Change on the horizon….

 

….but same old problems remain. Fans have only been back for a few weeks and already they are making noises, unfortunately not the ones that the media or Gareth Southgate like. I am not going to get involved in the politics on this, however my concern is that fans have been constantly told by the media, journalists and football people that they have been missed this season, yet the return of fans to the recent playoff games and international game has already created a device. 

Racism in football must never be tolerated and we have previously had some excellent campaigns over the years including “Kick it Out” which has been supported by every league club. Gareth Southgate has explained in detail that the players decision to take the knee has nothing to do with the political side on Black Lives Matter (BLM), and whilst he has every right to fight the players corner. We need to listen to the fans and ask them why we have a minority booing, standing with arms crossed/no reaction and finally fans clapping.  When fans were allowed to attend games for a short period, Millwall had a minority booing as their players took the knee and instantly the fans and the whole club were branded as racist. I listened to many phone-ins after this incident and Millwall fans were calling in to defend the action and insist it was the BLM's political motives as the reason for not appreciating their players, who represent their club and fans, joining in and politicising the issue. We have already seen players like Zaha at Palace and Lyle Taylor at Nottingham Forest speak out and say they will no longer be taking the knee. Brentford have already made it official that their players will no longer be taking the knee and I don't think they will be the last. 

I will never boo players kneeling at games that I go to, however it is really important that clubs communicate with their fans about this sensitive issue as the last thing football needs now are fans being divided and issues arising at grounds next season. 

If we simply accuse the fans booing or complaining about this, we are more likely to see further devise, when communication with all fans to find an answer and a continuous message about racism will bring us together and be united. 

We all know football is broken and the need for change is needed and could be starting to take shape. Fair Game was launched a few weeks ago and Tranmere Rovers became the thirteenth club to fully sign up and join the other clubs determined to link up and improve the governance of our beautiful game. AFC Wimbledon along with other clubs such as Newport County, Chester & Leyton Orient are leading the fight for change. 

Fair Game has a wide range of advisors covering all aspects of the game and the recent webinars have been insightful and thought provoking as to what the game could look like if change is finally pushed through. It is increasingly obvious now that football is unable to govern itself as too often there is a conflict of interests. Why would UEFA ban the ESL clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and the naughty English clubs from their Champions League, when these clubs are the reason UEFA gain excellent sponsorship from the biggest brands in the world. From 2015 to 2020, UEFA had revenue of around $23 Billion compared to FIFA with revenue of $7.3 Billion over the same period. UEFA are trying to increase the number of clubs in the Champions League to increase revenue and FIFA are trying to increase the frequency of World Cups to every 2 years. It shows the hypocrisy of UEFA in the way they reacted to the ESL breakaway. 

Equally, why would the EPL penalise the supposedly big 6 and make examples of them and penalise themselves by not having the main attractions on show. I am now fully expecting these clubs to receive monetary fines that are effectively a slap on the wrist and buried in the papers the day England get knocked out of the Euro 2020 this summer. Reports in recent days inform us that the EPL and the six clubs who signed up for the ESL are close to reaching agreement on the fines to be imposed.  Sorry, but they have come to an agreement?? Does that mean that if I break their rules at Plough Lane, I can negotiate with the CEO to ensure that I receive the punishment that I feel merits my actions??

During the first webinar for Fair Game they had a couple of presentations. One was from Darren Bernstein, a board member of Shakers Community, the owners of Bury AFC Podcast version , which was really powerful but also was reflective on the signs that the club was spending more money than it had, but the fans didn’t react or realise until it was too late. Darren spoke about the pain of the club collapsing and that even in the final hours, they had a lifeline from an EPL owner for £2m, but it was rejected by the EFL and Bury were allowed to die. 

TWO MILLION POUNDS!

It takes Gareth Bale around 3 weeks to earn this money and that was earned sitting on his behind in an empty Tottenham Hotspur stadium earlier this season. These clubs can be saved, just like Macclesfield could of been saved, but it feels that Bury and other clubs alike were made an example by the EFL, whilst the same organisation seemed to drag their heels and save Derby County from League One and they tried their best to help Sheffield Wednesday with a reduced point penalty. Sheffield Wednesday are still not paying their players on time this season, yet that will now be League One’s problem. Friday’s presentations included Mick Parsons from Club View explaining how a digital solution could help sustainability. Club View have set up a digital presence that tracks clubs finances in real time, which would help the clubs using it, but more importantly, help an independent regulator identify clubs not following the rules and punish them in the same season and not one to two seasons in the future. This digital solution would also provide financial help to clubs being promoted into a league they have no experience of. Steve Parish of Crystal Palace sought help from the EPL many years ago when Palace first got promotion as he had no idea of the money needed to survive in the EPL and what monies they should be looking for in terms of sponsorship. This digital platform would have helped him along with other new clubs gaining entry to the promised land and whilst it wouldn’t provide exclusive access for clubs to see their rivals financial data, it would give benchmarks for shirt sponsorship and wages being paid for similar sized clubs. 

Too often fans are only finding out that their club is in trouble financially and the safe measures in place from the EFL are reactive and in some situations way too late. In recent times, clubs like Bolton & Wigan have been hours/days from going bust and even when they were saved, they went into administration and point deductions. To think that since Wimbledon last played Bolton at Kingsmeadow on 7th March 2020, they have been relegated, sourced new owners and been promoted back to League One. In another weird situation, Southend United fans last saw their team play on the same weekend, with a 3-1 win at home to Bristol Rovers in League One, yet the first game back will see them opening up in the National League. 

The panel on Friday’s Webinar included Kieran Maguire from the excellent podcast “The Price of Football” and he has been a leading person highlighting the financial situations of football clubs and was the first person to notice the strange going on’s at Wigan with their owner selling the club to another company that he owned, but putting conditions on money loaned from his previous company, which included interest of 20% if the repayments were not kept. Keiran had seen this change of ownership and highlighted the strange conditions within the contract. The worrying theme from the panel was that we have been here before with football seeking regulation from the government and nothing happening. It is felt that this is the best opportunity for independent regulation in decades as this serving government seems to be a populist government and they have seen the strength of fan anger with the ESL and could be keen to be involved with the change that would help them to a new term, whenever that is. 

When you look at the change needed, football is broken to the extent I doubt you could resolve it all in one go. I have looked at the key areas I would love to see independent regulators acting on and making the game fairer for all.

The most important regulation is needed with the distribution of the TV money paid to the EPL. The government allowed the EPL to rollover the 3 year £4.8b tv deal from 2022. This was allowed with the EPL agreeing for an additional £100m to drop down into the EFL on top of the yearly solidarity payments. It's important to remember that around 92% of the yearly TV money stays in the EPL and the remaining 8% is paid to the EFL in solidarity payments, split 80% to the Championship clubs, 12% to League One clubs and the remaining 8% going to League Two clubs. 

Why do these clubs need such large amounts of money?

My own club Wimbledon saw £625k of solidarity money last season, whereas the season Huddersfield Town were promoted to the EPL in 2018, they went from total income of £15.8m in the Championship, to £125.2m the following season and a further £119.3m the following season and finally £52.7m in 2020.  This is an unbelievable increase in income for one promotion and then the parachute money guaranteed for 3 years on a sliding scale. The five seasons before promotion to the EPL, Huddersfield’s income totalled £59.7m, yet the next three seasons saw income of £297.2m in total. 

We need to distribute this money fairly and do we actually need to be charging these high sums for TV rights? 

Too much money is going out of the game to agents, players and directors. 

Players have short careers and need to earn money in a short period of time, with the average playing career currently at 7 years, but with a reported two thousand players out of contract this summer, the money needs to drip down to the pyramid otherwise we will see historic clubs either go bust or no longer able to play professionally. 

The introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) was accepted by the EFL clubs in October 2011. 46 were in favour and 22 against with the others abstaining. The word “accepted” can be used loosely as the EPL made informal threats that the solidarity money would be suspended until this EPPP was agreed. 

Why did they do that?

Well the EPPP only benefited the EPL clubs who could afford to be the true elite and be able to spend the most money on training facilities, staff and therefore benefiting from less money needed to obtain players and the compensation from clubs lower down the EPPP grading was based over future performance and made it even more difficult to benefit financially from the local talent they developed.  

I would like to see the EPPP scrapped and more protection for clubs to either keep the players they develop or be rewarded fairly in transfer fees. For too long the odds are stacked in the favour of the elite and this enables them to stockpile players and stack the odds in their favour of finding the next star player. The ones that don’t develop end up crashing out of the professional game, either to fall away or start back in non-league to get back up the pyramid. 

Clubs need to be encouraged to invest in their academies again as too many now have either scrapped their academies or followed Brentford’s model of closing their academy and purchasing older players to play B team friendlies, loaning them players to lower league clubs, ready to force their easy in to the first team. 

An independent regulator could provide grants to clubs lower down in the pyramid to upgrade their training grounds, increase staff levels and invest in the future. With Norwich and Watford returning to the EPL at the first attempt this season, the parachute money due to be paid has now been retained by the EPL and would guess this goes back to the clubs in that league. Yet more money going into a massive pot, yet the reported £80m due to these clubs, could be split amongst the 72 EFL clubs with strict guildlines where this should be spent. That is £1.1m per club to invest in their academies. Entering B teams into the Football League Trophy has proved the flop everyone knew it would be and we have more chance of creating the next Bellingham or Rashford. 

Finally the salary cap needs to come back in, but in a fairer way and based on revenue rather than a flat cap. Whilst this flat cap would have been amazing for my club, we have just moved into a new ground with the opportunity of increased income, so we want to be able to benefit from this, in the same way Portsmouth, Ipswich and Sunderland can. We need to stop clubs spending over 100% of their income, or closer to 200% in the case of Reading, but we still need to allow clubs to grow, especially if the football world is to become a fairer place.