Written by kirsikka
There’s a mantra being repeated by every team we beat that it’s because of the parachute payments and that they distort the competition in the Championship meaning three teams will almost certainly go back up.
It kind of misses the point that when you come down you have better quality players from being in the Premier League so would always likely be near the top but, the best of them will have been sold on and so the chances are you’re left with the players that didn’t make the grade at a higher level but stuck on high wages so you can’t move them on even if you want to.
However, what does it mean in terms of teams getting promoted? According to the moans, we hear weekly, it should mean loads more PL relegated teams go straight back up that you see in other leagues. So, I did a quick check:
Over 10 years, how many relegated teams from the PL went straight back up compared to relegated teams from the Championship that went straight back up?
Premier League relegated teams promoted straight back up: 8 out of 30
Championship relegated teams promoted straight back up: 10 out of 30
So a team relegated from the Championship into League 1 is more likely to go straight back up compared to a team with the alleged massive distortion of parachute payments.
Maybe we should be looking at the amount of tv money that’s distributed to Championship teams and moving more of it down the pyramid since it’s obviously creating too much of an advantage for teams relegated from the division?
The reality is there is a lot of bleating from teams that have spent huge sums over the past ten years and completely ballsed it up. They want FFP to entrench them into having an unfair monetary advantage and can’t handle it when another team temporarily has more money, even if that money is mostly being eaten up by legacy PL costs.
FFP that was fair wouldn’t be that hard. Set a maximum budget for all teams in the division. Ban debt so if a team doesn’t turn over enough to reach the level of the maximum budget owners can put the money in to make it up, but not as loans and instead only as money ‘lost’ to them. That way every team has the option to compete on a level playing field if the owner is prepared to lose money. Moreover, owners of the bigger clubs wouldn’t even need to lose money since their turnover would likely mean they could reach it without anything coming from the owners.
There would need to be some kind of ‘ratcheting down’ difference for the PL teams relegated with PL wages but we’ve shown there isn’t really an advantage for them so that should also work out fine.
Then add in an extra ‘smell test’ rule essentially saying any club trying to circumvent the rules in a way an independent panel feels is against the spirit of the rules is punished. For example, the sponsor playing Rooney’s wages at Derby would fall foul of it.
Then you’d have a relatively fair league with costs known and under control and a chance for everyone to go for promotion without there being an inbuilt advantage for a special subset.
Yet, when L1 tried to introduce a system to equalise the budgets, so part of the way to what I suggested, the likes of Sunderland absolutely lost their ****************. Fans of clubs with a bigger attendance are absolute stalwart supporters of FFP. As long as it means they get to spend more than other clubs. Try to introduce a system that makes puts the fair into ‘fair play, then suddenly it’s an outrage and they rant about why a club shouldn’t be stopped from spending what they want.
Conclusion? Parachute payments aren’t anywhere near a guaranteed route to promotion. Anyone falling back on that tired argument is deluding themselves. Having the leftover players that were almost but not quite good enough for the league above may help but not as much as you may think.
Your say…
redharry wrote…
If a team gets promoted straight back up aren’t the parachute payments due to be paid in the following seasons distributed instead to all the other Championship clubs. So if we get promoted alongside Fulham and WBA the other clubs will get shedloads of cash next season. Must have been a big payout this season with Norwich and Watford going straight back up.
ErikthViking wrote…
So where do clubs such as Bolton, Charlton, Derby, Ipswich, Pompey, Sunderland and Wigan come into the picture? They all had bundles of parachute cash and all but one of them are in the third tier (and, of course, Derby really should be).
Don’t see Swansea or Cardiff doing that well at the moment. Does anyone spot the immediate parachute money bounce back for Hull, Middlesborough, QPR? Sheffield United have bought themselves five defeats already.
Money talks, that is a given. But parachute payments, perhaps, speak a rather different language than success. – Join the conversation, click here.
