Premier League want to reduce from 20 to 18 teams

[Curtains]

5 minutes ago, Old Spalding Ram said:

From today’s Daily Telegraph.

“Parry has shared his plans with just a few close confidants, including the Stoke chairman, John Coates, and his Middlesbrough counterpart, Steve Gibson. “They are 100 per cent supportive because it is for the greater good,” Parry said. “Those two are genuinely up for it. They are excited, and passionate about it“
 

well.............I hate the clubs he represents!

Says it all really 

[Jayram]

9 hours ago, Andicis said:

They're offering bribes to hold all the power. 

Exactly this. I despise the Premier League elite, greedy bar stewards who robbed clubs like ours of the chance to compete as an equal at the highest level by stealing the vast majority of the money when the Prem was formed. If I had my way I’d tell the so called ‘big six’ to duck off to some bloated ‘Super League’ where they could play Barca and PSG over and over again until everyone got bored and they begged to come back to the English game.

This power grab must be resisted at all costs, and the EFL must play hard ball or the game as we know it in this country is finished.

[AutoWindscreens]

3 hours ago, California Ram. said:

This is just part of the biggest clubs using the current financial uncertainty to claim a bigger share of power. They will look for the weakest constituents (the EFL, the FA) to buy off in order for those organisations to rubber stamp proposals (death of the league cup for example)
 

The same will be happening in Europe too - this is a chance for the same top clubs to be offering money to FIFA for the ‘development of the game’ in order to authenticate the ‘top club run’ version of the Champions League. 

Let’s be clear that, as David Conn points out, this will financially benefit the EFL clubs in the short term, but it limits their future gain too. 
 

 

 

The league cup is dead, isn't it?

And it never had much history or prestige in any event. It was only introduced in 1960. One reason for doing it was to bring in another revenue stream for league teams (thanks, Wikipedia); another was to give the League more influence relative to the FA and UEFA. It was meant to be the start of a League-led reorganisation of football.

Sounds familiar?

 

[TuffLuff]

Listened to Rick Parry this morning on five live and it doesn’t take you long to work out what he is. Biased, self serving, patronising and has no interest in the important detail. I have no opinion on this topic at the moment, and I’m too hungover to look into it right now, but I can see why we are having problems with the EFL when he’s the top man

[AutoWindscreens]

3 minutes ago, Jayram said:

Exactly this. I despise the Premier League elite, greedy bar stewards who robbed clubs like ours of the chance to compete as an equal at the highest level by stealing the vast majority of the money when the Prem was formed. If I had my way I’d tell the so called ‘big six’ to duck off to some bloated ‘Super League’ where they could play Barca and PSG over and over again until everyone got bored and they begged to come back to the English game.

This power grab must be resisted at all costs, and the EFL must play hard ball or the game as we know it in this country is finished.

Surely the power grab you want to resist already happened, as you said in your first line. This proposal actually reverses some of that.

[WhiteHorseRam]

So am I right in thinking that if the richest man in the world suddenly became a Tamworth fan and decided to buy the club and take it all the way, the big PL clubs could veto that take over?

Considering the whole structure is awash with weird money, that would be a total disgrace.

Just sandbagging their own asses. The proposed voting powers are out of order.

I noticed last night that the BBC bloke pointed out that Villa and Newcastle had spent more time in the PL that Man City …. just shows what this is all about.

[Olton Ram]

10 minutes ago, Old Spalding Ram said:

From today’s Daily Telegraph.

“Parry has shared his plans with just a few close confidants, including the Stoke chairman, John Coates, and his Middlesbrough counterpart, Steve Gibson. “They are 100 per cent supportive because it is for the greater good,” Parry said. “Those two are genuinely up for it. They are excited, and passionate about it“
 

well.............I hate the clubs he represents!

So in answer to the question I aired yesterday as to how widely Parry had canvassed opinion amongst EFL chairmen and owners, the answer appears to be 'not very widely', consisting as it does of mostly a few "close confidants". Revealing as well that Steve Gibson is one of these close confidants, given how involved he turned out to be in Derby being charged by the EFL over the stadium sale and amortisation. I know some people have tried to defend Parry, but he isn't coming out of this looking great. Surely he should have refused to give supportive quotes to the press before he'd consulted properly with all the EFL clubs. This is shaping up to be the biggest change in English football in 30 years and the man at the top of the EFL appears to have spent more time talking to Liverpool and the press than to some of the clubs that he represents. 

[WhiteHorseRam]

15 minutes ago, Jayram said:

play Barca and PSG over and over again until everyone got bored

Doesn't that happen now? ?

[TuffLuff]

1 hour ago, Old Spalding Ram said:

From today’s Daily Telegraph.

“Parry has shared his plans with just a few close confidants, including the Stoke chairman, John Coates, and his Middlesbrough counterpart, Steve Gibson. “They are 100 per cent supportive because it is for the greater good,” Parry said. “Those two are genuinely up for it. They are excited, and passionate about it“
 

well.............I hate the clubs he represents!

Can’t believe this isn’t a parody quote

Something doesn’t feel right about this move 

[BondJovi]

This is nothing more than bribery under the guise of saving the football pyramid. As for Parry, he reminds me of Burke from Aliens. 

[Gaspode]

How can Parry run the EFL impartially when he has 'confidants' among the chairmen/owners that he shares information with?

As for the PL big boys kindly helping the EFL to survive - it would have held a bit more water if they hadn't admitted that they'd been talking about this pre-covid....

[Jayram]

1 hour ago, AutoWindscreens said:

Surely the power grab you want to resist already happened, as you said in your first line. This proposal actually reverses some of that.

I don’t think it does - they are chucking some money at the EFL so that a bit further down the line they can vote among themselves to do whatever they want without any interference. The end result ultimately would be a Premier League with no relegation, most of the domestic season devoted to playing in a European/world super league or playing exhibition matches in the Far East/Middle East, no participation in the FA Cup etc. 
The greed of these so called big six clubs is nauseating - I’d call their bluff and dare them to resign from the Premier League.
 

[RamLad1884]

As much as the shift of power here isn't desirable it does provide an answer to alot of issues between the Premier League and Championship. 

. Entry of one team from the Prem into the playoffs.. Should help bridge that gap between lower prem and higher championship teams. 

. Scrapping parachute money in favour of extra funds to the league, definitely not a bad thing given the advantage relegated teams have had for the last few years. 

[Jayram]

1 hour ago, WhiteHorseRam said:

Doesn't that happen now? ?

In a way but in the kind of league they imagine it would be PSG/Barcelona/Juventus etc at home/away 4 times a season because the foreign owners at Liverpool, Man Utd/City & Arsenal think this is what the fans want, without realising that unlike US sport, football fans actually want the uncertainty of promotion/relegation - without it football would be utterly tedious. I imagine Sky executives would be creaming themselves at something like this but after a couple of seasons it would all go very stale. 

[angieram]

1 hour ago, AutoWindscreens said:

The league cup is dead, isn't it?

And it never had much history or prestige in any event. It was only introduced in 1960. One reason for doing it was to bring in another revenue stream for league teams (thanks, Wikipedia); another was to give the League more influence relative to the FA and UEFA. It was meant to be the start of a League-led reorganisation of football.

Sounds familiar?

 

Not sure why the League Cup couldn't be replaced with an EFL cup? I enjoy cup games and it would be much more of an incentive to Championship clubs with a potential final at Wembley, rather than 'just' a humiliating but money-spinning quarter final tie against one of the big PL clubs.

[Spanish]

5 minutes ago, Jayram said:

In a way but in the kind of league they imagine it would be PSG/Barcelona/Juventus etc at home/away 4 times a season because the foreign owners at Liverpool, Man Utd/City & Arsenal think this is what the fans want, without realising that unlike US sport, football fans actually want the uncertainty of promotion/relegation - without it football would be utterly tedious. I imagine Sky executives would be creaming themselves at something like this but after a couple of seasons it would all go very stale. 

regrettably I think you may be surprised how many EFL supporters will choose a second team in the EPL to follow.  I think there will be many that will abandon their traditional team.  Covid hasn't helped. 

I am conflicted by the thought that EFL fans should boycott Sky and their ilk in order to send a message that we care about EFL.  but on the other side of that argument what will be the impact of no trickle down tv rights money? 

[Mucker1884]

I blame Boris.  All this "Rule of six" is being taken far too literally!   

[24Charlie]

It's not surprising that two American owned clubs are leading this.

In America sports franchises are moved locations regularly in search of revenue with no regard for the fans who supported them. The Glaziers and The Fenway Group have no interest in the traditions of our football leagues they just want to maximise interest in the Premier League brand and their profits..

Or maybe they want to float this idea, which gets shot down so they can then believe they tried to help but were rejected leaving them no alternative but to fluck off and create a European Super League.

I don't know if Bayern Munich or Barcelona would dump on its own league like that but you can guarantee that the Yanks, the Arabs and the Oligarchs of the Premier League wouldn't think twice.

Any founder members in these Big 6? No, didn't think so.

[TuffLuff]

37 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

How can Parry run the EFL impartially when he has 'confidants' among the chairmen/owners that he shares information with?

As for the PL big boys kindly helping the EFL to survive - it would have held a bit more water if they hadn't admitted that they'd been talking about this pre-covid....

I think one thing I don’t get about Parry is that he seems to continually drop his trousers. Listening to him today he nearly let it slip that these talks had quite obviously been going in for a very long time.
 

 

[maxjam]

https://news.sky.com/story/premier-league-giants-proposal-to-shake-up-english-football-could-see-government-step-in-minister-warns-12102317

Premier League giants' proposal to shake-up English football could see government step in, minister warns.

Oliver Dowden is "quite sceptical" and vows to "look at the underlying governance of football" if the plan goes ahead.

Not a fan of the proposals and hope the EFL clubs won't be swayed by a paycheck, long term its not going to be in anyone's interest bar the top 6.  Not that I have a lot of trust in the Government, hopefully they will look at the proposals properly and dispassionately.