EFL chief provides stark warning after £900m deadlock impacting Blackburn Rovers:

The Premier League and the English Football League are no closer to agreeing a financial deal that would see money fed down into the pyramid.

Premier League Chief Executive and EFL chair Rick Parry were giving evidence to MPs at a Department of Culture Media and Sport committee this week, supposedly providing an update on negotiations.

Two two parties have been locked in talks after the Government ordered the Premier League to address the issue and tackle the redistribution of wealth, to better support the clubs below the elite, such as Blackburn Rovers.

For far too long, clubs in the EFL, particularly the Championship, have overspent to compete with the riches of the Premier League. Parachute payments are aptly named because there is too steep a cliff to fall from upon relegation.

Masters and Parry were sat together at the DCMS hearing but their stances couldn’t be further apart. The issue around a potential £900million deal is the stricture of patients and, ultimately, who pays the bill.

Premier League chiefs are running out of time to strike an agreement with an independent regulator looming. They will ultimately take charge of the situation, once in situ, if a resolution can’t be reached.

Without an agreement, Parry ultimately fears that ‘two-thirds’ of the EFL could go under without significant support from those above.

“Our purpose is making clubs sustainable,” Parry said. “That requires two things: a fairer system of distribution, redistribution which means more being given up and more coming down, substantially more.

“We’d prefer the regulation was done within football but as long as it’s done fairly and with competence we don’t mind who does it. We can save the regulator a lot of time by pointing out that two-thirds of our clubs are insolvent without redistribution so what is the regulator going to do?

“Refuse to give them a licence? Put them out of business? We hope not. It would be odd to say just leave football to find a solution. It has to be the right solution. The clubs want a better future, they want a better system because they know the current system is broken.”