Soccer

Premier League clubs ready to provide financial aid to Football League

Decision likely to made over additional live TV games

Premier League clubs have accepted they will have to offer financial assistance to the Football League. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty

Fri Oct 2 2020 - 22:30

Premier League clubs have accepted they will have to offer financial assistance to the Football League as they prepare for a key meeting after the international break.

After months of resistance, when the Premier League consistently argued the pandemic affected their ability to support the football pyramid beyond current obligations, there is now a recognition something more must be done. Discussions over the terms of any bailout – with the EFL asking for £250 million (€276 million) – are yet to be resolved, however.

The extent of any conditionality attached to a bailout is likely to be discussed at the next Premier League shareholders’ meeting, among a number of other issues. Clubs are set to vote on the number of games that must be played before a season can be curtailed, with an expectation they will agree on 75 per cent.

Another topic of discussion will be TV. On Friday the league published its televised fixtures for October, listing 15 games for broadcast. This is a change from the first four matchdays of the season, which followed the 2019-20 restart in broadcasting every match.

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Bail out

At the meeting clubs are expected to be presented with a medium-term proposition over how many more matches should be shown while fans remain excluded from grounds. The Premier League remains frustrated by the UK government’s decision to suspend the return of fans.

It is the bailout that is consuming the minds of club chairmen, however. Despite a summer of sustained transfer activity, with more than £1 billion (€1.1 billion) spent on players in the top flight, some top-flight clubs are enduring more straitened circumstances and there are those who see themselves as not dissimilar from clubs they are expected to bail out.

Issues of transparency and accountability look set to be at the centre of any terms, with clubs afraid of giving ambitious competitors in the Championship a leg up. The introduction of a wage cap in the second tier could be insisted upon as a condition, although that would likely be contested strongly by Championship clubs who saw off a similar proposal in the summer.

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