So, just to make the world of football even fairer in the future, it looks like parachute payments paid to clubs relegated from the Premier League to the Championship will increase by a hefty amount. The current package being £12m a year for two years, which in itself is going to rise to £16m over the same timeframe for clubs relegated at the end of this season. The new four year proposal, which would start at the end of next season, being that clubs would get £16million for each of the first two years and then £8million for each of the second two years. The idea having been discussed at a Premier League meeting earlier this week, with a final decision to be made at their annual summer meeting in June should an agreement with the Football League be reached. The proposal is part of a package of solidarity payments for Football League clubs which was originally agreed in 2007. That 2007-10 package seeing more than £90million handed over, including £5.4million for youth development. Money for Championship clubs varying on how many were in receipt of parachute payments, while the money was distributed across the rest of the Championship depending on where they finished in the league table. Temper that with the fact that League One clubs received £103,480 each, and £68,987 went to League Two clubs and you can begin to understand quite how unfair the current system is. One club that has spent a lot of time at that level and is now playing on a higher stage is Doncaster, and their chairman John Ryan commented on the situation to the Yorkshire Post from a Championship perspective : " I don't think this is fair. It makes it even less of a level playing field in the Championship. Most of the teams relegated already go straight back up - Newcastle and West Brom. This move is against the merits of sport. Fairytales of the past will no longer happen. " We have a budget of £6m. How can we compete with Newcastle United on £42m? There is a danger that the Championship will become Premier League Mark Two with all the teams receiving parachute payments at the top and all the others at the bottom. It's a sad day when promotion and relegation is decided by cash. " Putting to one side the irony of John Ryan complaining about promotion and relegation being decided by cash, bearing in mind Ryan has reputedly personally financed Doncaster Rovers to the tune of £5m, you can see his point. I mean, not bad really is it, you can have one season in the Premier League, be truly awful, finish bottom by a distance and now you are likely to get £48m over the next four years for your "efforts". And this is where you are going to get turkeys not voting for Christmas when they were in the Championship and are now in the Premier League. One club that springs to mind in that situation being Burnley whose chairman Barry Kilby in the summer of 2007 was considering legal action against the Premier League to stop parachute payments, Kilby then commenting : " I will be campaigning this autumn for us to bring this to court. It's a good, strong case. I honestly feel that it's an illegal subsidy from the Premier League that distorts our competition so badly. Our next step will be to bring it to the League's attention. I would like to see what the League is going to do about it and discuss it with the other clubs. " Now that the Clarets might get relegated from the Premier League this season though his opinion seems to have softened somewhat, Kilby in November saying that they are a "necessary evil", Kilby telling the Burnley Express : " I realise why parachute payments are there. The problem is the big gap. It's a problem for those that are down there. It's hard for those competing against it. It's just a distortion of the league. But how do you work your contracts? They still are an evil, but perhaps somewhat of a necessary evil. It isn't fair to the ones that don't get that access. " Dave Whelan has forgotten where his club has come from as well, with the Wigan chairman calling in 2005 for a salary cap in what was then the Premiership. Whelan, who to this day bankrolls the club that he took up through the Football League on the back of his wallet, then commenting : " There's only one way to guarantee healthy competition in the Premiership, and that's why I'm calling for a salary cap to be enforced in the top flight. " And let's not forget Bolton chairman Phil Gartside who was last summer calling for that already mentioned Premier League Two to be introduced, with the two-tier set-up containing 18 teams apiece. One Championship chairman, who wanted to remain anonymous, commenting, in a similar way to John Ryan, that plans to extend parachute payments to four years " will effectively create a Premier League Two by stealth and the rest of us will be making up the numbers. " And that surely is the problem already, there hasn't been a club for years that hasn't been either bankrolled up from the Championship or hasn't come down from the Premier League and then gone straight back up in part thanks to their parachute payments. So there is already a good argument in place to say that we have a Premier League Two now, as the likes of Birmingham, West Brom and Wolves continue to show. A quick look at League One this season though shows just what happens if you don't make it back up before your two year parachute payment runs out though, Charlton, Leeds, Norwich and Southampton all being proof of that. But surely making the period four years instead gives former Premier League clubs a better chance of surviving in the Championship and going back up again? And what does that do for us mere mortals who remain in League One? Well, not much you would think, infact it could mean that fewer of the big boys in our division means less overall interest, smaller crowds and less money and so the financial gap then becomes even bigger. Although let's be honest, you would think we would have all got used to that ever-widening financial disparity by now. |