The EFL is killing Football Clubs
It’s April 2019 and I can name at least four teams that might not make the end of the season.
Bury FC commenced ‘crisis’ talks last month in a bid to finish the season after players and playing staff were not paid. Bolton Wanderers FC have had winding-up petitions handed to them left right and centre and the uncertainty of the clubs future remains hanging in the balance, with staff not being paid for two months straight and players and playing staff still awaiting wages. Coventry City FC face expulsion from the Football League if they do not find someone where to play their Home games as the owners of the club are in a bitter battle with the local council. Blackpool FC’s future remains heavily in the balance despite the fact the Oyston’s have been removed from the club, having receivers in place. And what did the EFL have to say. “We’re working on it.”
Now I’m not here to say the English Football League is responsible for all the problems that have occurred to Football Clubs over the past years but they have a lot to answer for. As the leagues governing body they have a responsibility to look after the clubs in the Football League, but right now they have no idea what they are doing.
Over the past ten years the EFL have failed to govern the league in an acceptable manner, literally allowing convicted criminals to run clubs, failing to get sponsorship deals within television and outside that can truly benefit clubs and constantly allowing lower league clubs to fall by the way side and not get the help needed.
The examples are endless, Leeds United went through three owners in just short of five years, with one being under investigation for the entirety of his tenure as the owner, and this follows him having already been banned in his home land. And yet, he was allowed to buy one of the EFL’s biggest clubs. Coventry City have been at war with the EFL since the minute their owners were allowed in, with monetary problems being at the forefront, with its team even having to play its Home games in Northampton. Bolton Wanderers are being thrown into the mire by an owner who was previously convicted on fraud charges and banned from owning a business and still he’s allowed to own a football club? This man didn’t pay the club staff on time for two months, putting people’s livelihoods at risk.
The EFL’s ‘fit and proper’ ownership test is quite clearly a sham. To own a football club you should have to go through a vigorous investigation and examination, owning a football club is not just buying and selling football players. A football club can be thousands of people’s jobs and the heart of a community, you’re not just messing with things on the pitch, you’re messing with towns and cities.
Football today is a business with investment being at the front of every club official’s mind, so as you can imagine, smaller clubs that currently don’t have the liberty of multi-billionaire owners and do not make the TV bill every week need all the help they can get. In 2017, Sky Sports agreed a new deal to continue being the exclusive broadcaster of the EFL and it turned that they were going to pay less than a quarter of what they pay to show Premier League games. Simply Unacceptable. How can any EFL team possibly hope to make it into the top division without extra help when they are receiving so little from the EFL? Fulham FC spent over £100 million when they entered the top division but found themselves relegated within one season. They will have to make major cuts to be financially fine being back in the Championship. The lack of help from the EFL is allowing the gap between the Championship and the Premier League to grow and grow, meaning there is very little a Championship team could ever survive in the top flight without significant investment, quite simply ruling out smaller teams.
The lack of care and investment from the EFL is appalling and things need to be changed. The EFL needs to fight harder for TV and Sponsorship deals, because the money is there, the price of football is higher than ever and teams need whatever they can get. A plan needs to be put in place so that teams must have safe guarded funds in which to look to if financial trouble hits so the fear of administration and liquidation can be eliminated for good and finally the test to see who can and cannot own a football clubs needs to be change, it needs to be a hell of a lot more thorough and investigative so that football fans can worry about what’s on the pitch and not what’s going on off it. Change needs to happen, otherwise we could lose some of Britain’s oldest and dearest football clubs and that’s not okay.
