Gregor ROBERTSON
FOOTBALLER TURNED JOURNALIST
Self-regulation has failed. The time for an independent regulator is here. Two stories in football from the past week or so underlined why.
The first was news that the proposed “New Deal” for football — a new formula for increased wealth redistribution throughout the English Pyramid — had collapsed after months of intense discussions between the Premier League and the EFL.
The Premier League is currently sharing £1.6 billion with the Pyramid over a three-year period. That sounds like an eye-watering figure, right? Sure, until you realise that the vast majority of that is dished out to relegated Premier League clubs in the form of parachute payments.
The second was a story about how the same Premier League clubs are forging a plan that could result in many of them raking in millions in profits. The idea is for a new spending cap that would link the amount any club can spend on wages to how much television money is paid to the lowest-placed team.
The proposal is called “anchoring”, and would restrict the top teams (Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool et al) to spending, say, four and a half times the amount the bottom club (Sheffield United, Burnley or Luton Town, for example) received in TV money.
Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, right? Might help maintain a degree of competitive balance at a time when the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing wider. But here’s the thing. What happens about the clubs who participate in the Champions League? Or, from 2025, the new Club World Cup (prize money for the winner: €100 million)?
Those billionaire owners – who, as we have just been reminded, do not give a damn about the health of the Pyramid – will be able to cream millions off the top. A tidy profit, just like the European Super League plan was concocted for.
What the hell does this have to do with Non-League football, I hear you ask?
Well, if there’s a choice between sharing some of the game’s wealth to nourish the roots from which the Premier League has blossomed, or leaving the future of English football, and its financial structures, in the hands of a few venture capitalists and oil-rich foreign states, I know which one I’d prefer.
That’s why the bill introduced in parliament last week to confirm the creation of an independent football regulator was a huge moment for English football as a whole.
The independent regulator’s remit may not stretch any further than the National League, but it can still help shape the funding model that fortifies the grassroots game. A long-awaited third promotion/relegation place between the National League and League Two will be back
