Stoke City and the other 71 EFL clubs are hoping for a larger share of the Premier League’s revenue – but it’s been a lengthy process due to concerns about Profitability & Sustainability Rules
Simon Jordan says that John Coates and Stoke City’s EFL competitors need to be patient in their attempts to come to a finance arrangement with the Premier League.
The pundit and former owner of Crystal Palace feels that, with the prospect of an independent regulator hanging over them, the Football League has a unique opportunity to influence the 20 elite teams. The Premier League did not even hold a vote on the idea during yesterday’s shareholders’ meeting, suggesting that they are dragging their feet on giving the 72 clubs outside of the top division a larger share of their revenue.
Instead they focused on making changes to the Financial Fair Play regulations that have seen Nottingham Forest, Everton and Manchester City charged with breaches and other clubs concerned about their own positions. Top flight clubs have suggested they will tend to the EFL claims only once they have sorted out their own new Profitability & Sustainability rules
Although Jordan has counselled Stoke joint-chairman Coates and other powerful businessmen in the Championship, League One, and League Two to ensure they receive the best deal, not the quickest, Salford City owner Gary Neville is not thrilled about that.
Jordan said on talkSPORT’s White and Jordan show, “If you were in the Premier League, you wouldn’t have the ambition to give the EFL more money, and the only reason you will do that is because you’re being leveraged into it by the threat of an independent regulator.” And you will act on it as soon as it becomes necessary since all they are doing is engaging in a horse trade in order to lessen the effect of an impartial regulator.
The main point of contention in this business transaction is that the NFL clubs are not entitled. We played in the EFL more often than the Premier League when I owned Palace, and I devoted more of my time to advocating for capable leadership that would enable us to close transactions without the need for leverage.Now that they have leverage. Thus, you should let [Rick] Parry and [Trevor] Birch work out a contract that will enable them to extract as much cash as possible from the Premier League. If that takes some time to understand, if it requires going all the way to the court steps—by which I mean the day the independent regulator receives the white paper dropped into legislation, then that’s what it takes.
“Because what you don’t do, is you don’t give small-minded people an opportunity to take £180 million from the Premier League or £200m a season – you want to get them to get to £400m.
“You want to get them to get as high as you possibly can If that means you play the game of turning the screw, using government, using the threat, playing brinkmanship, walk up to the court steps yourself, you do because this is this is the one time that the EFL has got an opportunity to get some proper distribution. So you don’t pee it away for small-minded opportunities. You’ve got to wait.
“The only reason there is £3.5 billion in the Premier League primarily realistically and pragmatically, is because of the elite-ness of the league. Now there is a contributing factor, and I’ve always made this point, that 14% of the Premier League’s product comes from the Championship. Three go down, three go up. So I get the value of it but you need to negotiate properly.”
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