Relatively speaking, the Premier League is a bastion of equality and collectivism, but Farhad Moshiri, Everton’s majority shareholder, got it wrong when he declared last season that “there has never been a more level playing field in the Premier League than now.” Tottenham generated £209.2 million last season, the sixth-highest figure in the Premier League. That figure put them far ahead of the seventh-highest, West Ham United (£143.8 million), but well adrift of the fifth-highest, Liverpool (£302 million), who lag far behind the biggest earners, Manchester United (£515 million). For all that has been made of mid-ranking Premier League clubs’ ability to attract a higher class of player these days — Yohan Cabaye and Christian Benteke at Crystal Palace, Steven Defour at Burnley, Fernando Llorente at Swansea City, Xherdan Shaqiri at Stoke City — the gap in spending power is enormous. Just not big enough for the liking of some, it seems.

The past four or five seasons have seen most of that Big Six in transition — Chelsea going through a succession of managers while looking to rejuvenate the ageing squad that brought the first wave of success under Roman Abramovich, Manchester United rushing blindly and erratically into the post-Ferguson era, Manchester City seeking to rationalise and to establish a new identity, Liverpool going through their usual cycles of boom and bust — and, for a time, the door to the top six seemed to be open. Newcastle United finished fifth in 2012, Everton sixth in 2013 and fifth a year later and Southampton sixth in 2016, a season in which Leicester, almost unaccountably, came first.

All things being equal, though — or rather, all things being unequal — it is a two-tier league. As much as Everton might be striving to improve under Ronald Koeman, in seventh place, they are five points adrift of Manchester United in sixth. If the Big Six perform with any degree of respectability, which admittedly they have not always done in recent seasons, then it is hard for Everton, Leicester, Southampton, West Ham or anyone else to get close to them. The glass ceiling that Leicester smashed to smithereens last season has been restored and reinforced. It remains a mystery how that happened in the first place, but the elite seem determined to ensure it does not happen again.

A level playing field? It is nothing of the sort. Yes the Big Six are global brands in a way that few of the other 14 clubs are. For example, Liverpool’s commercial revenue (£119.5 million last season), to say nothing of Manchester United’s (£272.1 million), already puts them on a different level to West Ham (£30.2 million). So too, do those at Chelsea (£122 million) and Manchester City (£178.7 million), two clubs who, until their benefactors came along, would probably have regarded West Ham as equals. The Financial Fair Play regulations introduced over the past decade mean that the Chelsea and Manchester City approach cannot be followed, so the modern elite have emerged in an era when a combination of the broadcast, digital and commercial booms, exploited so brilliantly by the Premier League and the Champions League, has created inequalities that are, realistically, likely to prove unassailable.

There is simply no case for those elite clubs to be allowed to tighten their stranglehold over their supposed competitors. The inequalities are great enough as they are. Even in Spain, they have come to recognise that the domination of broadcast revenue by Barcelona and Real Madrid has been damaging and are looking to find ways to create a fairer distribution model. The Premier League cannot begin to match La Liga for star quality, but it has always recognised that its competitive balance is its main selling point. In reality, it has never been anything like as balanced as the past few years, which reached their illogical conclusion with the Leicester “miracle”, made it appear. Allow that balance to be tipped any further to the advantage of the Big Six and the other 14 might as well wave the white flag.

The vote took place, amid a newly strained atmosphere, and the required two-thirds majority was achieved before an arm could be raised in objection
========
6 is not two-thirds of 20. Am I missing something here, or did the majority of the other 14 also side with the "big 6"? Or is it saying the other 14 voted against the big 6, which made the big 6 votes count for nothing?

Majority sided with the big 6 but the last thing we want is to get a league like the Spanish

So if the majority sided with the big 6 then aren't we to assume the deal wasn't good for the other 14?
It doesn't give figures, but it sounds like it was rather unanimous.

Obviously the big clubs will want to do whats in their best interests, but the whole thing about the vote seems rather fanciful propaganda tbh.

. Before the ballot could take place, there were a few unexpected murmurs of dissent and then, from nowhere, the request that representatives of 14 of the clubs leave the room so that the remaining six — you can guess which six — could discuss the matter in private.

That's the issue,not the outcome of the vote

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by Paulpowersleftfoot (U1037)
posted 1 minute ago
. Before the ballot could take place, there were a few unexpected murmurs of dissent and then, from nowhere, the request that representatives of 14 of the clubs leave the room so that the remaining six — you can guess which six — could discuss the matter in private.

That's the issue,not the outcome of the vote
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And that is the fanciful propaganda I am talking about. Why would the 14 just accept it and leave? I don't believe that, tbh.

comment by Paulpowersleftfoot (U1037)
posted 5 minutes ago
Majority sided with the big 6 but the last thing we want is to get a league like the Spanish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That isn't going to happen with this type of deal.

If however, clubs were allowed to sell their own TV rights, you'd see two or three break away at the top.

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 3 seconds ago
comment by Paulpowersleftfoot (U1037)
posted 1 minute ago
. Before the ballot could take place, there were a few unexpected murmurs of dissent and then, from nowhere, the request that representatives of 14 of the clubs leave the room so that the remaining six — you can guess which six — could discuss the matter in private.

That's the issue,not the outcome of the vote
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And that is the fanciful propaganda I am talking about. Why would the 14 just accept it and leave? I don't believe that, tbh.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If it didn't it wouldn't have been published in the Times like it has,it would've been taken as a second hand account and not open to a lawsuit

Suck it up, the rest of Europe, out with you lot, Germany, Spain, Italy and France have had to put up with financial doping for years.

For the kind of product the PL and even the CL wants to sell, the current model is unsustainable. The ultimate desire of these bigwigs is probably a closed cartel like the NFL where a select number of big clubs across Europe can compete against each other and reap the profits.

Time for your tablets Hector old son

If it didn't it wouldn't have been published in the Times like it has,it would've been taken as a second hand account and not open to a lawsuit
=======
It is a second hand account.

Paul

Facts are facts me old China.

"There is simply no case for those elite clubs to be allowed to tighten their stranglehold over their supposed competitors. The inequalities are great enough as they are."

That bit sums it up nicely. The 'Big 6' need their necks winding the feck in.

And the FA needs to grow some balls and tell the PL it needs a much larger proportion of its profit redistributing through the rest of the league system and into grassroots football.

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if true. Another nail into the desecrated corpse that is football.

i can see why the clubs would want to move to a less equal split of the cash...but some of them ought to think long and hard about what they want.

if the money were split up according to levels of interest abroad it would benefit the really big clubs (united, to a lesser extent arsenal/chelsea) at the expense of the rest (see recent shirt sales figures for instance)...so clubs like liverpool and spurs might be cementing their place in a top 6 for a while, but equally might make it harder for themselves to ever win the PL.

Utd being able to sell our own TV rights would kill the league. We'd have no competition.

comment by Eric_the_king (SE85) (U21241)
posted 54 seconds ago
Utd being able to sell our own TV rights would kill the league. We'd have no competition.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You've still got to spend well...and obviously city and chelsea still have sources of cash beyond what they themselves can generate.

but yeah, not sure arsenal/pool/spurs would want to get into a situation where united have an extra £50-100m a season more than they do from foreign tv rights alone (on top of the existing gap in terms of commercial income/sponsorships etc)

if the money were split up according to levels of interest abroad it would benefit the really big clubs (united, to a lesser extent arsenal/chelsea) at the expense of the rest (see recent shirt sales figures for instance)...so clubs like liverpool and spurs
================================
Nice wum.

Say Utd go another 3-4 yeasrs without winning the league. Something which is quite possible. Surely you cannot keep in raking in the TV money at the same rate as you did when you were in your pomp with Fergie.

years*

comment by Eric_the_king (SE85) (U21241)
posted 16 minutes ago
Utd being able to sell our own TV rights would kill the league. We'd have no competition.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Pipe down. You broke the world transfer record last summer and you're sixth.

comment by jlou1978 (U15376)
posted 2 minutes ago
if the money were split up according to levels of interest abroad it would benefit the really big clubs (united, to a lesser extent arsenal/chelsea) at the expense of the rest (see recent shirt sales figures for instance)...so clubs like liverpool and spurs
================================
Nice wum.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
problem is, you think i'm joking.

these big tv deals are not flogging tv rights to ireland, or norway, they're to china/asia/US/africa.

i'm sure there are plenty of diehard pool fans in asia, but equally a lot of the tv audience is going to be a bit fickle, supporting whoever happens to be hot at the time...and you haven't been very hot very much over the past decade.

shirt sales may or may not be a great guide to the popularity of each club globally, but last year united sold 4 x as many shirts as you, chelsea over twice as many, and arsenal 70% more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4211800/Manchester-United-sold-2-85million-shirts-2016.html

so we can assume that, under any new deal pushed through by the top 6, your lot will come out as winners vs evertone/west ham/west brom, but within that top 6 you will lose further ground on the truly big clubs globally.

comment by Mr Chelsea (U3579)
posted 5 minutes ago
Say Utd go another 3-4 yeasrs without winning the league. Something which is quite possible. Surely you cannot keep in raking in the TV money at the same rate as you did when you were in your pomp with Fergie.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As long as the media continue to dance to them it won't stop and every cup game no matter how tediously boring will continue to be aired