What is a fair game?

  

Great Question isn’t it. 

 

Not easy to define in once sentence, however my idea of a fair game is to ensure that all professional teams have the ability and opportunity to progress up the football pyramid. Fans are able to dream of promotion into the top divisions like we did the moment we were successful in our application to the Football League in 1977. 

 

The next seven days could be as important for the English Football League (‘EFL’) as 1992 was for the newly formed English Premier League (‘EPL’). Tracy Crouch is due to release her  independent fans led review of football governance  independent fans led review of football governance following on from her preliminary findings and recommendations in July 2021 

 

Without going into massive detail of the findings, the strong feel was that a new Independent Regulator for English Football (‘IREF’) is needed, and needed urgently. Since the EPL was created our Football Association (‘FA’) has gradually lost any control of the national game and the EPL effectively call the shots on what they want to do and more importantly, how much money drips down the pyramid. 

 

Is it fair for only a small percentage of the EPL TV money, being paid in the form of solidarity payments to EFL teams each year? According to a  Blog from Fair Game , Total contributions were £350m to the EFL during the 2020-21 season, of the £350m revenue provided by the Premier League, £325m was allocated to the Championship – leaving just £16.1m and £11.2m  respectively for the 23 clubs in each of the bottom two leagues.” 80% is paid to the Championship, which I have always thought is way too much, however the reason is more than likely down to the wages these teams pay, trying to compete with the relegated teams from the EPL, who have 3 years worth of parachute payments. A relegated EPL club receives 55% of the broadcasting TV rights they received when members of the EPL in the first year, 45% in year two and, if the club was in the EPL for more than one season before relegation, 20% in the third year. According to reports in 2019, 55% equated to roughly £40m, with 45% equating to roughly £30m and 20% equating to roughly £15m. We recently reported that our playing budget was £1.8m for this season and the highest in league 1 was £10m

 

If the relegated team is promoted within the three years of the parachute payments period, they forsake the payment, and the payment goes back to, you guessed it, the EPL!

 

Unfortunately the game in the 21^st century is all centred around finance, so any fairness has to be around this. Teams in the Championship are spending over 100% of their yearly income on salaries and that can only result in teams going into debt. League One this year is full of teams who have been in the EPL since it was formed in 1992 and also spent years in the Championship. Bradford City was relegated in the 2000/01 season and find themselves in League 2 with a stadium that would grace the EPL, but a reminder to their, and opposition fans of the fall from grace they have had. Realistically clubs like Bradford City, Charlton Athletic, Sunderland and Bolton Wanderers to name a few, will only be able to get back into the EPL with significant investment from owners as their revenue though the gates along with other income streams will never compete with the parachute payments, let alone EPL clubs receiving £100m for being relegated. Is it any wonder clubs like Norwich City and Watford are yo-yo clubs between the top two leagues, being rewarded handsomely for failure, yet financial able to blow all Championship clubs out of the water on transfer fees and salaries. 

 

Over the last decade the EPL clubs have continued to call the shots with the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan (‘EPPP’) which significantly reduces the opportunity for clubs in the lower leagues to be rewarded for their development of players in their academies. Since it was introduced in 2012, clubs have to invest significant money into their academies to achieve a EPPP rating, to then receive a bigger percentage of funding for the level given to them. Wimbledon was awarded category 3 status in July 2018 and this is reassessed every 3 years. The EPL again wanted more and successfully campaigned for their EPPP Category 1 teams in the EPL and Championship would be allowed to enter the EFL Trophy from the 2016/17 season. The EPL campaign included some discreet conversations to the EFL about withholding the solidarity payments for that season if they couldn’t come to an agreement. 

 

I also have a problem with the EFL forcing clubs promoted from the National League to League 2, to change an artificial pitch to grass. The reason for this is that it needs a majority vote from the EFL member clubs, which has failed to be voted for over the years. This is madness when you can play FA cup games on artificial pitches and also in the Champions League, but not in League 2. Over the last few years Harrogate Town and Sutton United have had to pay around £500k to bring in real grass and Sutton would be impacted further as they hired out the pitch and it was used heavily by the local community. 

 

Thankfully football fans have had enough and with the launch of Fair Game, with Niall Couper from the Dons Trust Board heavily involved and other groups such as Gary Neville being involved in the “Manifesto for Change’ which is campaigning for independent regulation. This manifesto was launched in the summer of 2020 after the horrendous year most clubs had due the global pandemic. I watched all the workshops that Fair Game did online and they had some brilliant experts including Kieran Maguire from the award winning podcast “The Price of Football.” One of the workshops I really enjoyed was an expert talking about software that would produce real time financial positions of clubs and would be able to act instantly to clubs spending significantly over their income and be able to investigate. Currently it takes the EFL a good year to investigate clubs and even then clubs like Derby County & Reading are able to negotiate their punishment, and in recent times, when the punishment is implemented. 

 

A big development yesterday was the chairman of the EFL, Rick Parry writing to Tracy Crouch supporting the need for independent regulation. Previously Rick Parry has not supported this and has been involved in discussions with the EPL to sort out a solution between them. The timing of Rick Parry’s support for independent regulation is more than likely due to the report being out in the next 7 days and the EPL signing a massive tv deal with NBC. The EPL will not vote to give any more money to the EFL and I sense that Rick Parry has eventually realised this, many years after the normal football fan had. 

 

Football is broken and has been for over a decade with it getting worse every year that passes. If the government don’t support the Tracy Crouch recommendations, the game will continue to be dominated by the EPL and clubs in the lower leagues will go out of business, or fall into part-time regional leagues with no competition to the EPL clubs losing their place. 

 

What are the solutions?

 

Everything has to be controlled by an independent regulator and take away the controlling influence of the EPL. The FA need to be involved in the independent regulation and they regain the position they had before the EPL was created. This can allow them to concentrate on the game at grass roots and ensure that the correct funding is provided for this.

 

Rick Parry has suggested a 75%/25% split of tv money which would seem a good compromise and I would like independent regular to introduce some conditions around the full payment based on specific criteria. The EPPP needs to be reviewed immediately and give all clubs the opportunity to produce talent from the academy and be rewarded fairly rather than the EPL clubs picking off the beast ones for ridiculously low and frankly embarrassing fees. 

 

Review parachute payments and look to reduce them over a period of time. To remove them is crazy as the EPL clubs have player contracts on big money and it needs time to rectify this. I am not overly in favour of wage caps being the same for every club in the same league and it needs to based on income of the clubs. We have moved into a new ground and the aim of this is to bring in more income so it would be crazy for any of the benefit not being passed onto the first team squad. 

 

The removal of EPPP category 1 clubs from the EPL Trophy immediately!

 

The FA Cup needs to regain its magic and stop being treated with disrespect by clubs. I say clubs as I feel that the disrespect of the competition is seen in the Championship and League 1 with weakened teams being played. The reason for it in lower leagues is the money available doesn’t compare to League funding and EPL clubs play reserve teams so the glamour ties as they used to be viewed as, are nowhere near attractive. Keep the FA cup sacred and reduce the number of live games on TV. This year it was great to see 32 first round fixture being played at 3pm on a Saturday. I would also like to give the opportunity of the lower league club to change the home ground if they are drawn at home to a big club that would be a big financial earner being played away. Equally could the split of money from a fixture be weighted in favour of the lower league team, again recognising the money involved and the impact that has. 

 

I have loads more solutions and I could be here all day and to be honest, I am more than confident that Tracy Crouch has excellent and fair recommendations in her report, however I really hope that’s she has developed her idea of funding, detailed in her preliminary findings in July for the ladies game. This is a big area for the national game and ladies football is becoming more and more popular year on year. But it needs fair funding also as the Woman’s Super League (WSL) is again dominated by highly funded clubs and lower down the ladies pyramid is made up of part-time players. We have created a one-club approach and our ladies team are now playing at Plough Lane. The early games have seen over one thousand fans in attendance and it has the opportunity to increase the popularity of the ladies game amongst our fan base. The ladies game is benefiting from an increased TV coverage and you can watch the WSL on BBC and Sky Sports. I am not going to deny that the ladies game is played at a slower pace and the standard of some teams are poor, however I really enjoy watching the game as its more technical and play acting hasn’t reached the ladies game yet. The ladies are respectful to their opponents and this was recently seen when a Wimbledon player went to check on an opponent on the floor injured, rather than celebrate the goal that we had scored. As with the mens academies, funding needs to be provided to the girls academies. 

 

It has restored my passion for the beautiful game and I strongly believe that if we make the whole football word fairer, we will ensure that we keep the 91 league clubs that this country is proud of and admired all over the world. 

 

I look forward to the Tracy Crouch review being published and then its up to every fan up and down the county to ensure that this government doesn’t ignore or kick the can down the road, otherwise the game we all love will continue to benefit the few and not the many.