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Post by QPR Report on May 11, 2010 6:19:10 GMT
Guardian/David Conn
New rules will force Leeds to reveal owners' names• Championship clubs must identify individuals with 10% • Premier League agrees to increase parachute paymentsLeeds United will be forced, before the start of next season, to finally declare who the club's offshore owners are if an agreement passed in principle by the Football League is approved at its meeting next month. The deal – approved despite significant opposition from League One and Two clubs, who objected to the conditions attached to it – will see the Premier League make increased parachute payments to its relegated clubs and enhanced annual "solidarity" payments to the other Football League clubs. One of the Premier League's stipulations in return is that Championship clubs must adopt the same rules on transparency as apply in the Premier League, where clubs must identify publicly any individual owning a stake of 10% or above. In the Football League clubs must currently declare who controls them – but privately to the league's chairman and senior executives, not publicly. Leeds United, under the chairmanship of Ken Bates since 2005, have never said who owns the club. The shares are held by the Forward Sports Fund, a company originally registered in the Cayman Islands – a tax haven which guarantees anonymity to shareholders – and has since moved to Nevis, in the West Indies, where a similar lack of transparency applies. The Football League in February passed those controlling Leeds as "fit and proper people", but the owners' identities have never been made public. Now, following promotion to the Championship and the prospective alignment of the rules, Leeds will be required to state who they are. The agreement was passed in principle despite 27 clubs, some of them furious, voting against it. The deal would see the Premier League – using its improved, £3.1bn TV deals for 2010‑13 – pay increased parachute payments of £49.4m over four years to each of its own relegated clubs and make larger solidarity payments, totalling £58.5m annually, to the other Football League clubs. The smaller clubs opposed it for four principal reasons. First, they believe that the hugely increased parachute payments would skew competition within the league, and second, they object to 80% of the enhanced solidarity payments being paid to Championship clubs. There is also concern that the Premier League is angling to pay less for the young players its clubs sign from Football League clubs, under a new system of compensation demanded as part of the package.Fourth, many League One and Two clubs bitterly resented the Premier League's take-it-or-leave-it stance, which required Football League clubs to accept the offer in full or lose all the payments the Premier League currently makes, including to community programmes and youth development. That stance was described by one senior League One figure yesterday as "bullying of the worst kind".The agreement was passed on a show of hands, insiders said, because 21 League One and Two clubs felt sufficiently worried about the prospect of losing their funding. However the agreement will have to be passed formally, at the league's summer meeting on 8 June. www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/10/leeds-united-owners-parachute-payments
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Post by QPR Report on May 11, 2010 6:24:24 GMT
The Times
Parachute-payment proposals survive stormy landingNick Szczepanik, John Percy Football League clubs accepted the Premier League’s controversial revised proposals on parachute payments at a stormy meeting of chairmen yesterday.In a move that may overshadow tonight’s Coca-Cola Championship play-off, second leg between Blackpool and Nottingham Forest, clubs relegated from the Premier League will receive £48 million in parachute payments, spread over four years, rather than the present arrangement of £16 million over two seasons. While Championship clubs voted in favour, League One and Two clubs were far from unanimous. The lower-league clubs had opposed the changes at a meeting 11 days ago, but were told by the Premier League that they had little option but to accept. However, The Times understands that yesterday many remained vehemently against the changes, which they view as aiming to perpetuate the elite status of members within the top flight. The meeting, at Banks’s Stadium, Walsall, overran by an hour during a frank exchange of views. Some chairmen and chief executives are understood to have been unhappy at being asked to accept an agreement on trust without knowledge of the finer details. Hull City, Burnley and Portsmouth will receive £16 million for each of the next two seasons and £8 million for each of the two after that. The other Championship clubs will receive £2.3 million a year, League One sides £325,000 and League Two clubs £250,000. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7122250.ece
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Post by QPR Report on May 11, 2010 6:25:23 GMT
Football League
LEAGUE CLUBS ACCEPT SOLIDARITY Posted on: 10.05.2010 Football League clubs have today voted in favour of the revised Solidarity and Parachute payment proposed by the Premier League. The clubs took the decision to accept the new proposals, which come into effect from the start of the 2010/11 season, during a meeting at Walsall's Banks's Stadium. A Football League spokesman said: "Following a frank but constructive meeting at Walsall's Banks's Stadium earlier today, Football League clubs have voted to accept the Premier League's revised Solidarity and Parachute Payments proposals. "Whilst many clubs expressed concerns about the proposals, their acceptance was considered the only viable way forward. "The Football League will now work in good faith, with the Premier League, to ensure that the resulting contract and regulatory changes are good for both competitions and football as a whole." www.football-league.co.uk/footballleaguenews/20100510/league-clubs-accept-solidarity_2246528_2048672
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Post by QPR Report on May 11, 2010 6:26:20 GMT
So what's the fairness, logic that four years now, Burnley, after just one season in the Premiership will receive 8 million pounds?
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ingham
Dave Sexton
Posts: 1,896
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Post by ingham on May 11, 2010 14:18:51 GMT
Sounds like there's ever more desperation at the top. and it makes sense for the big Clubs to turn on the smaller ones, as they become more and more frightened by their own huge losses, and as years of failure turns into decades with no sign of relief.
As they can't even balance their own books - let alone make money - it isn't especially surprising that they would seek to exploit the greed of their counterparts lower down the league.
The more they live on handouts, the more incapable they are of facing up to reality.
Every day there is some new symptom of the 'investment' malaise .
They're already signing hundreds of young players who aren't good enough out of desperation that if they don't, they'll miss something.
The problem isn't the unavailability of players. It's the lack of intelligence, insight, knowledge of the game, experience and talent in the people running the Clubs.
The problem isn't that the talent is somehow unavailable to them. It's that they can't recognise it, and don't know what to do with it, even if they get it. So now, out of panic, they want to rig the leagues so they can do a general trawl, pick up just about every kid who has two good games ....
... and then what?
They can only field 11 players at a time. Look at the vast number of players QPR signs, year after year, and watch as the managers chop and change, week in and week out.
Most people in football haven't a clue what to do. That's why they lose so much money experimenting with ceaseless failure.
But as long as the obtuse idea that every Club can do better by losing money prevails, there is little incentive for the parasites to stop bleeding the Clubs.
And if the biggest Clubs can't even balance their books, let alone make money, why should the smaller Clubs destroy themselves to 'keep up' with rubbish people doing rubbish deals to produce rubbish football and with rubbish finances. And people who are dishonourable enough at every juncture to try to fix things in their favour, merely underlining their own lack of ability as they do so.
Perhaps the smart Clubs will bide their time.
After all, if Clubs like Charlton and Middlesbrough couldn't cope when they received the FULL Premiership money, and were relegated through the Leagues, and existing parachute payments don't endow the relegated Premiership Clubs with any great advantage in the Championship, HOW MUCH exactly do the relegated sides need before they're protected from their own incompetence?
From these figures, it seems that each of them will receive as much or more than the the rest of the League put together. But the League hasn't the dignity to put two fingers up to them and tell them to eff off into a league of their own. Losers United, with plenty to spend, and no-one to play.
But all carefully constructed sense of football is being systematically destroyed by people who couldn't care less about the game or the Clubs. They reward themselves for being so incompetent they actually take their Clubs down. And when they lose money, they're given even more money to lose.
But maybe we can do more for them.
Maybe they can be allowed extra players, or the first three goals scored by their opponents could be awarded to the relegated side.
While lunch is served to them on the pitch with a selection of wines.
And a chance to win the entire budget of the Football League by answering one simple question.
Somehow I get the feeling we're going to see more and more of this. The smaller Clubs, if they had any character, could do something about it, of course, but they're run by people who see the chance of lining their pockets is still an option, so I doubt that it will happen voluntarily.
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Post by londonranger on May 11, 2010 14:31:57 GMT
Byzantine. Reasons for this will be kept well hidden.
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Post by QPR Report on May 12, 2010 6:35:45 GMT
I can understand the logic of letting "big" clubs get used to the lower division after years of premiership, a transition. Not sure I agree, but I understand. But don't understand why a club gets promoted. Spends one (or two or three) seasons in the Premiership - and then gets this now-expanded four year series of payments which give them a major boost/advantage to returning to the Premiership.
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Post by QPR Report on May 12, 2010 6:36:13 GMT
Daily Mail
Premier League accused of bullying Football League sides into accepting new parachute payments dealBy Sportsmail Reporter Last updated at 1:06 AM on 12th May 2010 The Premier League have been slammed for bullying lower division clubs into accepting the new parachute payment arrangements. Football League sides have reluctantly agreed to let teams relegated from the Premier League receive £48m over four seasons. And whilst teams in all three divisions will get a bigger annual payment from their richer brothers, the move has not gone down well. Oldham chief executive Alan Hardy, whose club will receive £328,000 for each of the next three seasons, has hit out at the way they were forced to make their minds up. 'The only reason why we voted to accept the deal was because there was a big risk that the Premier League could have withdrawn the offer leaving the possibility of seeing a breakaway of Championship clubs,' he claimed. Going down but not out: Portsmouth will welcome the new parachute payment arrangements - but Football League clubs have raised concerns 'Clubs were not happy how the Premier League had put the Football League under pressure to discuss and accept the deal in such a short time frame which gave us no room for manoeuvre.' Hardy has sympathy from inside the Premier League in the form of Stoke boss Tony Pulis, who believes the new payment scheme could make fairytale rises like Burnley and Hull’s a thing of the past. Straight talker: Pulis He said: 'What worries me is the rich are getting richer again. We were 25/1 to get promoted in the season that we did, so we came from nowhere. If clubs are given more opportunity to maintain their better players and stronger squads, that isolates the teams that could surprise everybody and get into the Premier League. 'If you’re asking me is the Premier League looking after the Premier League? Yes, they are. 'I’ve managed at every level and I’ve got great feeling for football in this country. You go to Rochdale, Bury, Gillingham wherever, you’ve got supporters who care about their club as much as anywhere else. 'We should be doing our damnedest to keep that in place and help as much as possible. We’re in a situation where everything is at the top and it’s not filtering through.' www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1277643/Premier-League-accused-bullying-Football-League-sides-accepting-new-parachute-payments-deal.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0nh6sje2Z
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Dave Sexton
Posts: 1,896
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Post by ingham on May 12, 2010 11:22:11 GMT
I think it's the modern version of the 'old pals act' as the former system of re-election to the Fourth Division for Clubs at the bottom of the League was called.
Essentially, it was difficult to get in, because the most likely candidates - Halifax, Rochdale and the like in my day - all voted for each other knowing that if they didn't, the others might vote THEM out when they had a bad season.
So it isn't to protect today's relegated sides, which may be Clubs with comparatively limited debts, but the likes of Fulham and others like them who have vast debts and who don't want to do the sensible - or 'businesslike' - thing, and set apart a portion of their earnings against the risk that they might be relegated.
Whether it's an endgame situation, I don't know, although it strikes me as the sort of thing that would happen should the whole thing begin to unravel.
It especially has that quality of silliness, and most of all, unsustainable excess, that denotes desperation getting the upper hand over dignity and competence.
You can almost smell the fear.
It is worth nothing that the anticipated mini-league of promoted/relegated Clubs has never happened in the history of the Premier League. In fact, the Championship is full of relegated sides. Some of them, like QPR, still here after 15 years, and losing more and more money trying to get out.
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Post by QPR Report on May 17, 2010 7:31:04 GMT
When Saturday Comes (WSC) - Brian Simpson Little solidarity or generosity from the Premier League 16 May ~ What a difference three years can make. Wind back to July 2007 and Lord Mawhinney, then chairman of the Football League, welcomed an agreement for the Premier League to make "solidarity payments" to his League's 72 members with the words: "This is a generous gesture from the Premier League, and I offer my thanks." Jump forward to May 2010, a representative of one of the Football League clubs described the Premier League's behaviour in this year's discussions as "bullying beyond belief". The agreement in 2007 involved Football League clubs receiving £90 million over three years. For a League One club the payment was worth £103,000 with £69,000 going to clubs at the next level. The deal under discussion this year involves payments of £328,000 and £250,000 respectively. At face value it sounds like a good arrangement and yet when the Football League clubs met in Leicester ten days ago it was rejected. There were several reasons for the rejection. Under the proposals, Championship clubs' solidarity payments would increase from around £830,000 to £2.2m annually. But alongside this, the Premier League announced changes to the parachute payments for clubs relegated from the top division, from £23.4m over two years to a four-year deal worth £48m. The aim was to meet concerns from middle-ranked Premier League clubs who feared the financial consequences of relegation. But as one Championship chairman speculated it would create a "Premier League 2 in all but name" with, over four years, ten or 12 clubs who had parachute payments likely to be fighting for promotion. The bigger objections, however, came from Leagues One and Two. The new amount they receive is roughly equal to the amount that comes from the Football League (around £2.4m) giving them a guaranteed income of £4.6m. The equivalent for a League One club is around £1m. The concern is that the gap makes it more difficult for third-tier clubs to succeed when promoted or to cope when relegated. Another concern was the way in which the Premier League planned to pay for the increases. Around £4m was to be transferred from the Premier League's community funding – a pot of money for which clubs can bid. At a time when the Premier League's TV income is set to increase dramatically it planned to fund increases in the solidarity payments, at least in part, by raiding its community funding. Equally worrying was the suggestion that the increased payments would form part of a package that included regulatory changes. Some of these changes, such as a requirement for Championship clubs to adopt the Premier League's approach to greater transparency in club ownership, including a revised "fit and proper person test," would be beneficial. Newly-promoted Leeds, for example, might finally have to come clean on the identity of its ultimate owners. But other changes would potentially reduce the cost of Premier League clubs recruiting youth players from the Football League. Curiously, the free market Premier League wants compensation in these cases to be formula-based rather than left to negotiations between the clubs involved. For many clubs in the lower leagues, these fees are an important source of income. And this is where the bullying comes in. Although the Football League clubs had reservations, the Premier League stance was that the deal came as a take-it-or-leave-it package. In the end, 45 of the Football League clubs voted to take it. The regulatory changes will now be subject to further negotiation "in good faith" over the next 12 months and the solidarity payments will be contractual, rather than the "gift" the Premier League originally proposed. This is what happens when the world's oldest league tangles with the world's richest league – there is only ever one winner. Brian Simpson www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/5279/38/
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