That's Culture Secretary Andy Burnham and he wants English clubs who collect buckets of cash from their Champions League success to give it to shitty clubs.
Burnham has got shitty club Wigan chairman Dave Whelan on his side:
It is not a Premier League at the moment. There are the top four, some in between and the rest at the bottom struggling to stay in the division. We need an equal distribution of finance for the health of the league. We have to be fair because we are all in the same league and we all appear on the television. Manchester United or Chelsea need somebody to play on the television, so we are as entitled as they are to the money that comes.Whoa, whoa... the English are socialists? When did this happen?
There are actually two issues here. One is the redistribution of Champions League money, the other is that of television money.
Currently 50% of the TV revenue is split evenly between clubs. The remaining 50% is then split evenly into two pools of 25%. One pool is paid out depending on the previous seasons' finishing spot. The other is paid out according to how many times a club is shown on live TV.
The distribution of £900M in TV money, that might be something for the clubs to look into if they feel it is not being equitably divvied up. But Burnham actually wants to curb the dominance of the Big 4.
We can't figure out if he's either an idiot or an asshole. So, should parsimonious Arsenal give money to Manchester City because the latter's multi-billionaire owners insist on having an overmatched manager (should have played Elano more, Sparky)?
We should add we think revenue sharing in the NFL was a stroke of genius and it's one of the reasons that the NFL is king in the US. But there is a massive difference between American football and world football. Nobody but Americans play the former. So, the US holds a monopoly on leagues. If the NFL wants to cripple the Cowboys to help the Panthers, that has no additional repercussions on the world's sports stage.
England doesn't have a football monopoly. If they want to force United to give money to Stoke so that Stoke has a better chance of beating Untied in the future, that's quaint but it would wreck English football in the medium term as less money for United means they will have a harder time competing with F.C. Barcelona and A.C. Milan going forward.
Each of the last three seasons, the EPL has had three of the four Champions League semi-finalists, unless Burnham can also get Spain and Italy (and Germany, and the Netherlands, and Portugal, and so on) to similarly redistribute wealth the English can say goodbye to that type of dominance. And that ultimately hurts the Premier League more than it helps Stoke.
Just our $.02, but, full disclosure, we're also largely supporters of Big 4 teams here (Arsenal, Liverpool, and a rogue Chelsea fan). Oh, and note to Whelan: it doesn't matter what you do with money, you're always going to have four teams at the top, some in the middle and then some teams fighting to stay up. Read more on "This Man Hates England"...
Posts
