Two Division Premiership/QPR Out?...Bolton Debts

[QPR Report]

Guardian/David Conn

Plan for two-tier Premier League with Celtic and Rangers back on agenda• Clubs meet next week to discuss splitting division
• Scottish giants invited under Bolton's proposal

David Conn guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 November 2009

The proposal by Bolton Wanderers' chairman, Phil Gartside, for an expanded two-division Premier League which would include Celtic and Rangers has been revived and is on the agenda for next Thursday's Premier League clubs' meeting. His idea is prompted by what Gartside has described as a "fear factor" among the smaller clubs, who are desperately worried about the financial cost of relegation to the Championship and are overspending to avoid it.

Gartside's plans did not gain sufficient support when he first unveiled them last year, but he has persisted because he wants a debate about English football's structure and the financial inequalities now embedded in it. His proposals are understood to be similar to those produced previously, in which he suggested the Premier League could be expanded into two divisions, possibly of 18 teams each, with Celtic and Rangers included because their size would create more money for the league.

The idea was dismissed by many last time because Gartside appeared to be proposing a self-interested "closed circle", with no relegation out of the Premier League's second division. This time, Gartside is understood to be more flexible, arguing that relegation could be retained but that clubs should meet standards of size and finance, similar to Uefa's licensing system, if they are to be promoted into the Premier League.

Bolton published their accounts this week for the year to 30 June 2009, which showed that even though the club finished 13th last season, they lost £13.2m and their net debts rose to £64m.

The Premier League has sold its TV rights separately from the Football League since the top division clubs broke away in 1992, and its teams now receive on average £40m more from TV money alone than those in the Championship. That makes relegation a dire prospect.

Gartside wrote in Bolton's accounts of the need to address this gap: "The same few clubs continue to benefit from the huge additional revenues from the Champions League, and the remaining clubs find it enormously difficult to challenge," he said. "At the same time, the gap between Premier League revenues and those of the Championship continues to widen and I believe a fear factor is beginning to emerge amongst Premier League clubs outside the top few. Addressing this polarisation of clubs will be the major strategic issue for the Premier League over coming years."

In the summer, the Football League proposed uniting with the Premier League, to sell their TV rights jointly, a plan which could involve a more even distribution of money throughout English football, but the Premier League has so far not entered into discussions.

Few clubs were prepared to comment about Gartside's proposals in advance of next Thursday's meeting, but the politics are predictable. The top clubs, those either in the top four Champions League places or who see themselves as competing for them, earn very well from the current system and are believed to have little interest in changing the structure. Support for reform, and a more equal distribution of TV money, will come from smaller clubs who, like Hull City and Portsmouth, have overreached themselves trying to stay in the Premier League and for whom relegation is a real fear.

The Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan, said he did not agree with inviting Celtic and Rangers to cross the football border, but gave qualified support for the plan to expand the Premier League.

"I think it would be fairer to unite the Premier and Football Leagues," he said, "but the Premier League clubs would not agree to that because they make most of the money as things stand. The idea is worth debating, because the gulf is huge, with eight to 10 of us clubs just fighting for survival."

Both Celtic and Rangers, who have long looked to escape from the Scottish Premier League in which they are by far the biggest clubs, would welcome an invitation from the elite English league. However, any Premier League rule change requires 14 clubs to vote in favour. Gartside has a great deal of lobbying to do before his plan has any chance of succeeding.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/06/premier-league-two-division-gartside

[QPR Report]

Guardian/Matt Scott
Premier League clubs to reveal payments to agents under new FA rule• Fans to find out how much clubs pay agents next month
• Football League have released details since 2004-05

Friday 6 November 2009

Fans of Premier League teams will next month discover for the first time how much their clubs have been paying agents. Under new Football Association rules, records will be made publicly available detailing all fees received by agents from clubs throughout the leagues.

An FA spokesman said: "The main driver is transparency. For the FA, as for other governing bodies, transparency is one of the key pillars of a sensible regulatory regime. We updated our regulations in the summer and they now provide for the publication of agents' fees paid both by clubs and players. This will, for the first time, provide an overall picture of the scale of the football agency business."

A similar system already in place in the Football League has been running for five years but a wider requirement is being introduced for all clubs. The rules state: "Clubs, players, authorised agents and exempt solicitors agree to the publication by the FA after 30 November each year of the total amount paid by players to authorised agents and exempt solicitors during the period 1 October of the previous year to 30 September of that year."

The FA has been collating figures relating to agents' payments since its reform of the regulations governing their activities in 2007. It is understood the Premier League was fully supportive of the new measures, although clubs had previously resisted the move when challenged about the success of the Football League scheme.

Since its introduction in 2004, the Football League's initiative has coincided with a continued reduction on the amounts agents have received. Brian Mawhinney, the chairman of the Football League, welcomed the FA's development.

"Our figures show a downward trend in the amounts going to agents and an upward trend in the number of clubs not paying agents at all," he said. "I think it is wrong to look at a particular set of figures; the strength of the process is that it gives a sense of what is happening over a period of time. It allows fans to question their own clubs. We've never been running an anti-agent campaign, we are opening up how our clubs operate for the benefit of fans."

Lord Mawhinney did concede that his league's figures are based on data provided voluntarily by clubs but considers them to be "broadly right". The FA's system will benefit from the traceability of payments passing through its transfer-finance clearing house.

Agents fees have long been a thorny issue between club owners and their staff. In 2004 the then Manchester United shareholders, John Magnier and JP McManus, directed 99 questions at the club's board "which [related] to particular transactions with which we are concerned". The letter prompted Manchester United plc to publish a breakdown of player agent payments. However, when the Glazers bought the club and took if private in 2005 the practice was ceased.

At that time MPs called on all agents' fees to be investigated by HM Revenue and Customs. Coincidentally, on Wednesday the Portsmouth chief executive, Peter Storrie, was charged with cheating the public revenue and arranging for a signing-on fee to be paid to a player via an agent with "intent to defraud", in the 2003 transfer of Amdy Faye. Storrie has said he will "defend the allegations in the strongest possible terms and is entirely confident that he will be exonerated".

In a separate development, the financially troubled Premier League club Hull City have launched an internal investigation into the payment of £5.5m to agents in the past two years.

There are hopes that with the FA ensuring more transparency over the money being diverted out of the game there will be a tendency for clubs to negotiate down the amounts demanded by agents. However the FA privately insists it is not seeking to micromanage fees, leaving payments as a matter for clubs as commercial organisations.

-ends-

Pay up, Pompey

After Portsmouth staff received their September pay cheques late, they took care to ensure the October payroll came in on time. But the eagle-eyed among them spotted that not all were being paid by Portsmouth Football Club as before, but instead by "Fuglers Client Account", an account belonging to the law firm that represented Ali al-Faraj in the Saudi Arabian's takeover. The taxman is known to frown upon payments by off-balance-sheet entities, so Digger asked Mark Jacob of Fuglers why this was. "My clients requested that it be done this way," he said. Why, he would not say. "The staff have been paid. Everything will be accounted for through the club." Pay up Pompey!

Europe's only hope

When Sepp Blatter, below, announced last month his decision to run for a new term as Fifa president it met with little fanfare. "I hope that in 2011 the Fifa congress once more has faith in me, otherwise I'll go back to my village," said an ever-so-'umble Blatter. But top‑level tongues in football are wagging as to his motives for declaring so early for the hustings. Who could be the stalking horse the incumbent fears?

Is it Issa Hayatou, the Cameroonian who tried and failed before? Or Ricardo Teixeira, the boy from Brazil, the land that can seemingly do no wrong in sports campaigns? Or Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Asian confederation president, who at 60 years old is the sprightliest of executive-committee members? The speculation leads to one conclusion: unless Blatter clings on, the power in world football will soon shift away from Europe.

1-0 down, 2-1 up

Peter Hill-Wood has no doubt long overcome the disappointment at his own lack of foresight in selling 16.6% of Arsenal for £290,250 of what he famously termed David Dein's "dead money" in 1983. It would be unwise for the Arsenal chairman to dwell on the thought that a stake of that size would be worth £87.8m today. But Hill-Wood has at least been able to console himself in the extraction of value from what few hundred shares he was left with. At £850,000 his sale to Stan Kroenke on Wednesday of only a fraction of a percent of the club – 0.16% in fact – was worth almost three times as much to him in cash terms as that rather more sizeable slug 26 years ago.

x-head

With no events at the national stadium until next Saturday's England Under-21 international, the landlords have put the car park on Wembley Way to good use. The space is currently being occupied by the big top from Zippo's Circus. "So the FA are recruiting again," an onlooker said.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/06/premier-league-agents-payments-players

[QPR Report]

David Conn/The Guardian

Bolton Wanderers' losses count the cost of Premier League survivalWanderers' debts have climbed to £64m and £2m was paid in interest to the club's owner

The financial figures published by Bolton Wanderers yesterday for the year to 30 June 2009 itemise the bewildering contradiction at the heart of the Premier League's boom years. Vast amounts of money are pouring in – fortunes more than can ever have been imagined when struggling Bolton allowed the Normid supermarket to be built into one end of Burnden Park as a desperate 1980s economy measure – yet most clubs are losing millions and falling further into debt.

Bolton finished 13th last season, and the fact that this is their ninth on the trot in the Premier League is described justifiably by the chairman, Phil Gartside as "a fantastic achievement for Bolton Wanderers". Yet the accounts lay bare the cost of doing so: Wanderers' parent company, Burnden Leisure, made £59m last year, a huge turnover at the Reebok Stadium for a provincial town football club, yet paid wages of £40.9m and lost £13.2m.

This, according to Gartside, is the price of Premier League survival for the smaller clubs, the massive wages paid to players at the top clubs trickle down, becoming unpayable for those paddling to stay up. With a wage bill on that scale, and net debts of £64m, relegation down across the financial chasm to the Championship terrifies Bolton and others in a similar position who, like Portsmouth and Hull City, are perennially tempted to overspend. Gartside acknowledged in the accounts a "fear factor beginning to emerge amongst Premier League clubs outside the top few".

Bolton's ability to operate with thumping losses and meaty borrowings is due to the backing of the club's owner, one of the lowest profile among the roster of rich men who have over recent years folded Premier League football clubs into their portfolios. Edwin Davies, who made his fortune manufacturing thermostatic controls for kettles, lives in the Isle of Man, one of the less sun-kissed of the British protectorate tax havens.

Davies is described by Bolton as a "benefactor" and he did put solid money into the club when he bought up his 94.5% stake in 2004. These accounts show that he has made his latest contribution in huge loans which charge a rate of interest handy for him in current economic conditions. Davies's company, Moonshift Investments, loaned Wanderers £23m last year, at 10% annual interest, so the football club paid Moonshift £2m "in respect of arrangement and guarantee fees and interest".

Gartside, in the accounts, said: "I would like to acknowledge the special contribution of our owner Eddie Davies, for his ongoing support in [overhauling Wanderers' playing squad] and other investments in the club."

That tribute is heartfelt, because Gartside knows Bolton would most likely be nowhere near the Premier League, and possibly in serious financial difficulty, without Davies. Yet the owner's support, like membership of the World's Greatest League, comes at a cost for the Trotters

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2009/nov/05/boltonwanderers-premierleague

[QPR Report]

So basically: If and when we do go up, it seems we'll just end up LOSING even more money

[ingham]

Their stupidity, greed and incompetence never ceases to amaze me.

And what will the clown do with the Rangers and Celtic money? Save it? Build up reserves of cash against the day when he actually learns something?

Don't make me laugh. If the TV money wasn't enough to make Bolton comfortably well enough, and the fool isn't shrewd, careful, realistic, prudent and wise enough to bring wages and costs into line with expenditure whether the Club is high up the league, or lower down, giving the berk more money to lose won't help in the slightest.

He lost all the money in the Ground, didn't he? And then he lost all the money the TV companies poured into the Club?

Guess what he'll do next?

Oh, and Celtic and Rangers. Has the moron actually taken a look at Scottish football recently. It's a place where having Celtic and Rangers around all the time has made all the Scottish Clubs successful, profitable, and big beyond measure.

And look at the Scottish game. Once it was entirely supplied from Scotland, with the Scots providing many, if not most of the best English League players, and its most successful managers.

[QPR Report]

And QPR Excluded?

Daily Mail

The two-tier Premier League would welcome Rangers and Celtic - but not Crystal Palace, Reading, QPR, Preston, most of League One and all of League Two

By Sportsmail Reporter
Last updated at 9:43 AM on 06th November 2009

Plans to discuss a two-tier Premier League will take place next week - and although it would welcome Scottish giants Celtic and Rangers half the Championship, 90 per cent of League One and all of League Two would almost certainly be excluded from gaining entry.

Bolton chairman Phil Gartside's plans for two 18-team divisions are back on the agenda for the next Premier League clubs meeting having been rejected initially because they did not include relegation to the Football League.
But the Trotters chief has now revised the structure, allowing for relegation, but only allowing in teams that meet standards of size and finance.
Look, there's the future and we're in it: Gary Caldwell of Celtic points the way
If a basic requirement was an average crowd of 20,000, Wigan and Portsmouth would be in real trouble as they already fall below that.
So any team hoping to emulate the likes of Wimbledon, Swindon, Bradford and Barnsley and go through the divisions will find their path blocked by the fact they are unfashionable.
If your name's not on the list, you're not coming in: Phil Gartside lets another club know they've not made the two-tier Premier League
Over half the Championship would not make the cut either, with mega-rich QPR well below the 20,000 mark, along with Reading, Bristol City and Crystal Palace.
In League One, only Leeds and Norwich attract crowds of 20,000-plus but none of League Two does - not even Sven-Goran Eriksson's Notts County who only put just over 8,000 bums on seats.
Gartside is determined to eradicate the 'fear factor' the smaller top-flight clubs have regarding the financial cost of relegation and now wants the matter debated and resolved.

Bolton published their accounts this week which showed that even though the club finished 13th last season, they lost £13.2m and their net debts rose to £64m.
The Premier League sold its TV rights separately from the Football League since the top division clubs broke away in 1992 - teams now receive £40m more from TV money alone than those in the Championship.

That makes relegation a dire prospect while the likes of Hull and Portsmouth overstretch to stay in the Premier League.
Good enough for the Football League, but not the Premier League: Crystal Palace's Darren Ambrose scores against QPR
Gartside said in the Guardian: 'The same few clubs continue to benefit from the huge additional revenues from the Champions League and remaining clubs find it enormously difficult to challenge.

Heading south for the winter? Rangers' boss Walter Smith and John Fleck would be part of the new English set-up
'At the same time, the gap between Premier League revenues and those of the Championship continues to widen and I believe a fear factor is beginning to emerge amongst Premier League clubs outside the top few. Addressing this polarisation of clubs will be the major strategic issue for the Premier League over coming years.'
Gartside wants the Old Firm included because of the money will generate - not a move favoured by Wigan chairman Dave Whelan.
He said: 'It would be fairer to unite the Premier and Football Leagues but the Premier League clubs would not agree to that because they make most of the money as things stand.

'The idea is worth debating, because the gulf is huge, with eight to 10 of us clubs just fighting for survival.'

Premier League rule changes require 14 clubs to vote in favour so Gartside has a huge amount of work to do - especially as Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal are likely to oppose any move that will reduce their income.


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1225684/The-tier-Premier-League-welcome-Rangers-Celtic--Crystal-Palace-Reading-QPR-Preston-League-One-League-Two.html#ixzz0W4T8RBLV

[Lonegunmen]

The "big boys" and the wannabe big boys will look after themselves, don't you worry.

[obk]

Nov 6, 2009 10:43:56 GMT Lonegunmen said:

The "big boys" and the wannabe big boys will look after themselves, don't you worry.

Isn't that why we should worry?

[cpr]

Why worry, with our financial clout we will not be excluded.

Bolton however, LOL, Gartside could be killing his own club off.