By Tony Attwood
It has long been a point of view expressed on Untold that the argument between Manchester City and other clubs in the League over finances could well lead to the league fracturing, with the majority of clubs walking away and forming a new league of their own with ManC or their new ally Aston Villa.
As Yahoo tells us, the split between the clubs is obviously primarily over the issue of ManC’s income – an income that allows it to buy whomever it wants in a way that no other club can match. The aim of most of the rest of the league is that in general terms the money spent should be the money earned by the club, rather than money handed over by a country that happens to own the club.
The fracturing of relations that we have predicted now seems to be incorporating an argument about gathering football data and what percentage of that income the PL should take.
This comes on top of a long-running argument about what powers the government’s new Football Regular should have.
We have already found that the Regulator is indicating that it doesn’t want to deal with matters relating to individuals – such as the issue of the abuse of young players that we have so often highlighted. This occurs when youngsters are played in games even when they are injured, in order to make up the numbers.
Our investigation into such matters has revealed at least one case where the essential medical records showing a youngster was injured and yet played, have subsequently gone missing. The simple notion of insisting that all medical records are copied digitally and provided to the Regulator for safekeeping and to the player or the player’s parents is not being incorporated into the Regulator’s remit – a victory for clubs with dubious practices.
In general, the PL want as few powers as possible given to the Regulator, whereas the EFL wants other issues (particularly the issue of parachute payments) to be included. But the majority of the Premier League clubs argue that they need to keep hold of their money for the ongoing fight between the majority and the new pairing of ManC and Aston V; a dispute which is consuming huge sums in legal fees.
The latest battle is over Associated Party Transaction regulations. These rules control the money that can be given to a club by another organisation associated with the owners of the club – a process through which ManC gets most of its money.
In order to stop the changes going through ManC and Aston V have demanded the vote should be stopped. The majority wants the vote to happen this Friday.
However the League only need a two-thirds majority to pass a regulation – although clubs could scupper the new proposals without actually openly siding with ManC by abstaining in the vote, and it is being argued that Newcastle U, Nottingham F and Everton, each of whom could benefit by the new rules not being agreed, will now side with ManC. There has also been talk of Wolverhampton also joining this minority, although I find it hard to see what benefit they would get from this, unless they have something up their sleeve, such as a secret bail-out pending.
Thus this battle between ManC and the League, which we have been noting off and on for a couple of years, is now picking up momentum as a result of the growing interest, overseas business operators, and indeed countries, see football clubs as a way of both making money and (much more worrying since it represents a threat to our democracy) extending their influence within the UK.
It would appear that ManC now see Aston Villa as being secured as an ally, with the others mentioned above likely to fall in behind. This still leaves the clubs opposed to the ManC model of football domination in the majority, but with the financial promises that could be made to any club that allies with them, they may well now pick off a few more.
However leaving aside Newcastle United it is unlikely these will include any clubs with serious aspirations of getting permanently into the top six, although clubs like Nottingham Forest will disagree with that view.
The possibility of the majority of clubs simply walking away from the ManC group and forming their own league seems to be drawing closer, leaving ManC and its new-found friends allying themselves with Fifa and Uefa in some new sort of SuperLeague under Uefa’s umbrella.
We are indeed heading toward SuperLeague by “other means”.
I don’t think you have to worry about foreign businesses being a threat to our democracy when we have a government showing us by their actions to be far more of a threat with their two tier police knocking on journalist’s doors just like the communist Russian KGB & East German Stasi.
As for the PL it sold it’s soul many years ago to the point many football fans are turning away from the cesspit that PL football is today.
Here say, conspiracy theory and bias propaganda with a little fake news thrown in for bad measure
Cityblue
Your well researched counter argument is truly compelling!!!
Although I do sympathise with those who cannot spell, I think that if one is going to write a comment that is but 15 or so words long, a certain effort should be made to get the spelling of those 15 or so words right, otherwise the impact of the little notelet is somewhat reduced.
Couldent agreee moor. Aspicialy wen thier is spillchick to elp yew owt. No exquse.
I’m hoping the Premier League does split in two .
What will Manky115’s league be called ? The Saudi Lawyers League.
It will be better by far to see Arsenal in a new football league where it’s all about the game. In contrast court cases along with PGMO Tales will be the continuing fare of the cheats and their little chums league will see . Project 20 years into the future and Manky 29,115 will have been champions for 20 years on the trot. Their new 8 match season will read P8 W8 F150 A 0 PTS 24 meanwhile Forest Villa Everton and Newcastle fans can just go for a good old pub crawl and will get to see what they’re losing by on a free app : MUGSLEAGUE.
As we know, a few Premier League clubs have been relying on their owners to provide low, or no, interest rate loans to ‘compete’, or, arguably, punch above their financial weight; one of these clubs is Arsenal. Of course, the way the APT rules were drafted meant this was perfectly legal, but the recent judgement, if I’ve understood it correctly, means that this source of cheap, or even free, funding will no longer be available.
I admit I haven’t been reading Untold recently, so can someone please point to the articles decrying owner funded loans and the clubs resorting to this funding?
Also, can someone explain why MCFC’s owners went through the hassle of associated party funding when they could have just done what AFC’s owners did? I suspect someone will attempt to tell me MCFC’s associated party funding is simply a way of the owners funding MCFC, but clearly it isn’t the same as an owner’s loan because one fell under the scrutiny of the APT rules and the other didn’t. MCFC’s owners action just don’t make any sense, based on my limited knowledge.
One final point. I’ve asked this several times already and I don’t recall getting a sensible answer. To those of you that want to see Arsenal and most of the current Premier League set up a new league, how do you expect it to compete with a league that will easily be able to outspend it, and get the best footballing talent?
In part answer to Tim I would ask Tim how he would expect Arsenal to compete with City given their already free rein to easily outspend anyone else ? Are we to conclude ‘ oh well at least their 115 or is it 130 infringements have brought the best footballing talent to … Manchester city ?!?! Are we to feel included by association when they are champions for the 10 th consecutive season 6. On that basis let’s look to Scotland where Celtic win virtually everything . Will foreign talent beat a path to the premier door demanding they have the privilege to be 2nd and win a cup every 7 or 8 years if they’re very good and don’t harangue MC’s referee association too much? What joyous outcome do you see Tim???
LeMmy, I don’t have any answers, only questions.
I can’t understand why Arsenal, and their allies, would want to set up a second rate league. As far as I am aware nobody on Untold espousing this idea has explained the rationale behind it.
If anyone wants to explain it I’ll be more than happy to be educated, and while you are at it explain the owner loan issue too.
So do nothing and hope for the best Tim? I recall England once had a Prime Minister who espoused that type of thinking. How did that work out?
But “Mike in Atlanta” Tim didn’t say “no nothing”. You are just jumping to an extreme position which his comment doesn’t warrant at all.
@mike in atlanta
Hi.
I’m not sure I suggested anything; in fact, I stated, “LeMmy, I don’t have any answers, only questions.”
If you’ve got any answers I’d be happy to hear them and maybe debate their merit.