A little bombshell for the Premier League
From our friends in Brussels:
"The Commission recommends to sport organisations to pay due attention to the creation and maintenance of solidarity mechanisms. In the area of sport media rights, such mechanisms can take the form of a system of collective selling of media rights or, alternatively, of a system of individual selling by clubs, in both cases linked to a robust solidarity mechanism".
Two points. Firstly apologies for calling it the Premier League. I think of it as the First Division and always will do, but had to use the current form for sake of clarity. Secondly, 'solidarity' is eurospeak for redistribution. While the sport white paper is filled with hedgings and caveats, it notes very early on that 'sport is subject to the application of the acquis communautaire, or a legal land grab as we might term it in less high falutin' terminology.
Here are some figures a Grauniad journo used in August:
"The Premier League's bottom club can expect £30m from TV this season, a 50% increase on last year's £20m. The average Premier League club will receive about £40m from TV, top clubs about £50m. Championship clubs' TV revenues, plus the new ladder payments, may amount to about £2m each, but the gap with even the Premier League's bottom club has grown from £19m to £28m. Overall, the Premier League's £900m a season dwarfs the Football League's £33m. The £11.2m basic payment being handed out to the 72 clubs is only 1.2% of the Premier League's deal".
Might a litigious lower league club want to argue the toss about 'solidarity'?
"The Commission recommends to sport organisations to pay due attention to the creation and maintenance of solidarity mechanisms. In the area of sport media rights, such mechanisms can take the form of a system of collective selling of media rights or, alternatively, of a system of individual selling by clubs, in both cases linked to a robust solidarity mechanism".
Two points. Firstly apologies for calling it the Premier League. I think of it as the First Division and always will do, but had to use the current form for sake of clarity. Secondly, 'solidarity' is eurospeak for redistribution. While the sport white paper is filled with hedgings and caveats, it notes very early on that 'sport is subject to the application of the acquis communautaire, or a legal land grab as we might term it in less high falutin' terminology.
Here are some figures a Grauniad journo used in August:
"The Premier League's bottom club can expect £30m from TV this season, a 50% increase on last year's £20m. The average Premier League club will receive about £40m from TV, top clubs about £50m. Championship clubs' TV revenues, plus the new ladder payments, may amount to about £2m each, but the gap with even the Premier League's bottom club has grown from £19m to £28m. Overall, the Premier League's £900m a season dwarfs the Football League's £33m. The £11.2m basic payment being handed out to the 72 clubs is only 1.2% of the Premier League's deal".
Might a litigious lower league club want to argue the toss about 'solidarity'?
Labels: EU fun and games, sport
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on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 8:44 am.
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Not a hope. Football is like no other business.
There's bag loads of fun going on at Margate FC presently
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