Post by QPR Report on Dec 8, 2009 8:42:21 GMT
Guardian/Donald McRaeBrian
Lord Mawhinney: 'Football's financial model is not sustainable'The outgoing Football League chairman is eager to see the game come to its senses and accept his salary cap argument
Mawhinney, a knight and a peer, as well as a former Conservative Party chairman, is not a man you would expect to be called "a communist". And yet, in his last three months as the chairman of the Football League, having already spent seven years as a surprisingly free-thinking and trenchant administrator of 72 clubs, Mawhinney seems to relish his image within a game that has become dangerously bloated by excess and greed.
"I was called a communist by one club chairman," he says with amusement, "while another said if Margaret Thatcher was dead she would be spinning in her grave. But that told me they were a couple of right-wing free-marketeers and their ideology was more important than the reality of this job."
The unexpected urge to cheer Mawhinney is a surreal experience – especially when he was once the kind of Tory bruiser so many of us loved to deride. He was always a tough Ulsterman, and the antithesis of New Labour spin, but Mawhinney appeared to personify reactionary thinking. That assessment now looks glib when set against his mostly robust and perceptive work at the Football League.
In contrast to Richard Scudamore, who is chief executive of the Premier League, Mawhinney denies the cheap idea that English football operates according to the best principles of the free market. "It's absolutely a closed market," Mawhinney says, as he outlines the current turmoil lurking beneath the surface of club football.
Mawhinney has steadfastly campaigned for the introduction of a salary cap throughout the Football League in a radical attempt to stem the game's soaring debt. He nods when asked if this unsustainable debt, tied inextricably to players' grossly inflated wages, is now the key issue in English football. "Overwhelmingly so. It's at the heart of the problem. After I'd told the Championship clubs we'd just done a new media deal for a 130% increase in their TV revenue one chairman said, in a meeting, 'Brian, for God's sake give us some help because if you don't put in some form of regulation we are going to piss this money up the wall on players' wages'. Quote unquote."
Mawhinney, a committed Christian, stresses that the salty language is not his own. But the anecdote illuminates his belief in the need for increased governance to control football's runaway train. "I personally would've liked some form of salary cap because clubs are spending money they don't have. They keep on doing this and that means they become more and more dependent on a wealthy individual or a wealthy corporation or, for some Premier League clubs, a whole country being behind them. I don't think that's sustainable. I've worked extremely hard for 18 months to get a salary-capping arrangement and we haven't succeeded because some of the Championship clubs wouldn't buy into it."
A survey of those same Championship clubs last season established that they spent 87% of their combined revenue on players' wages. Last week, in the Premier League, Portsmouth admitted that, for the second time this season, they could not pay their players on time. "For seven years I've not made any public comments about Premier League clubs and I'm not going to start now," he says. But he remains clear that the Championship will have to adopt some kind of reduced wage structure to safeguard its existence. "Championship clubs will have to do so," he says. "You cannot run a club where you are losing four, five, six million a year. That's not sustainable. You don't need to be a genius to understand that."
Mawhinney, with a thin smile, notes the irony of his stance. "Instinctively, as a Conservative politician I would not normally be in favour of a salary cap – but the people for whom I currently have a responsibility have a major problem and it's getting worse. So I'm sitting here thinking that while all that work I put in hasn't produced fruit so far – it will. It will have to. Now don't ask me whether it's going to take 12, 36 or 60 months. But unless the direction of travel changes, football's financial model is not sustainable."
Did he ever come close to forcing through a salary cap? "If you want a regulation change of this sort you need a majority of the 72 clubs. I've got to have at least 37 and I'd also need a majority of Championship clubs. Even if I could get 13 or 14 that would mean the Championship is split down the middle. That would not be a good basis for seriously radical change. I might have been able to squeeze the vote my way because I hadn't really applied my one-to-one techniques. But it would've been a pyrrhic victory. You can live with three or four out of 24 not wanting a salary cap – 10 or 12 is a different matter. But there will be an accumulation of more and more people in football getting to a point where they say: 'We cannot go on like this any more'."
In April 2003 Mawhinney also demanded publication every six months of the fees Football League clubs pay to agents during transfers. Since then the percentage of agents' fees attached to Football League transfers has decreased from 13.2% to 6.1%. Last week, 6½ years later, the Premier League followed Mawhinney's lead – and revealed that its clubs had paid £70.7m to agents.
Mawhinney also broke new ground in June 2004 when introducing the inaugural fit and proper person test in regard to club ownership. "It was another rudimentary step. But the FA said, 'You can't do that – it's our responsibility'. I said, 'Do you know why I'm planning to do this – because you guys won't do it'. I was told again, 'You can't do it'. So I said, 'When I've drawn it up I'll send you a copy and you will kindly say it looks good and I will say the FA has approved it'. That's exactly what happened."
Mawhinney laughs; but it is sobering to point out that his test is flawed. The twin debacles surrounding the ownership of Leeds United and Notts County underlined this weakness – for the Football League could not identify all its club owners.
"I inherited an arrangement which stopped offshore," Mawhinney says. "Before this the league said when you come up against an offshore account [held by a hidden owner of shares in a club] you have to accept it is legal for them to retain their anonymity. But I wasn't comfortable with that. I took counsel advice and was assured that what I wanted to do was within the regulations. I then went to the Football League board and said our regulations permit us to say [to prospective owners], 'If you want to put your money offshore – fine. If you want to remain anonymous – fine. But if you want to play in our league we have to know who you are'."
Under this new policy will the identity of Leeds and Notts County's owners be shared with supporters? Mawhinney shakes his head, confirming that privacy laws mean that only the board and select members of clubs are allowed to know the identity of all owners. "I would like total transparency. That's me personally and I think we're on a journey towards that point. But I am intrigued by the number of people who say, 'Ah, but it's not full transparency' – instead of saying, 'Well done, you've broken through'. Somebody knowing seems to me to be much better than nobody knowing."
It still seems odd that he had not addressed this issue previously. "There is an element here which asks, 'Was this not your No1 priority?' A lot of other things were pressing – and you can only do one thing at a time."
Has the information he discovered about the ownership of Leeds and Notts County alarmed him? Mawhinney hesitates. "I try very hard not to do alarming. We have asked Notts County more questions – and as far as Leeds are concerned we're a couple of documents short. But I think we'll be in a good situation with regard to Leeds."
Despite turning 70 next July, Mawhinney is entitled to remain in his current position until the end of the 2010-11 season. Has he not been tempted to stay on and win this unresolved battle over club ownership? "One of my chairmen said to me, 'Brian, there's still unfinished business', and so I replied, very gently, 'If that's the criteria then I'll still be doing this job on my Zimmer frame'. In our last board meeting we took a radical step forward by saying, 'In future, unless we know the identity of your beneficial owner you can't play in our league'. It would have been nice to take the next step and say, 'We need to know where the money is coming from' – but I hope to make more progress on that before I go."
Insisting that he does not, as yet, know who will succeed him, Mawhinney is sure only of his continued work on England's 2018 World Cup bid. "There has been a poor image," he concedes, "and some people have behaved in a way that has led to this poor image. But we've made more progress than you'd think. We're doing pretty well. We are seriously competitive and can win it. But for seven years I've resisted making predictions – and I still don't have a crystal ball."
Mawhinney cites his rebranding of the Football League as his most significant achievement – for he rebuilt commercial confidence after the collapse of ITV Digital. "When I began in the job few clubs expected me to last more than seven months. So seven years is pretty good. But I don't want to hang on and squeeze every last bit out of it. People are now being very generous and I prefer to go when they're saying 'please stay' rather than 'why didn't you go two years ago?' It's time for someone else to take the Football League forward."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/08/lord-brian-mawhinney-football-league
Lord Mawhinney: 'Football's financial model is not sustainable'The outgoing Football League chairman is eager to see the game come to its senses and accept his salary cap argument
Mawhinney, a knight and a peer, as well as a former Conservative Party chairman, is not a man you would expect to be called "a communist". And yet, in his last three months as the chairman of the Football League, having already spent seven years as a surprisingly free-thinking and trenchant administrator of 72 clubs, Mawhinney seems to relish his image within a game that has become dangerously bloated by excess and greed.
"I was called a communist by one club chairman," he says with amusement, "while another said if Margaret Thatcher was dead she would be spinning in her grave. But that told me they were a couple of right-wing free-marketeers and their ideology was more important than the reality of this job."
The unexpected urge to cheer Mawhinney is a surreal experience – especially when he was once the kind of Tory bruiser so many of us loved to deride. He was always a tough Ulsterman, and the antithesis of New Labour spin, but Mawhinney appeared to personify reactionary thinking. That assessment now looks glib when set against his mostly robust and perceptive work at the Football League.
In contrast to Richard Scudamore, who is chief executive of the Premier League, Mawhinney denies the cheap idea that English football operates according to the best principles of the free market. "It's absolutely a closed market," Mawhinney says, as he outlines the current turmoil lurking beneath the surface of club football.
Mawhinney has steadfastly campaigned for the introduction of a salary cap throughout the Football League in a radical attempt to stem the game's soaring debt. He nods when asked if this unsustainable debt, tied inextricably to players' grossly inflated wages, is now the key issue in English football. "Overwhelmingly so. It's at the heart of the problem. After I'd told the Championship clubs we'd just done a new media deal for a 130% increase in their TV revenue one chairman said, in a meeting, 'Brian, for God's sake give us some help because if you don't put in some form of regulation we are going to piss this money up the wall on players' wages'. Quote unquote."
Mawhinney, a committed Christian, stresses that the salty language is not his own. But the anecdote illuminates his belief in the need for increased governance to control football's runaway train. "I personally would've liked some form of salary cap because clubs are spending money they don't have. They keep on doing this and that means they become more and more dependent on a wealthy individual or a wealthy corporation or, for some Premier League clubs, a whole country being behind them. I don't think that's sustainable. I've worked extremely hard for 18 months to get a salary-capping arrangement and we haven't succeeded because some of the Championship clubs wouldn't buy into it."
A survey of those same Championship clubs last season established that they spent 87% of their combined revenue on players' wages. Last week, in the Premier League, Portsmouth admitted that, for the second time this season, they could not pay their players on time. "For seven years I've not made any public comments about Premier League clubs and I'm not going to start now," he says. But he remains clear that the Championship will have to adopt some kind of reduced wage structure to safeguard its existence. "Championship clubs will have to do so," he says. "You cannot run a club where you are losing four, five, six million a year. That's not sustainable. You don't need to be a genius to understand that."
Mawhinney, with a thin smile, notes the irony of his stance. "Instinctively, as a Conservative politician I would not normally be in favour of a salary cap – but the people for whom I currently have a responsibility have a major problem and it's getting worse. So I'm sitting here thinking that while all that work I put in hasn't produced fruit so far – it will. It will have to. Now don't ask me whether it's going to take 12, 36 or 60 months. But unless the direction of travel changes, football's financial model is not sustainable."
Did he ever come close to forcing through a salary cap? "If you want a regulation change of this sort you need a majority of the 72 clubs. I've got to have at least 37 and I'd also need a majority of Championship clubs. Even if I could get 13 or 14 that would mean the Championship is split down the middle. That would not be a good basis for seriously radical change. I might have been able to squeeze the vote my way because I hadn't really applied my one-to-one techniques. But it would've been a pyrrhic victory. You can live with three or four out of 24 not wanting a salary cap – 10 or 12 is a different matter. But there will be an accumulation of more and more people in football getting to a point where they say: 'We cannot go on like this any more'."
In April 2003 Mawhinney also demanded publication every six months of the fees Football League clubs pay to agents during transfers. Since then the percentage of agents' fees attached to Football League transfers has decreased from 13.2% to 6.1%. Last week, 6½ years later, the Premier League followed Mawhinney's lead – and revealed that its clubs had paid £70.7m to agents.
Mawhinney also broke new ground in June 2004 when introducing the inaugural fit and proper person test in regard to club ownership. "It was another rudimentary step. But the FA said, 'You can't do that – it's our responsibility'. I said, 'Do you know why I'm planning to do this – because you guys won't do it'. I was told again, 'You can't do it'. So I said, 'When I've drawn it up I'll send you a copy and you will kindly say it looks good and I will say the FA has approved it'. That's exactly what happened."
Mawhinney laughs; but it is sobering to point out that his test is flawed. The twin debacles surrounding the ownership of Leeds United and Notts County underlined this weakness – for the Football League could not identify all its club owners.
"I inherited an arrangement which stopped offshore," Mawhinney says. "Before this the league said when you come up against an offshore account [held by a hidden owner of shares in a club] you have to accept it is legal for them to retain their anonymity. But I wasn't comfortable with that. I took counsel advice and was assured that what I wanted to do was within the regulations. I then went to the Football League board and said our regulations permit us to say [to prospective owners], 'If you want to put your money offshore – fine. If you want to remain anonymous – fine. But if you want to play in our league we have to know who you are'."
Under this new policy will the identity of Leeds and Notts County's owners be shared with supporters? Mawhinney shakes his head, confirming that privacy laws mean that only the board and select members of clubs are allowed to know the identity of all owners. "I would like total transparency. That's me personally and I think we're on a journey towards that point. But I am intrigued by the number of people who say, 'Ah, but it's not full transparency' – instead of saying, 'Well done, you've broken through'. Somebody knowing seems to me to be much better than nobody knowing."
It still seems odd that he had not addressed this issue previously. "There is an element here which asks, 'Was this not your No1 priority?' A lot of other things were pressing – and you can only do one thing at a time."
Has the information he discovered about the ownership of Leeds and Notts County alarmed him? Mawhinney hesitates. "I try very hard not to do alarming. We have asked Notts County more questions – and as far as Leeds are concerned we're a couple of documents short. But I think we'll be in a good situation with regard to Leeds."
Despite turning 70 next July, Mawhinney is entitled to remain in his current position until the end of the 2010-11 season. Has he not been tempted to stay on and win this unresolved battle over club ownership? "One of my chairmen said to me, 'Brian, there's still unfinished business', and so I replied, very gently, 'If that's the criteria then I'll still be doing this job on my Zimmer frame'. In our last board meeting we took a radical step forward by saying, 'In future, unless we know the identity of your beneficial owner you can't play in our league'. It would have been nice to take the next step and say, 'We need to know where the money is coming from' – but I hope to make more progress on that before I go."
Insisting that he does not, as yet, know who will succeed him, Mawhinney is sure only of his continued work on England's 2018 World Cup bid. "There has been a poor image," he concedes, "and some people have behaved in a way that has led to this poor image. But we've made more progress than you'd think. We're doing pretty well. We are seriously competitive and can win it. But for seven years I've resisted making predictions – and I still don't have a crystal ball."
Mawhinney cites his rebranding of the Football League as his most significant achievement – for he rebuilt commercial confidence after the collapse of ITV Digital. "When I began in the job few clubs expected me to last more than seven months. So seven years is pretty good. But I don't want to hang on and squeeze every last bit out of it. People are now being very generous and I prefer to go when they're saying 'please stay' rather than 'why didn't you go two years ago?' It's time for someone else to take the Football League forward."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/08/lord-brian-mawhinney-football-league