Fifa teeters on the edge; punishment is not agreed; Infantino wants football cut in two.

 

 

By Tony Attwood

• What happened when Arsenal stopped being no-hopers and won the league?
• Just how many goals will are needed to keep a club in the Premier League

The Premier League’s plans to offer £1.5bn to the Football League as a solidarity payment will be discussed at a meeting of the 20 clubs today.  Manchester City has announced they are opposed to the deal – which is perhaps no surprise given that their own financial dispute with the league is still unresolved.

The payment is planned to be made over a 10 year period, with the first payment to be made in the coming season with the big six clubs being asked to pay more than the remaining PL clubs.

At the same time, one thing that has become very clear is that the most clubs that used to stand by ManC and its demands have quietly slipped away, largely over the failure of the clubs to agree a punishment with ManC for their 115 breaches of the PL rules.  There has been talk of fines payable by ManC over a 10 year period – but it is a debate that continues without resolution…   An apparent statement by ManC that they are concerned over how the fine would be funded is said by some to have caused outrage, as have the attempts by the club to draw in other members of the “big six” as allies to its cause.

Indeed, the only step forward in the breach between ManC and the rest of the league is a settlement of the less fractious “associated party transaction rules” dispute in 2025.

Meanwhile it has been reported in the Guardian that Manchester City has continued to propose amendments to rule changes made too late for club boards to be able to discuss them before voting.  As a result the rest of the league has united ever more strongly against ManC, and at the last AGM every club other than ManC voted against all the ManC proposals.

At present all clubs pay an annual levy to the league on the transfer fees they have paid, of four percent of the amount spent.  Because there has been no increase in the fund for the last three years, while transfer fees have continued to escalate, the League has proposed increasing this by 50% which would of course affect clubs like ManC, Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hots and the like; the specialise in spending huge sums on players each year.   There should be a vote on the issue today including on the idea of an addition £100m this season, with the sum growing year by year over the next ten years.  At the same time extra funding would be fed into the Championship, and Leagues One and Two.

Meanwhile Gianni Infantino is pressing forward with his plan to divide football into two separate entities and sell packages off to the highest bidder, with the funding coming into Fifa who will spend the money on… well, actually they haven’t told us.  Although they have suggested some of it might go back to the countries which… err… paid it in the first place.  After money has been taken out to pay for Fifa officials who took the money and then paid some of it back.   Oh yes and also paid for their offices.

Although to be fair Fifa has said it will also give some extra money to smaller countries to help the game develop therein.  Apparently, countries have been given two months to agree, although what happens if they don’t agree is not exactly clear.  My guess is that Fifa keeps the lot and makes up its own rules.

But it seems Uefa is saying “no” to the whole plan, and Europe of course contains most of the powerful footballing nations, so their word counts for something.  If Uefa were to split from Fifa it is likely Uefa could be the more powerful of the two bodies.  Which would be interesting if Uefa launched its own world cup.    In South America, Brazil and Argentina would play each other a lot, but otherwise…..

The problem for football however is that it seems a lot of the smaller countries do follow Infantino who is offering each country money to join his newly planned arrangement.  Those countries will probably see their income from football increased and it is also interesting to note that Trump seems to be acting more and more like a President of the World Football Association with Infantino as his side kick.  Fifa might  join in such an arrangement, as it would probably get quite a bit of money from somewhere as part of the deal.  

Argentina and Brazil could find themselves ignored in Europe if they call themselves world champions just because they won a competition involving smaller South American countries.  But for the moment the key body standing up against Fifa is Uefa, with whom Arsenal obviously have close ties.  We might also note that Uefa was the body that stood up against the overturning of Folarin Balogun’s suspension by Trump and stood against variable ticket pricing, against hydration breaks and against the Club World Cup.  I suspect Uefa is currently drawing up its plans to leave Fifa but won’t say a word until the situation within Fifa becomes intolerable.