Premier offer is ‘insult’

Stewart rap over cash plan

By Chris Dunlavy

Rotherham owner Tony Stewart has described the Premier League‘s offer of an extra £358m over three years as an insult to the EFL.

According to draft proposals revealed on Thursday, clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two would receive an extra £88m this season, an extra £101m next season and an extra £169m the season after.

However, this equates to just 14.75 percent of the Premier League and EFL’s combined net media revenue – significantly below the 25 percent the EFL is demanding.

The Premier League is now awaiting feedback from EFL clubs before making a formal offer, but Stewart, below, believes there is no prospect of an agreement being struck.

“What they’ve offered is an insult, quite frankly,” said Stewart. “We’re disappointed. The government is disappointed. The view is that it’s a token offer.

“It will be put to the members, I’m sure, but I’d be amazed if anybody was jumping for joy and thinking ‘Let’s do it’. We want to get near 25 per cent, and that’s been agreed quite widely throughout the EFL. Clearly this offer falls well short and it needs to be turned down.”

The Premier League currently distributes £110m annually to EFL clubs in the form of idarity payments’, but

‘sol- this is dwarfed by chute payments para- received by clubs relegated from the top flight. In the 2020-21 season, these

totalled £233m. This disparity was criticised in a government white paper, published in February, that announced the creation of an independent football regulator from 2024.

“The current distribution of revenue is not sufficient, contributing to problems of financial unsustainability and having a destabilising effect on the football pyramid,” it said. “Therefore, there remains a clear need to reform financial distributions in English football.”

Though the paper stopped short of legislating financial redistribution, it warned that unless the EFL and Premier League could agree a mutually acceptable deal then ‘backstop’ powers were in place to enforce a fairer settlement.

Negotiations have been fraught, with a succession of offers rejected by EFL chairman Rick Parry, who feels his organisation has the support of MPs if a deal cannot be reached.

Crumbs

“Rick is a good man who will work to get the best deal,” added Stewart. “Clearly, that’s not what this is. This is just a first offering to try and minimise how much the Premier League will lose.

“What the Premier League are doing – and they’ve been doing it for two or three years – is using delaying tactics and throwing out crumbs.

“That’s why we want another white paper, to create independent adjudication from the government, who acknowledge that it is a pyramid system and that there should be fair distribution of wealth.

“We’re gagging for the government to step in and appraise the situation as we have.”

The biggest impediment to any deal is parachute payments, which the EFL feel should be eradicated or at the very least massively reduced. The most recent offer does not address this issue.

“You can’t have it both ways,” said Stewart. “When a club gets promoted to the Premier League, you abide by their rules. Nobody can argue with that. But when somebody comes down, they should abide by EFL rules. Parachute payments stop that happening, and pollute the EFL with money that distorts the playing field. That has to stop.”