This might turn into one of my infamous essay posts of thousands of words, but it is something I feel really strongly about. I would hate to see the above happen for a number of reasons. While automatic promotion from non-league football to the Football League is a relatively new concept, there has always been an avenue for any team to climb the football pyramid and make it to the top. When you look at the history of the Premier League, it has been filled by many ,many teams who have at one time played in the fourth tier of English football and made it to the top division. Wigan, Wimbledon, Bolton, Crystal Palace, Portsmouth, Swansea, Hull, Wolves, Sheffield United, Reading, Watford, Oldham, Bournemouth, Burnley, Bradford, Blackpool, Barnsley, Cardiff City and Swindon have all made it from the fourth tier to play in the Premier League. Six of the current Premier League teams have made it there from playing in the fourth tier at some point - for some of them fairly recently playing in the fourth tier. I don't think it would be fair, or healthy for the game, to put anything in place that made this less likely. What would happen to the clubs who were kicked out of the Football League and pushed further down the football pyramid? Who would make way for the feeder clubs in the third tier? If you allowed existing clubs to be used as feeder clubs then they would need to be either barred from promotion out of the third tier to avoid conflict of interests, or abandoned by their parent club once they were promoted. The latter would leave the affected club in an unstable position. What would happen if one of the parent clubs was relegated from the top tier down to the third tier, as has happened with the likes of Man City, Leeds, Forest, and even our near neighbours in the past? None of this would be fair on the fans of any of the clubs involved. No club has a divine right to be in the Football League, never mind the Premier, but neither does any team deserve to be barred from reaching any level of the game. I think there is an obvious and fair solution to cutting costs and avoiding parachute payments. A system that would make the football system fairer and a more equal playing field. I think it would also benefit the national game and the development of young players. The biggest cost for any club, no matter what level of the professional game they play at, is wages. For clubs in the Premier League, wages escalate as teams try and get the very best players available. In the lower leagues though, including the Championship, the biggest driver of wages is the need for such big squads because of the number of games teams play. Games come thick and fast with little recovery time, which forces clubs to have larger squads to survive. The leagues are too big! The big clubs would never agree to this restructuring, but I genuinely believe it would be good for the game if they did - and ultimately good for the big teams, and national team too, as more young English players would be developed. It is also good for the game that competition is as healthy as possible to keep pushing clubs to progress. My idea is that I think all leagues should be restricted to 20 teams. Squad sizes should be limited strictly, with home grown development players used in times of injury crises. This would push down wages and also encourage clubs to focus more on the development of young players.When you look at the average attendances and salaries in each league, then any drop in income from less home games would be offset by lower wages, lower travelling costs, etc. It would actually benefit the smallest teams most, as they tend to have the lowest attendances but the same fixed costs and wages. There are currently 92 teams in the league structure, but the National League is League Three in all but name - which makes it 116 teams in the National structure. I would have six leagues of 20 teams, broken up into three distinct groupings. Each group would sell their own TV rights to maximise income.The following structure would also mitigate against the sudden drop in income from the Premier League that causes so many problems, but without disadvantaging the teams already competing one league down. Top Group Premier League One (67% of Revenue) Premier League Two (33% of Revenue) Second Group Championship One (67% of Revenue) Championship Two (33% of Revenue) Third Group Football League One (67% of Revenue) Football League Two (33% of Revenue) The TV deals for each group should stipulate that at least one of the live games each weekend should feature a game form league two of that group. Not only would that help share out the TV money revenue, but it would also raise the worldwide profile of the teams in Premier League Two, and increase international interest in the English game even more. There would be three up and three down for every league apart from Football League Two which would have four down and two up from each of National League North and National League South. In the transition year, two extra teams would be promoted from each of those leagues to make the numbers up to 20 in Football League Two. This would make National Leagues North and South 20 teams each too. This removes the current bottleneck between the Football League and non-league football, where only two teams are promoted/relegated. That system wouldn't alter the national football pyramid structure overall. The only competition it would affect would be the League Cup which would need an extra preliminary round for the lower leagues. However, the new rounds one and two of the League Cup could be played on Saturdays at the beginning of the season due to the less congested fixture list for lower league teams. This would also raise the profile and income generated by the League Cup for lower league teams. The FA Cup would be unaffected, as teams at the bottom end of Football League One and in Football League Two would just enter in the preliminary round - just as they currently do in the National League. It will never happen - but I think it should. Well, now that I have sorted out the national game, I suppose I should get back to catching up with the prediction league - which I have been doing despite what everyone thinks, it's just taking ages.
Why should we, the payments are part of the structure of the Premier League and relegation, just because we are in a position where we are far more less reliant on them than others doesn't mean we should not take them, of course if we go straight back up the payments will stop, we will only be paid for the one season instead of receiving all the three years.
I'm not saying we shouldn't get the money. Of course we should. I was just pointing out to our Scouse friend that financially speaking we are in a strong position and we actually have managed our wage to turnover ratio well and traded players well so we could actually probably survive without out the bunce from the EPL. Not many (none?) other clubs who have ever been relegated could say that so for people from other clubs to suggest that it's these parachute payments which has seen us top of the league is folly.
I have read through your whole post and the only sentence I actually agree with is the last one. And while you are doing this I hope you have spotted that FBF has cheated on at least two occasions posting his predictions on a Saturday and including the result from the Friday game. Can i get extra points for being a grass please?
lol, I can believe the bloody parachute payments debate is rearing it's head again!!! Our success and signings have not been dependent on the PPs and nor have our finances - we made a huge amount of money in the summer by selling **** players at a massive profit (i.e. Sissoko bought for £1.5m sold for £30m), and reinvested it in players, and still have a massive chunk left over. I really don't argee with the PPs and would be happy to see them go, and anyone who thinks that the PPs automatically guarantee success in the championship is clearly being proven wrong this season, with the ****ty seasons Norwich and Villa are having so far. So Brighton look like the real deal at the moment, another win last night, only lost 2 out of 21 and aren't showing any signs of slipping up. Had a bit of a mid season wobble last season, but they'll have left from that, remember the season before Hughton came in and just managed to stop them being relegated, and only missed out on automatic promotion on GD last season. Pretty amazing progress really, and clearly gonna be our main rivals.
