The fragile foundations on which the English football pyramid has stood for 150 years or more have been rocked by COVID-19 – yet it is the base of the structure looking more insecure than its pinnacle.
The national game, beyond the riches of the Premier League, finds itself in a rather precarious situation.
The first to offer a quote on shoring up and making good was EFL Chair and scouse bodge builder Rick Parry, backed by Liverpool and Manchester United – both famed for constructing impressive teams in their time, but spending up to 30 years doing so.
The solution: Project Big Picture.
Hastily written down on the back of a fag packet, the plans advocated sharing up to a quarter of the Premier League’s TV wealth in order to underpin League One and Two. However, reducing the Premier League to 18 clubs and including the 16th place team in the Championship play-offs meant the revamp would make it incredibly difficult for anyone wishing to ascend the stairs into the penthouse.
Those steps would be guarded by the North West’s Reds along with seven other specially selected pals in a clique that would retain the rights to decide if those steps are accessible – or even if they are there at all.
Described as “a sugar-coated cyanide pill” by the Football Supporters’ Association and “Project Power Grab” by the Government, it was no surprise Parry’s planning application for the revised pyramid was duly turned down by the Premier League.
Yet it’s unlikely this will be the end of the matter.
Such is the ludicrous and outlandish nature of Parry’s suggestions, and the lack of any top division backing for it beyond two, albeit huge, clubs, it’s not beyond the realms of probability this was designed with the express purpose of taking the temperature of the footballing community. To flush out the supporters and dissenters. To find out who has the stomach for change or not. To identify those who want something different. More profitable.
The bang and the clatter of this extraordinary plan hitting the floor is the sound of inevitability. While Big Picture is now broken into small pieces, it has led to the Premier League’s clubs today agreeing to work on a strategic plan to look again at “competition structure, calendar, governance and financial sustainability”.
For those of us the old enough to remember the footballing landscape of the mid to late 1980s, there will be some familiarity. During a period of unrelenting football hooliganism and a European ban, proposals and ideas for Super Leagues and breakaways swirled like smoke in the air for many years. It was obvious there would be change, that a turning point had been reached. By 1992 the conditions were right, and the support was there, to see the creation of the Premier League – with Norwich City a founder member.
Fast forward almost 30 years and here we are again. The unique situation in which we find ourselves is the opportunity for the biggest clubs in the land to push for a landmark moment similar to what was seen in the early 1990s. The smoke is in the air again, though it appears to be acrid.
With League One’s and Two’s clubs currently in such desperate situations, it was hardly surprising they were the leading cheerleaders for Parry’s proposals. Their immediate need, plus the promise of a £250m bailout and 25% of future TV revenue, appeared to blind them to the fact Project Big Picture was no masterpiece, but an ugly scribble.
My guess is that many saw the implications clearly, but knowing they are never realistically likely to reach the top division made it easier for them to swallow the unpalatable pill on offer if it meant they could survive – albeit forever confined to the bottom divisions. Or, in the case of two of their comrades, pushed into non-league.
The surprise was the support seen in the Championship – though getting the backing of Preston’s financially illiterate Peter Ridsdale, the man famed for almost drowning Leeds in hundreds of millions of debts, is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Norwich City, has, so far, kept its counsel on the whole affair. While not expecting a furious reaction from Delia Smith, it came as a surprise the club didn’t seek to reassure supporters that they would be seeking to fight the introduction of any such plans. As one of English football’s leading yo-yo clubs, Project Big Picture threatened to cut the club’s string as they descended.
According to BBC Sport’s Simon Stone, the 72 lower-division teams are firmly behind Parry. This could suggest that the club’s silence is because it backs many of the principals of Project Big Picture and is avoiding uncomfortable conversations with fans who, on social media at least, have shown themselves to be far from happy with what has been mooted.
Obviously this is just conjecture. Whatever the viewpoints held by our majority shareholder, and the board of directors, the Canaries’ leaders can’t ignore what is going to happen.
While Parry remains behind the wheel of the EFL and Liverpool owner John Henry and the United’s Joel Glazer have a say in Premier League matters, we are moving towards a ‘Whole New Ball Game’ yet again.
City needs to ensure any solution given to English football’s current plight doesn’t just benefit those at the very top of the Premier League, or those struggling to retain their status in the bottom division, but all clubs – especially those who have no desire to have their upward mobility curtailed and access to the top-flight restricted.
The revision of English football could be a truly collaborative process, but we all know the Premier League’s current 20 clubs will always be the beneficiaries of change. Currently on the outside looking in, Norwich City needs to work hard to get its voice heard in order to have any say on what comes next.
A watching brief appears to be the preferred option at Carrow Road, but perhaps now is the time for the club to look around at its Championship compatriots and find strength in numbers.
Those outside of the nation’s elite who do not seek to find those with whom they can share a vision and use these partnerships to build influence will find it difficult to have a voice in any further discussions.
It’s a fluid situation, and much will change over the coming weeks and months, but Delia Smith and Stuart Webber will be minded to remember that whatever occurs off the pitch to secure City’s future, the key to being at the pinnacle of a stable pyramid is to quickly rebuild fortunes on it.
It is no co-incidence that the chief movers for this, the owners of Liverpool and Man Utd, also own American sports teams and have grown up with the franchise model. The whole of “Big Picture” seems like a first step towards that system – reducing promotion and relegation, concentrating power and the ability to change the rules amongst an elite, controls and vetos over club ownership, etc. Some more tweaks and the only way that smaller clubs could get into the top “division” would be by expansion rather than on sporting merit. While that gives far more security and surety to the top clubs, it removes the ambition from the rest of the pyramid. But football clubs, at whatever level, will follow the money, and with a few honourable exceptions, will vote through a later watered-down plan for pragmatic reasons (survival now) but at the expense of shifting the whole culture of the game.
Football has been my main leisure interest all my life, both watching and playing, but if it’s heading to the American franchise model, then I’m done with it, at least at the professional level. It’ll be back to grass roots for me, watching my local team at the recreation ground.
Putting the power to control the whole game with six clubs (and it would be six, the other three are an irrelevance, as the six would have the extra voting power) means they can change the rules to suit themselves. How long would the 25% TV money for the lower leagues last? I believe as part of the suggested deal, Spurs would be handed £125M towards their new stadium costs, and Liverpool would get £30M towards their rebuilding costs. What they’re offering the lower leagues is a joke, when the already rich clubs can grab even more of the pot.
Parry may be full of enthusiasm for the scheme (maybe his Liverpool past has contributed to his myopia), but at least the FA have disowned it. Maybe if they grow a big enough pair, they can really take back control of the beautiful game, and prevent it getting even more tarnished.
It’s a curious quirk of some humans to mindlessly pursue money and power to the detriment of everyone else. It’s an even curiouser quirk that when they have that money and the power, they will want even more of it. Because however much they have, it will never be enough. It is the ultimate dissatisfaction – and the ultimate selfishness.
The best ‘reward’ for such behaviour is to allow these curious folk to get what they want so they end up promoting two fabulously rich and well media-served clubs who have to play each other every week on a small island in the middle of anywhere repeating a perpetual cycle of weary sameness because there is no one else left to play. Even then Sky viewers will probably still watch.
There is a small dark part of me (I apologise) who would love the whole thing to cave in on itself. Wouldn’t that be a thing? Imagine that? Footballers reduced to being just people? People who can kick a bag of wind around a field slightly better than most, rather than ill-feted ego-inflated megastars with vast mansions, genetically enhanced companions, and too many Bentleys to count. Perhaps then the focus of attention and reward could switch to those who actually achieve something useful with their lives rather than those who unknowingly provide just another hollow bread and circuses distraction.
Excellent comment W…………..
You are not alone, believe me.
There’s a really well thought out analysis on the Pink’un forum on page 8 of the thread called “Shake up of the Premier League”. It’s by someone called Chicken, and it’s near the bottom of page 8. It is well worth the read. Well done Chicken!
Whether a few clubs want to turn the premiership in another franchise controlled by American owners or not the big problem they will have is if the FA disown their league then they will lose millions by not playing in Europe as it is the FA that has to nominate which clubs have qualified each season.
The threat of a franchise league would then allow teams to be taken from their natural home base and relocated if another city offered the club a better deal, who would follow LIVARPOOL if they became known as Isle of Man FC or Norwich became Newmarket Canaries.
At present there are 3 clubs wholly owned buy Americans LIVARPOOL, ManU, Arse-nal with CP having major investers plus WHU looking to be the possibly next taken over followed by Newcastle but American investers.
Threats of a breakaway league scares everyone and Parry’s idea about taking the top6 and bringing them back into the EFL are all their to scare the other 14 clubs to toe their line or else, the first salvo have been fired and 14 clubs will not vote for being dumped out of the premiership if relegation happens without a parachute payment, but as more money grabbing American try and take over clubs the more chance of it turning into a closed shop.
The golden goose will be less competitive and interest around the world will die so less profits for their owners so once that happens the big investers will pull out and leave those clubs in the mire with no come back to the DA.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay safe and stay healthy
Why would the smiths silence be a surprise? It would seem to suit their ambitions for the club down to the ground.
The sound of silence didn’t surprise me mate. Not in the slightest.
Indeed, Chris. And it confirms much of what they said in the infamous Times article a year or two ago was correct. The Premier League (I refuse to use the awful “EPL” phrase) is a corrupt den of iniquity. And I say that as a red-toothed capitalist!
Football clubs used to be representative of their local communities with Directors drawn from the local business communities. That is still true of many lower league clubs. Unfortunately some Premier League owners are on ego trips and see their ownership as a money making vehicle. Unfortunately the Premier League hold the whip hand as they have the money. The FA were powerless in the 1990s to stop the Premier League being established and they are even more powerless now.
I don’t see how the Premier League will not get their own way unless the Government legislate.