for the future of English football and for everyone who cherishes it.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The key to me on this is that like the Premier League the EFL is effectively run and owned by it's members, yet Project Big Picture has not be discussed with them before this statement, it is one thing discussing plans (though that is questionable when it wasn't directly with the Premier League) quite another to effectively endorse them before talking to the members, whatever the member representatives on the EFL board may argue - it came as no surprise that Fleetwood's Andy Pilley was up for it

https://twitter.com/capboy70/status/1315286631671386118

@AndyhHolt was significantly less convinced though

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 7974173696
https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 1572054017
https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 2501066752
https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 1953239050
https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 2127887361

[Chester Perry]

The Mail's Martin Samuel scathing - it is fair to say - of Project Big Picture

MARTIN SAMUEL: Manchester United and Liverpool's Project Big Picture is nothing but a disgusting Big Six power grab... Rick Parry is Faust in a Mickey Mouse tie and he thinks we're STUPID
- Liverpool and Manchester United are trying to push through 'Project Big Picture'
- It would see changes such as the reduction from 20 top-flight teams to 18 clubs
- The League Cup and Community Shield would also be scrapped in the scheme
- £250million would be given to the EFL while £100m would go to the FA
- EFL chairman Rick Parry has given his support to the new proposals in England
By MARTIN SAMUEL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:32, 11 October 2020 | UPDATED: 23:23, 11 October 2020

Rick Parry helped destroy the fabric of English football once, and now he’s going for it again.

His alliance with Manchester United, Liverpool and any fellow travellers within the Big Six is the most flagrant, abusive and ruinous power grab the domestic game has seen since the formation of the Premier League with Parry as its chief executive close to 30 years ago. That put the power in the hands of 20 clubs.

Now Parry and the elite want this narrowed down to a cabal of six. They are promising all kinds of bungs and sweeteners to get their way, painting themselves as the saviours of the game, the friends of the little folk, but do not believe a single word of it.

This is about six clubs controlling the wealth and seizing the power, right down to deciding who gets into their competition. This is about closed shop protectionism that will end the Premier League as a vibrant competition. This is about getting your round in with another man’s money.

This is, in essence, every rotten, contemptuous, self-serving, destructive idea the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool have come up with across the last two decades, repurposed as a rescue package.

Project Big Picture? Far from saving our game, all it would do is reduce. Reduce what makes football fun. Reduce its unpredictability, reduce the excitement, reduce the chances for Wolves or Leicester or Aston Villa. Reduce the hope of a change of ownership at Newcastle. Reduce your chances of promotion. Reduce your hopes of success if you get there. Reduce, reduce, reduce.

Of course Parry supports it. He has no idea how to address the financial crisis in the EFL, so will cling to any lifebelt tossed his way. If it means selling out the League Cup, the Community Shield, 14 current Premier League clubs and any in the Championship with ambition, he’ll do it.

That is how desperate he is. He’s Faust, in a Mickey Mouse tie. And he thinks we’re stupid. They all do.

Take the proposed new superpowers, the nine longest-serving clubs in the Premier League, whose votes would count for more than the rest. That’s the big six, plus Everton, Southampton and West Ham.

Those nine clubs are to be afforded ‘long-term shareholder status’, would have unprecedented power, even able to veto new owners at other Premier League clubs, decide on the chief executive and amend rules and regulations. And maybe the six think the three will be flattered to be included.

Depends whether they can handle basic arithmetic. For what would be needed for vetoes and changes to processes is a two-thirds majority of long-term shareholders.

Ooh, what’s two-thirds of nine? Wouldn’t be six by any chance, would it? Everton, Southampton and West Ham wouldn’t be privileged members. They would be ridiculous patsies, carved up and cynically outvoted at every turn.

That is what Project Big Picture is. One big carve-up. Take wealth distribution, 50 per cent of which would now be divided on merit, rather than equally. But not real merit.

Some of the cut would be calculated over the last three years so if Manchester United or Liverpool had a bad season, it wouldn’t matter as much because other, more successful years would be taken into account.

At the moment central income ratio is capped at 1.7 to 1 between big and small; this might see it reach 4:1. And what’s fairer than a league in which the wealthiest get four times as much basic income as their rivals lower down?

The same with television revenue with clubs permitted to sell eight games on their own platforms. This would greatly harm the broadcast deal, with the loss of exclusivity, and that money could only be recouped if the PPV packages were hugely successful. And who is likelier to benefit there: Manchester United and Liverpool again, or Burnley and West Brom?

So, again, the elite clubs lose nothing, the smallest clubs get squeezed. The only time they are all treated the same is when handing out bungs to the EFL and FA to make it happen.

Paying £250million to the EFL and £100m to the FA, the clubs are equal. When voting, sharing television revenue, creaming off the profits of PPV, they are not.

The donations, the good causes, the infrastructure, they are all the sheep’s clothing, disguising the wolf. Everything here benefits the elite. Small clubs would lose two games’ revenue in an 18-team competition, plus the odd bonus League Cup fixture.

The elite? Nothing. Those gaps in revenue would quickly be filled by expanded European competitions and the revamped Club World Cup, the gulf growing ever wider.

This plan is not to be trusted — even the charitable aspects.

When Parry helped set up the Premier League, it was ostensibly to aid the England team. Soon, everyone knew the truth. Do not be fooled by this, either. Do not be fooled by the grassroots talk, the money for the women’s game, the £20 tickets for away fans — this is a power grab dressed up as reform, the closed shop reworked as opened-armed generosity.

And they want to tie the Premier League to UEFA’s financial fair play rules, too. Of course they do. They are stricter and unyielding.

If Manchester United and Liverpool can usher in UEFA’s FFP — attached to revenue streams only available to the biggest and richest clubs — then that truly is the end for the likes of Leicester or Wolves challenging the status quo. And that is what terrifies them.

Not that another club like lovely Macclesfield might go bust. Aston Villa 7 Liverpool 2. Manchester United 1 Tottenham 6. That’s the waking nightmare, and it always has been. That they won’t be good enough to sustain their status.

That, like AC Milan in Italy, they will slip from relevance. So they want it all: the money and the control. They want to make the rules, shape the game, decide who gets what, who gets in. And Parry, once again, is their willing accomplice.

Just as he was in 1992 when, as chief executive of the fledgling Premier League, he helped alter a system that awarded 50 per cent of broadcast revenue to clubs outside the top tier — the second tier got 25 per cent, those below 12.5 per cent each — to one that benefited a small group and placed football on its road to ruin.

Only fools could not see through this, but in many ways, it is almost a positive. Project Big Picture is so transparent in its aims, so repulsively skewed towards the richest, so disgustedly naked in its protectionism that the howl of rejection and outrage should be deafening.

Under the guise of improving the economic outlook for all, it delivers the bulk of its money into the greasy mitts of an over-privileged, over-entitled elite. It fixes the game in favour of six clubs, while shifting the financial burden to the 14 straining every sinew to remain competitive.

It is a disgrace, the opposite of a solution, and deserves a pauper’s grave.

[Chester Perry]

The news articles on Jorge Mendes keep on flowing - there is this from Adam Crafton in the Athletic https://theathletic.co.uk/2118700/2020/ ... m-ronaldo/ but it is behind a paywall. The Mail though have this which starts by looking into how he started as an agent

Jorge Mendes started with one client he picked up in a bar... now he's completed nearly £200m worth of Premier League transfers (and pocketed £18m personally) this summer as his influence over English football grows even stronger
- Jorge Mendes was football's first 'super-agent' and his influence is only growing
- Cristiano Ronaldo's trusted advisor is expanding his Premier League portfolio
- Mendes is an advisor at Wolves, where his first ever client is the manager
- Ruben Dias' club-record £64m move to Man City had Mendes as the middle man
- His Gestifute agency now manages the affairs of 21 Premier League players
By KIERAN JACKSON FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 22:01, 11 October 2020 | UPDATED: 22:57, 11 October 2020

At the beginning of Cristiano Ronaldo's 2015 film, Jorge Mendes is in a restaurant reeling off the clubs who were interested in the then-baby faced Sporting Lisbon teenager. There were no shortage of takers.

'Juventus, Inter Milan, Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia - everybody wanted Cristiano. Thank god, Sir Alex Ferguson came to me and said "Jorge leave it with me." This is the story. Nothing is impossible my friend. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing, believe me, trust me, trust me, nothing is impossible. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!'

That may as well be the case for Mendes, who not only remains Ronaldo's trusted ally and genuine friend amid his global stardom, but has also seen his influence across big-money transfers worldwide skyrocket in the past two decades.

Football's first ever 'super-agent' no less, Mendes runs the Portuguese agency group Gestifute, which is responsible for the services of 122 players and managers worldwide, according to Forbes. That, in itself, is an influence and control abnormally high.

Everyone starts somewhere though. Having failed in his own pursuit of playing professional football, Mendes was a nightclub owner in Portugal when he bumped into Nuno Espirito Santo in 1996, a fledgling goalkeeper attempting to carve a career out of nothing.

A conversation materialised. An agreement was reached. A deal to top-division side Vitoria de Guimaraes orchestrated. And with that, his first client, Mendes began his ascent to the top of the agency food-chain.

Yet for a man now 54 years of age, there's no signs of slowing down. This summer, Mendes has expanded his ever-growing Premier League portfolio, with Tottenham's imminent loan-to-buy deal for Benfica hitman Carlos Vinicius the seventh move over the line.

Furthermore, whilst his clients' needs come first, Mendes doesn't half reap the benefits. According to Portuguese newspaper The Ball, Mendes has collected up to £18.1m (€20m) of commissions already this summer.

Manchester City's club-record acquisition, Ruben Dias from Benfica for £64.3million, was brokered by Mendes (he received a reported cut of £6.1m), as was Diogo Jota's surprise £41million move to Liverpool.

But these don't even scratch the surface. That's the thing with Mendes: in a traditionally unpopular profession, his reputation and affability go a long way.

With Portugal's rising stars and senior professionals nearly all under his control, Mendes' network at the top of English football shows no sign of stagnating.

WOLVES - SEVEN PLAYERS, ONE MANAGER

Unsurprisingly, Mendes' control is most keenly felt at Molineux, where his first client Nuno is now the head coach. The pair are incredibly close.

A staggering total of 10 Portuguese players are now in the Wolves squad, with seven managed by Gestifute.

Ruben Neves, Daniel Podence, Rui Patricio, Pedro Neto and Joao Moutinho are five Wolves stalwarts whose affairs are all controlled by Mendes.

What started as an ambitious project when Nuno was hired three years ago has turned into a mass Portuguese overhaul - and Mendes has played his part.

Officially, Mendes' role at Wolves is simply advisory. The club's former managing director, Laurie Dalrymple, said in 2017: '[He is] someone, because of the friendship with the owners, that we take opinions and advice from.'

This year, Nelson Semedo's club-record £37million move from Barcelona had Mendes as the middle man. 20-year-old midfielder Vitinha, who joined on loan from Porto, is also managed by the super-agent.

Even summer outgoings, of which Wolves have had a fair few despite two years of continued success, had Mendes at the heart of deals.

Diogo Jota, Matt Doherty and Helder Costa all departed the club in the past few months, bringing in a combined total of £72million in transfer fees of which a substantial amount has been redistributed into improving the playing squad.

Gestifute have control of all three players, with Doherty a notable anomaly in his Irish nationality differing from the norm. Mendes took responsibility for the right back last year, with his prominence amongst the first-team dressing room no doubt spreading.

Don't be surprised if Mendes' role at Wolves continues to rise, as the team and club continues to grow exponentially worldwide.


MANCHESTER CITY - FOUR PLAYERS

One of the biggest deals of the summer, centre back Dias' move to City this week broke the club's transfer-record, at £64.3million.

At 23 and the now former Benfica captain, Dias is a player who represents the exact mould of a classic Mendes client: young, enormous potential and Portuguese, obviously.

Gestifute also controls the affairs of Portuguese internationals Bernardo Silva and Joao Cancelo, as well as Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson, who also moved to the Etihad from Benfica.


LIVERPOOL - TWO PLAYERS

Mendes would no doubt have been a satisfied and somewhat proud spectator when Jota scored on his home debut for Liverpool in the 3-1 win against Arsenal on Monday night.

The 23-year-old Portuguese attacker is managed by the Gestifute chief, and his surprise £41m move was facilitated as a result of Mendes' close relationship with the board at Molineux.

Gestifute also manage the affairs of Fabinho, who moved to Anfield for £32m in 2018 from Monaco and has become an integral member of Jurgen Klopp's trophy-winning juggernaut.

TOTTENHAM - TWO PLAYERS, ONE MANAGER

Alongside Ronaldo, Mendes' most famous client is none other than serial trophy winner Jose Mourinho, who is now in charge of his third Premier League club in Tottenham.

Interestingly though, Mourinho's move to Spurs last November was not led by Mendes, with the Spurs gaffer thought to be unhappy with Mendes releasing a statement in December 2018 declaring Manchester United were happy with their manager.

Mourinho was sacked 11 days later.

Nevertheless, Mourinho is still listed as a Gestifute client and having played a role in all of Mourinho's European moves in the last 20 years, Mendes has had a significant influence on many of the players his clubs have signed over the years.

This summer, Doherty's move down south was orchestrated by the 54-year-old, while Vinicius' incoming loan with an option-to-buy deal from Benfica will see Mendes' influence at Spurs grow - even if Mendes' relationship with Mourinho is perhaps not what it once was.


EVERTON - ONE PLAYER

It's early doors, but one of the most mouthwatering purchases of the summer was Everton landing Real Madrid playmaker James Rodriguez. A statement signing, if ever there was one.

Rodriguez was frozen out under Zinedine Zidane at the Bernabeu and despite links to a host of clubs across Europe, the Colombian's relationship with Carlo Ancelotti was seen as pivotal - a factor which will not have been lost on Mendes.

One of the most famous stars in Colombia has Mendes managing his affairs, both on the pitch and off the pitch in the world of sponsorship and endless marketability.

LEICESTER - ONE PLAYER

Signed from Porto two years ago, Ricardo Pereira overcome a few early struggles to become one of the Premier League's star right backs last season, particularly when Leicester were challenging at the very top of the table.

The 26-year-old Portuguese international, who has seven caps for his country, is managed by Gestifute, with the trend once again obvious.

A Portuguese player in his early-20s, at one of the Primeira Liga's top clubs, securing a big-money move to England.

LEEDS - ONE PLAYER

Helder Costa is slightly different in his trajectory since arriving in England, but Mendes' influence in his career shows clear parallels with his other clients.

Under contract with Benfica until 2017, Costa thrived at Monaco and then Wolves before securing a permanent move to Molineux for £13million three years ago.

However, he flourished on loan again at Leeds last season and made his stay at Elland Road permanent in July, signing a four-year deal.

ASTON VILLA - ONE PLAYER

Like Doherty, Mendes' sole representative at Villa Park breaks the mould.

Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi joined Aston Villa permanently from Lille last summer for £8million.

A regular in the starting XI last season as Villa stayed up on the final day, the 25-year-old's affairs are managed by Gestifute.

FULHAM - ONE PLAYER

Fulham's free-kick specialist Ivan Cavaleiro played a key role in Scott Parker's side achieving promotion to the Premier League, even if their start in recent weeks does not bode well for the rest of the campaign.

Cavaleiro, like plenty of Mendes' clients before him, followed the Benfica-England route, with a stint at Monaco in 2015-16 in-between.

He did actually play regularly for Wolves in their Championship-winning season and their first year in the Premier League but amid the influx of Portuguese stars, the 26-year-old trickster was one player cast aside by Nuno.

WEST HAM - ONE PLAYER

Signed by the Hammers last summer from Boavista, Goncalo Cardoso is yet to make his first-team debut.

A 19-year-old centre back, he played regularly in the 2019-20 campaign for the club's Under-23 side.

Cardoso has also played five times for Portugal's Under-20 team and is another Portuguese teenager snapped up by Mendes. As a result, the sky should be the limit.

AND HIS INVOLVEMENT DOES NOT END THERE...

With all that and more on his plate with Gestifute, you would be forgiven for thinking Mendes' influence stopped there. But it does not.

The Portuguese agent often acts as an intermediary between clubs and players unassociated with Gestifute, and he is known for having a very close relationship with Manchester United despite no clients under his official stewardship playing at Old Trafford.

A partnership that is reportedly so close to an extent that Ed Woodward jumped up in a state of joy when Mendes called him in front of a group of journalists five years ago. Mendes, as you would expect, knows those in charge of the purse-strings very well.

He is involved in ongoing talks regarding Jadon Sancho's potential move from Borussia Dortmund to Manchester United, while he was reportedly paid £6.4million from Porto after Fabio Silva joined Wolves - even though he is not even the striker's agent!

All in all, if there's a big European deal brewing, Mendes is very likely to be involved. With Ronaldo coming towards the end of his career, the super-agent is already planning for life post-Cristiano.

And it seems English football will be associated with Mendes and his team for many more years to come.

[Chester Perry]

The Telegraoh with some of the background to Project Big Picture or is it "Revitalisation" now

Project Big Picture: the inside story of Liverpool, Man Utd and EFL plan to 'revitalise' professional game
SAM WALLACE OCTOBER 12, 2020

The Premier League was created, back in the early 1990s, out of the flames of the conflict between the Football Association and the Football League – a forgotten grudge which feels like ancient history now but dominated much of 20th-century English football.

The biggest clubs in the English game played off the FA against the Football League to get what they wanted. Famously, Greg Dyke, then negotiating on behalf of the broadcaster ITV, recalled later in his years as FA chairman that the governing body’s priority in 1992 was to inflict maximum damage on the Football League instead of securing the guarantees that were theirs for the taking.

In the early 1990s it was the big five of the era who led the breakaway - the two Merseyside clubs, the two North London rivals and Manchester United.

Thirty years on and attempts to re-mould that same Premier League – now the most powerful, and the most lucrative, sport league in the world – has echoes of the way in which it was created. The Premier League’s executive and all but its two most famous clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool in conjunction with the EFL chairman Rick Parry, have been bypassed.

But for Parry this is a scheme 25 years in the making. Three years after the Premier League began, in 1995, the Football League board spurned a second opportunity, backed by all bar one of its clubs, to share in the riches of its much more profitable sibling when, as Premier League chief executive, Parry offered to take over the negotiations for the Football League’s television rights and give a percentage of their combined income in return.

When, in 1995, the proposal was put to the 72 Football League clubs, 71 voted in favour of throwing their lot in with the Premier League. But the Football League board rejected it and insisted on negotiating alone.

Now the same offer forms part of these proposals. The EFL clubs themselves were mostly unaware of the strategy being pursued – many of them finding out when The Telegraph revealed the plans at lunchtime on Sunday. Before then Parry says that he has, at different times, alluded to the plan he had in mind, arguing that systemic problems mean clubs are not able to respond properly to the Covid crisis.

Indeed, talks have been ongoing for three years involving some of the most powerful owners in the Premier League. Among them was the American billionaire John W Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner and a key figure in what would become “Project Big Picture” and later the “Revitalisation” document.

So too Mike Gordon, another in Liverpool’s Fenway Sports Group, and one of those credited with the club’s recent transformation into European and then English champions. Parry was also speaking to Joel Glazer who has overseen a rather less successful ownership of Manchester United since his late father, Malcolm, bought the club in 2005.

Why did those billionaire investors, who control the most powerful clubs in the English game, choose Parry to help them restructure the sport? Among other things, he is regarded as a man who – as his interview The Telegraph reveals – is prepared to say the things that other figures in the game may believe privately but fear to utter. With Parry in charge of the EFL, United and Liverpool also believe that he can deliver consensus from his 72 very different members.

But this is a major gamble. Over the course of the three years, Parry worked in secret with the two biggest Premier League clubs to come up with a plan. He cares less about the power it will give the wealthiest clubs and more about the 25 per cent annually of Premier League revenue that will flow to his impecunious members. Others may be more conflicted but Parry regards this is an unprecedented concession and he is not afraid to say so. In the meantime he has secured agreements from his members for salary caps which he says will be an end to the ruinous spending of years gone by.

For United and Liverpool, the pay-off is not a greater share of the revenue from the Premier League’s television deal – they are insistent that will not happen. Instead those two clubs say they want the power, along with the other members of the elite to shape the rules of the league and also to have more matchdays to compete in a potentially expanded Champions League. Those who oppose them are much more dubious that it will not deliver a greater share.

The authors of “Revitalisation” are on their 17th draft already. Optimistically they want to see it in place for the 2022-2023 season. On the question of how the Premier League would come down from 20 clubs to 18, there is no firm proposal yet. The league’s original reduction from 22 clubs to 20 took three years because the Football League was not ready to accommodate the extra clubs until 1995-96.

Parry has shared his plans with just a few close confidants, including the Stoke chairman, John Coates, and his Middlesbrough counterpart, Steve Gibson. “They are 100 per cent supportive because it is for the greater good,” Parry said. “Those two are genuinely up for it. They are excited, and passionate about it. In a time when everyone is panicking how we will emerge from it you need a long-term vision and you need hope.”

[Chester Perry]

The Independent also looks at the background of Project Big Picture - It is a little eerie how some of my posts over the last few months speculating about how the big clubs want the Premier League to look, now look in the cold light of Revitalisation

Project Big Picture: Why sooner or later English football needs to change
Rick Parry’s controversial proposal may not necessarily be the answer but as distress calls sound across the game, a new vision for English football’s sustainable future is undoubtedly needed

Tony Evans - 41 minutes ago

Rick Parry was at home when the phone rang. John W Henry was on the line. Liverpool’s principal owner was watching a documentary in Boston and a familiar face came on the screen.

The programme was about the laboured birth of the Premier League in 1992. Parry was the organisation’s founding chief executive. Henry made the call. The American sounded surprised. Was Parry really the man who helped create the monster? Henry said they needed to talk.

The conversation amused the man who would become chairman of the EFL. Of course Henry knew about Parry’s past. The two men have had a relationship since the Boston-based billionaire bought Liverpool a decade ago. Parry, as a former chief executive at Anfield, had provided advice, local intelligence and the benefit of his knowledge to the new owners. Henry had just forgotten. Get over to the States, Fenway Sports Group’s leader said. We need to talk.

The conversation – which never actually took place during Parry’s subsequent whirlwind trip to New England – was about a restructuring of the economy of the domestic game. Henry had been pondering football’s finances for more than half a decade. His exasperation was palpable.

Project Big Picture is the fruit of that frustration. As early as 2012, Henry was telling acquaintances that the sport’s fiscal basis was fundamentally flawed. It annoyed the 71-year-old that little more than a handful of clubs in the Premier League drew global interest. The Big Four, Five or Six – it changed over a decade - paid the bills. It was hard to see the point of the likes of Blackburn Rovers, Blackpool, Wigan Athletic, Birmingham City, Stoke City and half a dozen other clubs who came and went from the top flight. In American terms, the division was stacked with minor league clubs playing in the majors.

What Henry found particularly annoying was that teams in the bottom half of the table seemed to have little more ambition than avoiding relegation and pocketing the television cash. Parachute payments fostered a ‘bare minimum’ ethos and warped competition in the Championship, too.

The flip side of this is that a 20-team league of doughty battlers who fight tooth and nail to stay up means life is exacting for the teams in the Champions League places. Playing English football, even against the ‘lesser’ sides, is demanding. The elite, Henry figured, were getting the worst of both worlds.

The battleground manifested itself in the argument over overseas broadcast rights. The big clubs felt sharing the money equally was unfair and began a campaign against it. There were clandestine meetings in New York to discuss strategy but the fellow malcontents – Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur - had narrower aspirations than Henry. He did not want a bigger slice of the money. Revolution has been on his mind for a long time.

Those more familiar with English football’s past – with Parry at the forefront – explained that there was an element of Groundhog Day in Henry’s thinking. Yet the Boston Red Sox owner would not let it go.

He was talking about handing 25 per cent of the Premier League’s annual revenue to the EFL eight years ago. The money would ease the fears of the top-flight’s bottom dwellers and make the Championship less about the biggest spenders. At least in theory.

When Parry became EFL chairman last year, the 65-year-old’s prime objective was to restore some financial sanity to the lower leagues. With his vast experience of football administration, Parry planned to curtail the worst excesses, especially in the second tier, and introduce a salary cap. Then Covid-19 hit the game hard.

The pandemic presented an opportunity. Since March, the EFL chairman has talked about this being a chance to assess the direction of the sport and ask whether there is a better way. Henry’s thinking dovetailed. Both men have had massive input in Project Big Picture.

Joel Glazer also believes in the concept. The United co-owner has stridently supported the idea and even tried to convince other Big Six executives that the pyramid is crucial to English football’s future. The thought of a Glazer being the flagbearer for the game’s infrastructure is mindboggling. Cynics see this as an opportunist attempt to use the pandemic to grab power. Even the elite clubs have mixed feelings.

Spurs are broadly supportive. Arsenal, Chelsea and City have concerns. The Premier League clubs threatened with the removal of the one-club, one-vote system are furious.

Henry and Parry – and Glazer, too, no doubt – genuinely believe that they are proposing the best deal for English football. Parry fears that Coronavirus will hasten the decline of smaller clubs and have an adverse impact on communities across the country. Henry thinks an 18-team Premier League and a wider dissolution of broadcast revenue would benefit all parties. The quid pro quo is that those with the most financial muscle want the most influence.

The situation is so desperate in the EFL that the majority of clubs would take the £250 million short-term bailout money and, with reservations, accept a quarter of the Premier League’s annual income.

The top-flight clubs who would lose their voting power are less inclined to agree. The public are suspicious of change. No wonder, after a week where pay-per-view raised its ugly head and fans feel they are being railroaded into spending £14.95 to watch individual televised games that are played behind closed doors, on top of their hefty Sky and BT subscriptions.

Project Big Picture was leaked and its authors were not ready to make their case. That put Parry in the line of fire. With hindsight, Henry and Glazer might have been more proactive and announced these ideas in a staged setting rather than let it seep out in the media. Nevertheless, Henry and – in particular – Parry have the game’s interests at heart.

Revitalisation may not be the way forward but the sport cannot continue to operate blithely in its pre-Covid dreamland. Change needs to happen. Sooner rather than later.

Liverpool, United and the EFL have attempted to bypass the inertia and provide a roadmap for the future. It is flawed but is a basis for dialogue. Those who object need to offer their own vision of a sustainable future.

Distress calls are going off across the game. The crisis can no longer be ignored.

[Chester Perry]

The government today have reiterated their view that Project Big Picture is just a Power grab and are insistent that if there is no unconditional aid given by the Premier League then they will go ahead with their fan led review of the game. Pf course the Premier League is fully aware that the said review is an election manifesto promise so was going to happen anyway

Premier League warned football faces government review if EFL rescue package cannot be agreed
JEREMY WILSON OCTOBER 12, 2020

The government has warned that a review of football governance will be immediately enacted if the Premier League cannot agree a rescue package with the English football League.

Speaking on Monday morning, culture secretary Oliver Dowden condemned a plan drawn up by Liverpool and Manchester United that would see a £250 million bailout paid to the EFL, as well as an increase to 25 per cent of future Premier League revenues, in return for sweeping new powers for English football’s biggest clubs.

This would include even a two-thirds veto for the nine longest servest members of the Premier League over future ownership changes at any of their rivals.

Despite support from the EFL and some of the biggest clubs, the plan has prompted outrage from elsewhere in the Premier League, with other clubs fearing that it is an attempt to safeguard the competitive dominance of the so-called ‘big six’.

Dowden called it a “backroom deal” and said that it was the wrong time to be mixing discussions over financial support with radical governance reform.

“The challenge facing football now is ensuring particularly the EFL has the resources to enable its clubs to survive,” he told the BBC.

“This deal does not command support throughout the Premier League at all, so rather than do backroom deals to try to reform football at this critical moment, I would rather they are working together to ensure the future of football.

“I know that these conversations have ensured they won’t allow a club to go to the wall but we do need a more comprehensive package. I have to say that if they can’t get together to work this out, we will have to return to what we promised in our manifesto which is a fan-led review of football governance. I think many fans will be concerned about what they are reading.”

Dowden also reinforced the government view that the Premier League does have the resources to safeguard the rest of the professional pyramid. “If you look at the Premier League, I believe during the last transfer over £1 billion was spent. That is more than the four largest clubs in Europe, after the Premier League, put together. There are the resources.”

Dowden also stressed that there was little immediate prospect of fans returning to football matches.

“Ultimately against this backdrop of rapidly rising infections, I think you will appreciate that now is not the time to do that and add to the risk of infection spreading,” he said.

Asked later on Monday by Sky if it was a "good plan to protect smaller clubs, or a power grab by some of the major Premier League clubs", Dowden said: “I fear it’s the latter. If we keep having these backroom deals we will have to look at the underlying governance of football. The events that I have seen in the last few weeks have made this seem more urgent. They have got the money to ensure support for the game in this difficult time. It does raise genuine questions about the governance of the sport.”

[Chester Perry]

Meanwhile the Telegraph's Luke Edwards joins the list of commentators against the Project Big Picture plans

Project Big Picture is a disgusting idea - a power-grabbing new low for English football
LUKE EDWARDS OCTOBER 12, 2020

Trying to explain what I think about 'Project Big Picture' without resorting to swear words and name calling is a challenge in itself - for me, it is disgusting. To launch a cynical and blatant power grab in the middle of a global pandemic, while dangling a supposed rescue package in front of EFL clubs who are facing financial ruin, is a new low for English football.

It should be stressed that the financial package would be most welcome and there are some good ideas amid the proposal. But at the core, in this form, is a desire for the Big Six clubs to seize control of the Premier League and bend it to their will in the future. There is no reason why the rescue package could not be offered without these stipulations. People need to remember that.

What the Big Six want is to end the one-club, one-vote system and to create a cartel. Strip the window dressing away and this is what you are left with. It is so brazen. It seems to insult our intelligence to spin it any other way.

The first question we should always ask ourselves of those who want to reduce democratic constraints and increase their power to such a level that they will have absolute control of the decision-making process is: 'Why?' Once you do that here, it reveals the need for it to be rejected.

As with all power grabs, spotting it is one thing, stopping it is another. There would be no checks and balances, and that is incredibly dangerous moving forward.

Absolute power in the hands of a tiny elite should be resisted. They will assure us they only want what is best for English football as a whole, that they will not abuse their power, that they want a truly competitive Premier League, and they want to help the smaller clubs. Of course, every dictator says the same thing about the nation he or she is about to subject.

Some will believe them and view it as a price worth paying for this extra money for lower league clubs, but the elephant in the room is this – once they have their power, what will they do with it? What in the track record of the Big Six clubs suggests they are interested in anything but themselves?

For example, below are some of the things they could change and get away with if this is allowed to happen.

- The share of the broadcast television deal each club receives, seizing the majority for themselves and widening the financial gulf. They could impose a salary cap in relation to turnover, ensuring their own wage bills dwarf the rest of the top-flight making it easier for them to sign all the best players.

- They could, in the future, order specific League One and Two clubs to accept their players on loan, creating B-teams through the back door, in order for the money they give the league as a whole to continue.

- They could change the relegation and promotion plan to one club up, one club down. Or even scrap it all together.

- They could continue to trim the size of the Premier League, taking it down to 16 or even 14 teams so they can focus on the construction of a new European Super League and move into that without having to completely split with their domestic football markets.

- Gradually reduce the money they pay to the EFL clubs over time as there would be nothing to stop them renegotiating. This is what supermarkets have done to local suppliers in the past, getting them to rely on the income paid out from themselves and then renegotiating the contracts once they are, so they squeeze the suppliers and raise their own profit margins.

- Stop Premier League clubs playing in the FA Cup to create a Premier League Cup competition instead.
They might not do these things, but the point is they could, and nobody would be able to stop them.

The Big Six would run the Premier League and if you think they would do that to benefit English football as a whole, you are sadly deluded. They would run it to benefit themselves, to strengthen their power, not weaken it.

[Chester Perry]

@SwissRamble with a thread looking at the recent 2019/20 financial results announced across Europe and how they have been affected by the covid pandemic

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 5358038016

[Chester Perry]

I posted about the takeover of the Stellar Agency by ICM last week - this article in the Athletic looks at the business reasoning behind it - would be grateful if someone could transcribe

https://theathletic.com/2126770/2020/10 ... ed_article

[Chester Perry]

The Football Today podcast asks are clubs investing too much money in 'wunderkids'?

https://www.footballtodaypodcast.com/po ... wunderkids

Includes a little bit about how Burnley's transfer approach is unique in the Premier League and gives us a a key differentiator from the herd approach allowing us to be relatively competitive with our meagre (in comparison) financial resources

[Chester Perry]

@DrRob_Wilson with a thread on Project Restart from his academic perspective - one of his most coherent arguments in some time I would say

https://twitter.com/DrRob_Wilson/status ... 6215171072

[Royboyclaret]

Been informed this morning that Manchester Utd will publish their latest financial results within the next week. Be fascinating to see how deep the impact has been of the pandemic on a British club, and, more specifically, how the accountants at Old Trafford have dealt with the broadcast rebates that relate to last season. This, of course, on the back of some startlingly poor results at the likes of Roma, Barcelona and latterly AC Milan.

[Chester Perry]

Been informed this morning that Manchester Utd will publish their latest financial results within the next week. Be fascinating to see how deep the impact has been of the pandemic on a British club, and, more specifically, how the accountants at Old Trafford have dealt with the broadcast rebates that relate to last season. This, of course, on the back of some startlingly poor results at the likes of Roma, Barcelona and latterly AC Milan.

yes Roy they are due on October 21st and as usual we will have the added benefit of the analysts call to provide yet wider information on the financial impact of Covid in the Premier League. One would expect that whatever treatment the accountants have come up with will have been approved by the Premier League/UEFA and is likely to be the standard treatment for all clubs at that level.

[Chester Perry]

Just had a brainstorm that will interest Roy

we have been trying to work out where the added TV income in our accounts has come from as neither Europa League or domestic cup runs account for it. I now suspect that the monies is actually a equal share of Parachute payments that have not been paid because the intended recipient has been promoted back to the Premier League. It used to be that those monies were distributed to the EFL but that changed in the previous cycle I think.

I also think as the Parachute payment is flexible depending of length of stay in the Premier League, and budget is fixed on a worst case scenario that these payments will now become an established feature for Premier League clubs.

They will be counted as TV income because the payments come from the Premier League

[Chester Perry]

the Telegraph with the reason that may explain why Tottenham are broadly in favour of Project Big Picture (you also have to think that Liverpool have a stadium expansion and Old Trafford is looking very tired)

Exclusive: Tottenham Hotspur eligible for £125m stadium rebate under 'Project Big Picture' proposals
SAM WALLACE OCTOBER 12, 2020

Tottenham Hotspur will be able to claim back around £125 million for the costs of their new stadium and Liverpool around £30 million on their newly-built Main stand under a clause in the “Project Big Picture” (PBP) proposals, backed by the current Premier League champions and Manchester United.

Telegraph Sport has seen a new draft of the PBP proposals, authored by Liverpool and United ownerships, which includes major subsidies for clubs for improving their stadium, and also payments backdated for historical work. The PBP proposals are on their 18th rewrite and facing huge opposition from the Premier League and the clubs outside the elite since they were revealed on Sunday by Telegraph Sport.

Under the “infrastructure funds” of the PBP document, the Premier League clubs will set aside £150 million per year from central funds for subsidising stadium improvements with what it calls “assistance payments”. Clubs will be able to apply for “assistance payments” for up to £250 million of subsidies for the “hard costs” of new stadium buildings – less costs such as land acquisition and professional fees – if they have been in the league for 12 of the last 15 years.

A maximum of £150 million will be available for those who have been in the league for eight of the last ten years and a maximum of £100 million for those who have been in the league for the four previous years. Clubs will also be able to claim retrospectively.

The PBP proposal says: “Any club which has an eligible project that was completed in the last ten years … and with a minimum spend of £50 million per project receives 50 per cent of the assistant payments they would be eligible to receive under this program for 15 years (eg Tottenham, Liverpool, Man [sic] City and Brighton) resulting in a total of 25 per cent of the capital improvement.”

Spurs spent in excess of £1 billion on their new stadium, which opened at the end of the 2019-2020 season. Liverpool completed work on their Main Stand, at a cost of around £114 million, in the summer of 2016. Manchester City extended their Etihad south stand in 2015 with a third tier, costing around £50 million. All those projects would be eligible for a 25 per cent subsidy. It appears Brighton would also be eligible for a subsidy on their Amex Stadium finished in 2011 at an estimated cost of £90 million -although that would be dependent on the PBP plan being approved in the near future.

Liverpool are also planning further improvements to Anfield with the expansion of their Anfield Road stand at an estimated cost of £60 million. Under the PBP terms they would be able to claim back half the costs. Everton would potentially be able to claim back £250 million on their proposed new £500 million Bramley Moore dock stadium.

The Premier League has studied the PBP proposal since it became available over the weekend and believes that if adopted it would promote a greater disparity of wealth between the top clubs and those who finish at the bottom of the league. Currently the league is the most equitable in football with a 1:1.7 ratio split of television revenue between the top club and the one that finishes last.

The Premier League will tell its members that by season 2025-2026, when the full transition has been completed, under PBP proposals the bottom club would earn between £40 million and £50 million and the top club around £160 million. That would make the ratio between top earners and the lowest 1:4. All newly promoted clubs would be obliged to hold back £25 million per season for their first two years in the league, greatly reducing their spending power and chances of survival. The £40 million to £50 million figure represents a huge fall from the £102 million that bottom club Norwich City earned last season.

[Chester Perry]

finally the PFA do something positive for their members in the pandemic - from the Telegraph

PFA to fund weekly coronavirus checks for EFL clubs
TELEGRAPH SPORT OCTOBER 12, 2020

The Professional Footballers' Association has announced it will fund weekly checks to support EFL clubs in ensuring they continue to comply with coronavirus protocols designed to protect players and coaching staff.

A number of matches in the EFL in recent weeks have had to be postponed as a result of coronavirus infections among playing squads and there has been a concern that, as cases rise nationally, more games could be threatened.

There was also controversy over the weekend concerning Tranmere, whose chairman Mark Palios said they were told by the EFL they had to play their League Two match at Salford despite two players testing positive for coronavirus and a further four forced to self-isolate.

The funding from the players' union, which has not been disclosed but is understood to be substantial, will pay for experts from the Sports Grounds Safety Authority to visit clubs' training grounds and stadiums to ensure adherence with protocols. A selection of clubs will be visited each week for the remainder of the 2020-21 season.

It is understood the funding will not pay for any additional testing, but will nevertheless be a huge help to EFL clubs having to cope with the absence of spectators, after the Government pressed pause on the October 1 fans' return due to a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor said: "The PFA has committed to pay for audits for the remainder of the season and will work closely with the EFL to ensure that clubs can continue to fulfil their fixtures.

"From the outset of the Covid outbreak, the concerns for the welfare and safety of players and all club staff has remained the PFA's top priority."

EFL chief executive David Baldwin said: "To ensure the continued safeguarding of players and club staff, we are looking to introduce visits to help support clubs in assessing compliance with their own operational plans and risk assessments.

"The funding from the PFA will allow us to not only highlight the positive aspects of the protocols, but also to pick up on any areas of improvement to continue the fulfilment of fixtures in the 2020/21 season."

Tranmere were left with only 10 first-team players due to the coronavirus-related absences plus regular injuries and international call-ups.

Co-owner and vice-chairman Nicola Palios said on Twitter the club could not call off Saturday's match against Salford as there was "no guarantee a 15-point penalty would not be imposed" for doing so.

Chairman Mark Palios told the PA news agency: "We asked for guidance and were told (by the EFL) that if we had youth players, we had to play.

"They indicated that the other games called off were on medical advice. We have adhered to the fullest extent of the protocols required."

The EFL hit back in a strongly-worded statement in which it appeared to deny that Tranmere had made a specific enquiry, and added: "To suggest that a sporting sanction of 'up to 15 points' could be applicable as a result of potentially not playing a fixture is at best extremely misleading."

However, the EFL statement did note that in the case of a club calling off a fixture without specific advice, the governing body would look at the "specific circumstances" before potentially referring them to an independent disciplinary commission.

While a points penalty does fall within the governing body's disciplinary regulations regarding the non-fulfilment of fixtures, it is not a mandatory punishment or set at any specific number, and there could be other outcomes from any investigation once fully concluded.

[Chester Perry]

Everyone is waking up to the fact that Project Big Picture is being driven by the long term plans of Europe's biggest clubs, now fronted by Andreas Agnelli - this example in the Telegraph

What do 'Project Big Picture' proposals mean for a potential European super league?
BEN RUMSBY OCTOBER 12, 2020

One of the driving forces behind ‘Project Big Picture’ has been the anticipated expansion of the Champions League, with a cut in the size of the Premier League and scrapping of the EFL Cup leaving clubs free to play more games in Europe.

The proposal to reduce the world’s richest league to 18 teams mirrors the views of Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of both Italian champions Juventus and the European Club Association, who wants other competitions such as Serie A to follow suit.

Agnelli has also led on-going moves to revamp the Champions League from 2024, including changing the format of the group stage from eight groups of four to four groups of eight and – most controversially – plans for the top six teams in each group to qualify automatically for the following year’s tournament.

Those plans, which would have all but severed the link between domestic success and European qualification, were shelved just over a year ago amid fierce opposition, including from Premier League clubs.

Formal talks over alternative proposals have yet to resume as football continues to battle the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. But the ECA and Uefa still have up to two years to come up with a format that meets with approval before the latter sells the television rights for the Champions League seasons from 2024-25 onwards.

One proposal to emerge just before the pandemic struck would end automatic entry to the group stages by the Premier League’s top four sides – as well as those from Spain, Italy and Germany.

Said to have been put forward by FC Copenhagen and backed by the likes of Ajax and Celtic, this plan would see every side to qualify for the Champions League ranked in order based on their European results over 10 seasons.

Premier League shake-up plans: The key players
The top 20 would then go straight into the group stages, with the remainder entering at different qualifying rounds depending on their ranking.

Had this format been in place last season, all four English clubs would have been ranked inside the top 20. However, that might not be the case going forward, especially if a team outside the ‘Big Six’ – such as Everton, Aston Villa or Leicester City – finished in the top four of the Premier League.

The pandemic then threw up another potential new format in the shape of last season’s ‘Final Eight’ tournament, which Uefa was forced to devise to complete the Champions League.

The success of the single-leg knockout mini-tournament saw the president of European football’s governing body, Aleksander Ceferin, reveal it could be retained in future.

However, that would almost certainly require more fixtures to be added earlier in the competition to maximise broadcast revenue.

The prospect of the Premier League’s Bix Six abandoning English football altogether and joining some kind of European Super League is not thought to be a realistic one.

Any breakaway threat over Project Big Picture is likely to be limited to joining forces with English Football League clubs to restructure the format of the domestic game in a similar way to the formation of the Premier League itself.

[Chester Perry]

Matt Law is the latest Telegraph journalist to speak out against Project Big Picture - and like most of the press talking about our club, still has no understanding of our club and how it manages it's finances.

Now is the time for clubs to smell danger - the cartel don't want serious competition to extend beyond six
MATT LAW OCTOBER 12, 2020

Oh the irony. It was only in May we were listening to constant reminders about how greedy the ‘rebel six’ at the bottom of the Premier League were being. How they were acting purely out of self interest in opposing curtailment proposals for the season to be completed on a points per game (PPG) formula.

Clubs safe from the threat of relegation, such as Crystal Palace and Burnley, were happy to go along with the so-called ‘Big Six’, pointing the finger at those who could go down and accusing them of worrying only about themselves.

So how do the likes of Palace and Burnley feel today, knowing that while the ‘Big Six’ were pretending to be their friends back in May, discussions were taking place to effectively kill the ambition of their clubs and potentially even kill a proposed takeover of the Clarets?

Does Steve Parish still believe that Palace are some sort of Premier League supermarket who shouldn’t be asked to bail out the corner shops down in the EFL? Liverpool and Manchester United clearly view Parish as nothing more than a market stall holder who should be grateful for being allowed his Premier League pitch.

The ‘Big Six’ offer is packaged as a bail out for the EFL and yet it is effectively a £250million offer to buy and run English football, and Parish’s market stall would not be able to expand or grow without their permission.

How does Crystal Palce owner Steve Parish feel today, knowing that the big six were pretending to be his friend, even while discussions were taking place to kill his club's ambitions?,’

West Ham United vice-chairman Karren Brady was one of those to speak out against the PPG proposals, but will she now be so vocal against the ‘Big Six’ after reading that her club would be one of those with increased voting rights thanks to their longevity in the top flight?

Only once in their last eight successive years in the Premier League have West Ham finished above 10th place and yet they would do better out of Project Big Picture than Leicester City, who won the League four years ago and have finished higher than 10th in each of their last three campaigns.

But just as Palace and Burnley have now found, it would be dangerous for West Ham to be duped into thinking that the ‘Big Six’ value them. And what happens when they might just promise to become a genuine threat to the established elite at any point co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold decide to sell the club? It won’t be an independent body who judges whether or not prospective new owners will be allowed in, it will be their rivals - those clubs who don’t want serious competition to extend beyond six.

No wonder West Ham, Norwich City, Watford, Aston Villa, Brighton and Bournemouth were opposed to PPG ahead of Project Restart, given the fact the ‘Big Six’ want to reduce the possibility of Championship clubs being promoted by cutting the size of the Premier League and altering the play-off format.

Villa, who survived on the final day, would have been relegated under the PPG scenario and, along with Leicester, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leeds United, they would be one of the big losers of Project Big Picture.

Leeds and Villa were among the highest spenders of the extended summer transfer window, and are two historic old clubs with genuine ambition to compete at the right end of the Premier League again.

But their histories, fan bases and even the money of their wealthy owners are not important to the ‘Big Six’, just as Wolves’ ambition and ingenuity in making themselves a force is not particularly appreciated.

If ever there was a time for clubs to finally smell danger as soon as the cartel start to pretend to care about others, then it is now. Just ask Palace and Burnley, and that pesky Project Restart rebel alliance who sensed a power grab could be on the horizon months before Parish was left to contemplate the old saying, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

[Chester Perry]

The Independent's @MiguelDelaney adds his view on Project Big Picture

Project Big Picture: English football needs drastic change – just not these changes
Proposed plans could stabilise the game in this country, or place it in a greater degree of stasis

Miguel Delaney - Chief Football Writer - 55 minutes ago

The split in football about ‘Project Big Picture’ is so profound that it rages in predictions about what will come next.

As early as Sunday afternoon, some influential figures in the governing bodies were declaring it “dead in the water”, but sources close to the negotiations were saying they feel they can get it through. The belief is that Joel Glazer and John Henry – the main architects of the document – are going to “go all in”.

The one thing that can be said for certain is that the discussion isn’t going away, even if the full details of this document won’t come to fruition.

There are multiple strands to this incredible story by the Daily Telegraph’s Sam Wallace, from power to politicking, but perhaps the most important is how you deal with inequality.

This is the root of it, as well as the root cause of multiple problems in football.

The sport was already coming to a watershed moment before Covid-19, and the crisis has only really accelerated that, as well as exposing the many fissures in the game so that they are in full view.

Many of “the 72” were already under existential threat. The game’s embrace of hyper-capitalism – to a greater degree than any other industry – has started to tangibly affect the sport, making it more predictable, and producing multiple glass ceilings.

These concerns are cornerstones of Project Big Picture. Richard Parry, the chairman of the English Football League (EFL), wants to save many of his clubs from financial oblivion. Henry, the owner of Liverpool, has long seen English football’s structure as illogical and believes it is no good for the Premier League that the majority of clubs who enter it are only there for survival.

As one source involved in the discussions told The Independent: “The reality is you could take any 14 EFL clubs and put them with the big six, and the product would be much the same – so why the huge difference in TV income?”

So, if you accept that football has almost unsolvable inequalities, and that EFL clubs will go bust within that, there is obviously a lot of logic in the plans.

It is why there was also logic to a lot of Parry’s sentiments, particularly one line on Sunday.

“Yes, there are bits that people won’t like,” the EFL chairman told Wallace. “All your points about the 14 and about competitive balance are absolutely valid. What do we do? Leave it exactly as it is and allow the smaller clubs to wither? Recognise we have an enormous gap, recognise we have a structure that depends [in the EFL] on owner funding? Or do we do something about it? And you can’t do something about it without something changing. And the view of our clubs is if the [big] six get some benefits but the 72 also do, then we are up for it.”

For all the talk of football’s biggest revolution since 1992, though, this is not smashing the system. It is a tacit admission of attempting to work within the system.

It is also why a lot of the plans are so appealing. Who could argue against a bail-out that immediately saves EFL cubs, and instantly puts in place structures that mitigate against financial failure in future? Who could have an issue with huge reparations, especially to the FA and grassroots good causes, that many in football have demanded from the Premier League for so long?

This would stabilise English football, and during the most volatile crisis the sport has ever seen. But this is also the problem, and one of the most profound arguments against Project Big Picture. It doesn’t just stabilise the game but put it in stasis, ossifying the existing power structure, freezing it at this point. It doesn’t just put in safeguards, but hard ceilings.

EFL clubs would be safe, but little more. It would be virtually impossible to ever rise up in that vintage way that is supposed to be one of the great virtues of the pyramid that Glazer professes to love.

A potential veto on club owners only further illustrates that. That is an incredible level of power, and yet still not as much as the change to the voting system. That, whereby six of the nine “legacy” clubs – the longest serving in the Premier League – would have the casting vote on any of the major decisions, is where the counter-argument really centres. It is actually what would really unanchor the top clubs from the rest of the game, in a manner that has only really been feared up to now, but never quite come true.

This would change that. It would be an evolution of the existing unequal system, rather than the true revolution required.

It could also have major unintended consequences. The big six would really be able to reshape the division as they see fit, something they are currently only capable of influencing. And whatever about the intentions of the current owners, there is the totally unknown problem of who their own next owners are.

All through any future changes, mind, the big six would persist as the monolith at the peak of the game. And why? Just because they managed to be big enough at a certain moment in time. It is only a few years since Henry himself complained it was only a big four that were attractive.

The flip side to all this is that the current status quo isn’t just a moment in time susceptible to the usual fluctuations of the game, but a situation already set in place by the game’s wider economic forces. Football has unintentionally manoeuvred itself so the super clubs are going to be the supremacy indefinitely. That’s now how the game is loaded. There is a strong argument, as articulated in these very pages, that it’s gone past the point of no return.

That’s the reality. The big six are not exactly going to be sanctioning the sport’s version of Das Kapital any time soon, so perhaps this is also the only realistic solution: accepting these circumstances and working within them.

It is also pointed that many see the changes as creating space for allowing Juventus owner Andrea Agnelli’s plans for an expanded Champions League, because some view all of this as an Agnelli-style move in the first place: putting out the most extreme version of the idea – said to be “draft 18” – so as to pre-emptively position the debate and get more changes through than might have been envisioned.

Whatever the truth in that, it doesn’t feel like this current plan is the full solution for English football. It has broader merits, but the fundamental and inescapable problem is that you don’t truly solve inequality by further institutionalising inequality. It is never a good idea in sport to ring-fence any set of teams.

This is the start and end of the argument, even if it is not the start and end of the wider discussion. Football needs drastic change – just not all the changes here.

The only truly workable solution to all of this is mass change to the distribution of TV money. It is the main source of inequality, and the upward drag that creates so many financial problems for clubs, and distorts competitive balance. For the big clubs, however, that is an idea that is certainly dead in the water. It leaves us with this...

[Royboyclaret]

Just had a brainstorm that will interest Roy

we have been trying to work out where the added TV income in our accounts has come from as neither Europa League or domestic cup runs account for it. I now suspect that the monies is actually a equal share of Parachute payments that have not been paid because the intended recipient has been promoted back to the Premier League. It used to be that those monies were distributed to the EFL but that changed in the previous cycle I think.

I also think as the Parachute payment is flexible depending of length of stay in the Premier League, and budget is fixed on a worst case scenario that these payments will now become an established feature for Premier League clubs.

They will be counted as TV income because the payments come from the Premier League

Top detective work, Chester !!........Solves a problem that's been bugging us both for some time. The only qualification might be the size of the figure, £7.7m for Burnley in '18/'19 from £107.3m to £115m. Our comparable figure the previous season was £1.7m. At a level of £7.7m for many Prem clubs, that would represent a sizeable total figure.

According to Wiki two teams in the '19/'20 analysis, Hull and Boro, will not be receiving third year parachute payments as a result of their recent short stay in the Prem, therefore probable additional payment available to us again.

[Chester Perry]

the Ugly Game with a blog piece on Project Big Picture - as ever it comes from his distinct perspective

https://theuglygame.wordpress.com/2020/ ... e-know-it/

[Chester Perry]

There is nothing that has surprised me more about Project Big Picture than the attitude of the Guardian writers and their willingness to start negotiations based on the proposals. This time it is the turn of Jonathan Liew

Elite clubs' offer to EFL sides: you will be looked after – and know your place
Jonathan Liew

Leaked proposals contain both good and bad ideas, but Project Big Picture must be more than a licence to print money

Mon 12 Oct 2020 19.00 BST Last modified on Mon 12 Oct 2020 20.38 BST

Not many people seem to remember Benjamin Disraeli’s novels these days, partly because – by and large – they weren’t very good. Indeed, had their author not gone on to become one of the most important politicians of the 19th century, it’s likely they would have been almost entirely forgotten: a mixture of Byron-esque pastiche and half-baked political manifesto churned out largely to subsidise his extravagant London lifestyle. “When I want to read a novel, I write one,” Disraeli once claimed. Contemporary critics scoffed that it showed.

And yet for their many flaws, there’s some interesting stuff in there: the flesh and bones of the ideology he would take with him into office, a paternalistic conservatism whose influence over modern politics – even if only in motif – endures to this day. Disraeli deplores the widening gap between rich and poor. He chides the avarice of the ruling class and the thoughtless worship of wealth. He declares: “Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the PEOPLE.”

This isn’t the slash-and-burn conservatism of Thatcher or the early industrialists. It is moderate, enlightened, pragmatic, and yet still utterly in thrall to old power and old money. And reading through the detail of Project Big Picture, the audacious power grab authored by the owners of Liverpool and Manchester United, it was impossible not to be struck by common threads.

In a way, the proposals leaked to the Telegraph over the weekend were the epitome of sporting paternalism: a generous redistribution of wealth, enforced by a startling consolidation of power. At a stroke, it would secure the financial future of the English league pyramid while rigidly strengthening existing hierarchies.

The implicit message to England’s smaller clubs: yes, we’re all in this together, you will be looked after. You can exist in dignity and comfort. But you will also know your place. It is the equivalent of giving a drowning man a lifejacket in exchange for his right to vote.

And so what is being sketched out here is far more interesting and nuanced than much of the wide-eyed horror of the past 48 hours would have you believe. As ever, we await the small print and continue to process the ramifications. But what’s clear at this stage is that over its nine pages Project Big Picture contains some radiantly good ideas (the commitment to away fans, the provision for safe standing, the investment in crumbling stadium infrastructure, to name a few), some jaw-droppingly bad ideas, but most importantly in a landscape where the status quo has never felt more rotten, some new ideas.

Of course, the background to the big reveal – years in the talking, months in the fine-tuning, and yet coincidentally only seeing the light of day in the middle of a crisis – should only underline the need for suspicion. The motives of the biggest clubs have never been more manifest. We see now that the Premier League’s pleas of penury and destitution were a convenient mountain of bullshit: the money to fund the lower levels of the game properly has always been there, and always will be. But when you are a billion-pound company with a nose for blood, you don’t donate. You buy.

So what are the big clubs buying? Essentially, a licence to print their own money. The ability to sell some of their own overseas television rights is a first logical step to decentralising broadcast revenues. The ability to scour club accounts and veto new owners is a way of extinguishing any potential competition before it can materialise. The ability to alter any of these clauses at a moment’s notice should provide further pause for thought: what’s to stop the so-called big six entirely reneging on their financial commitments at a later date? Nothing, this column was told by a source close to both clubs, who claimed it was “very much a good-faith thing”.

Right. Good. Well, that sounds the sort of issue you want to leave to a handshake.

The long-term consequences? Unknowable, and yet guessable. A more unbalanced Premier League seems inevitable, with a handful of perennial heavyweights and a revolving cast of makeweights staffed primarily by loans and cast-offs. Below the top four divisions, the proposed four-up-four-down system is likely to set off new waves of unsustainable spending at non-league level, as lustful owners scramble to earn a slice of the Premier League’s largesse.

And yet, so many of the objections to this deal remain rooted in stubbornness, in hopeless idealism, perhaps even in nostalgia for a world that no longer exists and can no longer exist. The complaint about English football being run from Boston and Florida feels a touch pernickety: who on earth cares where your unaccountable billionaire power-broker happens to be registered for tax purposes? And the pleas for them simply to fund the pyramid in perpetuity through altruism alone betray a touching and vaguely deranged departure from reality.

Meanwhile, fans are still locked out of the stadiums, wages are due at the end of the month and many EFL clubs see no viable future beyond Christmas.

We can sit and fume about all this, about how it all came to this, about the greed and entitlement of the six clubs and Can 2020 Just End Now Please. Or we can see this as the springboard for a new and richer conversation about who owns and funds this game. We can fight for the parts we want and kick back against the parts we don’t. It feels exhausting. It feels futile. But what else is there?

[Chester Perry]

the Telegraph have been milking Project Big Picture for all it's worth, but there is no doubt they have prepared all the angles on their Exclusive story in advance and seem to be churning an article every hour online to keep the clicks going - the thing is, it is so well structured you just want to keep on reading - In this one they look at the head to head between Richard Masters and Rick Parry

Rick Parry vs Richard Masters: In heavyweight battle between Football League and Premier League chiefs, only one may survive
TOM MORGAN OCTOBER 12, 2020

Amid all the Project Big Picture cheerleading from Rick Parry since Sunday, it is the one time he went quiet during back-to-back media briefings that set the tone for Wednesday's Premier League meeting.

The English Football League chairman has declined to comment on one theme: has he already asked the Big Six clubs to abandon the top tier and join his competition if they fail to get their way.

As breakaway fears were raised again, two senior chief executives among the remaining 14 clubs exchanged laughing and crying emojis on WhatsApp. "The no comments from Parry said it all," said one of them. "It was just quite funny that a man who is asking for us to hand over hundreds of millions for Covid suddenly refuses to comment on whether he has any solidarity with us."

Whether or not their anger reflects the majority in the Premier League, all will become clear on Wednesday when each club is asked their opinion on the plans at a potentially stormy shareholders' meeting. None, however, will be quite as dismayed as Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive.

There is an acceptance even within the league's socially-distanced HQ near Paddington Station that warding off a civil war within the world's wealthiest domestic league is already destined to become the defining theme of his new regime.

What a legacy he is taking on after the Richard Scudamore boom years. Masters' leadership skills have already been severely tested this summer by a lockdown which is likely to leave the league up to £1.5 billion out of pocket by next May. TV rights deals are most likely to dip again in the next domestic sell-off. And don't mention the drawn out saga over the collapsed Newcastle takeover.

For Parry, 65, the stakes are arguably even higher. He had not planned for the coup to be launched quite like it was announced on Sunday. The majority of EFL clubs had not been alerted prior to The Daily Telegraph's extraordinary revelations. Parry wrote hastily to them all that he had not intended for them to find out like this.

However, as one of the founding fathers of the Premier League, he has been planning his big moment for years if not decades. The offer tabled is not a million miles from reforms suggested in 1995 when Parry, then chief executive of the Premier League, offered to take over the negotiations for the Football League’s television rights and give a percentage of their combined income in return. The offer was turbocharged in more recent years by Parry's meetings with American billionaire John W Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner.

For Liverpool and Manchester United, the central involvement of Parry was an obvious chess move from the moment he was appointed last September to chair an EFL board whose most pressing concern were the collapse of Bury and salaries in the Championship surging towards 107 per cent of revenue.

Right man, right place, but arguably the wrong time in announcing the proposals, negotiators believe, due to the potential impact in thrashing out a deal with the Premier League over a rescue package.

Darren Bailey, the former director of football governance and regulation at the FA, suggested Parry, Liverpool and Manchester United were raising issues that would prompt "quite a lot of emotion" regardless of Covid.

"There's this kind of linkage of the short-term rescue package with the suggestion that there needs to be a profound reset," the sports lawyer, now of Charles Russell Speechly, told The Daily Telegraph. "Whilst there is always this concept of don't waste a good crisis, I do have concerns about this idea of linking... I would prefer to go back to the basics and say, 'what's really wrong with the model, and what really needs to change and can we actually get everybody in the room'. Can the heat be taken out of this by agreeing a formula for a rescue package that everyone's comfortable with?"

No such luck for Parry, as first Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, and then the Prime Minister's spokesman came out to condemn his "backroom" negotiations. Neither does he seem to have the immediate support of the FA. The Daily Telegraph understands Greg Clarke, the FA chairman, was aware of general "future of football" talks around four months ago, but the governing body had not heard from Parry, Liverpool or Manchester United in the intervening months.

Across the EFL, support appears more optimistic for Parry, a former accountant who served as Liverpool CEO. The likes of Stoke and Forest Green Rovers were among clubs to express appetite on Monday.

However, their lobbying powers could be rendered pointless if Liverpool and United executives fall flat on their face at Wednesday's meeting. And what now for the EFL's much-needed rescue package? An intensely-awkward meeting between the two league chiefs looms before the end of the week. Executive careers are now on the line, as is the future of English football. You won't see Masters v Parry listed in the Premier League's new £15.99 PPV offering, but the consequences of this heavyweight bout will be box office.

[Chester Perry]

The Media are starting to wake up to what is driving Project Big Picture - the Telegraph again

The Americanisation of English football: Project Big Picture is about money and control and will hasten end of our game as we know it
JASON BURT OCTOBER 12, 2020

Two years ago, Liverpool’s principal owner John W Henry gave an interview in which he once again expressed his frustration over the finances of English football.

It was ahead of a key vote on how the money generated by the sale of international TV rights was shared, with the argument being that the bigger clubs are the greater draw in, say, Kuala Lumpur and should be given a larger piece of the pie.

The ‘Big Six’ were driving it and eventually, after some backroom arm-twisting by the then Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore to persuade the other 14 clubs to cede ground, they got their way. Interestingly, one chairman claimed at the time that it was the beginning of the end for the Premier League as we know it and the concept of 'one club, one vote' for the 20 shareholders.

It was also telling that Henry drew a comparison with America when he talked about having “closed leagues” and how it was OK to share the cash around more evenly when there was no jeopardy. “It’s much more difficult to ask independent clubs to subsidise their competitors beyond a certain point when you have relegation and especially the way media is rapidly changing and being consumed today,” Henry argued.

Remember what he said there – he talked about having to “subsidise” other clubs and how media is changing. They are key points in deciding what is really going on with Project Big Picture. It is not a re-distribution of wealth. It is offering, effectively, a “closed league”. It is, finally, the Americanisation of English football which presumably Henry and the Glazer family, who own Manchester United, have long been aiming for given their clubs are the sponsors behind what is cheerily called a “new model of governance”.

From Boston to Palm Beach, it is already a land of closed leagues, and that is what they want for England also, with Henry having never attempted to hide his frustration at the way the finances of football operate in this country.

In principle, he is right. The system does not work and, as has been discussed over the past few months, it needs to change, but the argument that what is being proposed is fairer and is a “new era of sustainability” is utter nonsense. It may be sustainable, there may be some good ideas - but at what price?

Indeed, what no-one in support of the radical overhaul has done - and it has not been addressed by English Football League chairman Rick Parry - is answer the fundamental question: if, as the briefing notes from the EFL claim, it will “revitalise and rejuvenate English football’s pyramid for the long-term by correcting long-standing issues” then why does it follow that for this to happen the control and future of football has to be handed over to the 'Big Six' who would be the decision-makers? It seems, at first glance, that all the documentation does is take that quantum leap without saying specifically why.

Except it does. There is a nugget in there that starts to explain everything and goes back to what Liverpool and United - and presumably Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur - have all been lobbying for and why Kuala Lumpur was mentioned at the beginning of this column.

It was a former Liverpool executive - not Parry but the man who replaced him at the club, Ian Ayre - who famously broke from the position of collective selling of rights by saying, “if you're in Kuala Lumpur there isn't anyone subscribing to [rights holders] Astro or ESPN to watch Bolton - or if they are, it's a very small number - whereas the large majority are subscribing because they want to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal”.

So Project Big Picture talks about bundling the selling of rights together - the Premier League, the EFL, even the FA Cup - for the greater good and, by the way, the forecast of a 10 per cent increase for the next round of negotiations to help fund everything is pretty optimistic in the current economic climate.

But it also says “all Premier League clubs shall have the exclusive rights to sell eight live matches a season directly to fans via their digital platforms in all international territories (ie excluding the UK) ideally one per month”. And it goes on to say that while the Premier League will continue to support the so-called “3pm Saturday blackout” - when matches are not allowed to be shown live in the UK at that time - if that were to change (and I wonder who might want it to?) then clubs will be able to broadcast games “on club consumer channels and digital platforms”.

So there we have it. They want more power because they generate the most income and to help them generate even more income - but only for themselves. If Project Big Picture was to be approved, the dam would burst. It would hasten the end of collective bargaining, it would hasten the end of competition beyond the 'Big Six', it would hasten the end of the Premier League as a competition.

There is yet more. Reducing the league to 18 clubs means there will be only 17 home league games for income, from gate receipts as well as broadcast, for most of the clubs - while the Big Six will expect to play in Europe where the plan is to increase the number of fixtures.

So while Liverpool and United insist they will not gain a greater share of the Premier League’s broadcast deals, that misses the point. They will be able to cut their own deals.

The architects of the plan say there is no intention to do away with relegation and while, even under the current arrangements, no-one would expect Liverpool to go down, the changes would mean there is almost zero chance of them finishing outside the top six.

That would become a ‘closed league’ within a league and who is to say that the clubs would not simply, over time, vote for more and more for themselves? Ah, the argument goes, that can be vetoed by the Football Association with its so-called ‘golden share’ - but what would that mean in reality? The FA may well owe the Premier League far too much.

On Thursday, Henry celebrates the 10th anniversary of acquiring Liverpool and he and Fenway Sports Group have done so much good for the club, where debts were mounting and the fans had lined the streets around Anfield in protest. Certainly FSG is far more popular than the Glazers at United. But both are wrong with this plan, while the suspicion that American owners moving into football was always going to lead to something like this happening is beginning to prove true.