Premier League to tell Championship bail-out is dependent on introduction of salary cap
Premier League executives will tell the English Football League's Championship it must introduce a salary cap before any pyramid rescue package is handed down. The world's most wealthy domestic competition is close to agreement that it must help League One and League Two, but concerns remain over a requested £250 million cheque that includes the Championship.
One reservation expressed by smaller top-tier clubs is that their financial outlooks are already broadly in line with effective rivals in the division below under the parachute payment system. As a result, the Premier League is expected to require assurances that the second tier will curb excessive wage spending.
"It's difficult to assess financial damage when you have a division such as the Championship that is already spending 107 per cent of its revenue on wages," the executive said ahead of a Premier League meeting on Tuesday.
Amid ongoing quibbles over the requested £250m bail-out, one source close to talks added that the hopes expressed by the Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport for a deal to be reached this week were overly ambitious.
A lack of detail over where the bail-out is needed, potential assurances over future spending and measures to ensure the smaller top-tier clubs do not "hand unnecessary advances to Championship rivals" are said to be the remaining hurdles.
Telegraph Sport disclosed last week how Premier League clubs were becoming resigned to the bail-out being agreed, but there remains a feeling among executives that the Government should be taking the lead. "We aren't seeing Amazon told to bail out the High Street just because they have a successful model," one added.
Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, previously said the Premier League must “step up to the plate” to help football, but other MPs and sporting leaders said on Monday that Government should take a more prominent role in saving the game.
Damian Collins MP, the former chairman of the DCMS select committee, and the former FA chairmen Greg Dyke and Lord Triesman are among signatories to a letter pressing ministers to take responsibility.
“From the statements made by ministers [last week], it’s equally clear that the government has no current proposals to provide financial support, and nor is it prepared to offer any guarantees for the future," the letter to DCMS says.
The EFL, meanwhile, meets a day after the Premier League meeting, having already indicated that a salary cap in the Championship may be in the offing. Mark Ashton, the Bristol City chief executive, told Telegraph Sport on Saturday how the rescue package would form part of an overall reset in expenditure. The £250m package was a "robust figure", he added, and based only on lost ticket revenue across the divisions.
The bail-out is just one item on the agenda at Tuesday's Premier League meeting which will discuss a host of issues facing clubs amid a second-wave of Covid-19. There will also be an attempt to reach agreement over when the season would be automatically curtailed if matches cannot be completed in full by a deadline of Aug 11. A most likely curtailment option is that the season would be scrapped if less than 75 per cent of games had been completed. Last season Liverpool had played 76 per cent prior to Project Restart.
The letter from Collins, which was also signed by Sunderland shareholder Charlie Methven and broadcaster Robbie Savage, warns of "the collapse of the national league structure that we have known for over 100 years".
"We would ask that the government now make clear what financial support it's prepared to give before it is too late," the group wrote in a letter to Dowden as well as Nigel Huddleston, the sports minister. "In order for clubs to sustain themselves over the winter and keep playing, they would need to be compensated for the loss of match ticket sales. There is still time to act, but not long left."
