There is more than enough money in football – EFL clubs should not be looking for government handout

ONE week after football was closed down by the gravest crisis of our lifetime and clubs are already putting out the begging bowls.

Every day brings new warnings of teams going to the wall due to the nationwide ban on all sports.

EFL clubs should get to the back of the queue when it comes to government handouts, says Sun Sport’s Mark Irwin

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The Football League confirmed that they are in discussions with the Government over the repercussions of the current lockdown.

But in the national scramble for urgent financial assistance, football should be right at the back of the queue.

So before we get the violins out, maybe we should stop and consider just why our national game is facing such an uncertain future.

Because the current Premier League TV deal is worth a staggering £3.1BILLION A YEAR and the EFL broadcast rights bring in a further £119million per annum.

Top-flight clubs paid £261m in agents fees last season, while the average annual wage in the Premier League is £3m.

So it is blindingly obvious that there is more than enough money in football to go around without the need for any Government bail-outs.

The issue here is the way that money is distributed and spent.

And maybe the looming Armageddon will finally force the sport to take a long, hard look at the way it is being run — and even develop a sense of social conscience.

Roman Abramovich, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs have started the ball rolling by opening up their hotel doors to stressed NHS workers.

Now other leading figures in the sport need to follow that philanthropic example by contributing more than Instagram posts of toilet-roll juggling.

There have already been calls for the PFA to canvass its members to donate maybe half a week’s wages to a fighting fund to keep lower league clubs on track.

It’s true that players in Leagues One and Two only earn a fraction of the ludicrous salaries handed out to the likes of Paul Pogba, Mesut Ozil and Kevin De Bruyne.

Yet most are still being paid between two and three grand a week, which is way more than the average UK worker can ever hope to pocket.

So let’s not shed too many tears just yet for young men whose greatest concern is how to keep themselves amused now that their favourite nightclub has been forced to close.

For the fact is that many lower league clubs were already in the financial brown stuff long  before the coronavirus struck.

And many of football’s opportunistic owners will use the pandemic to excuse their years of reckless mismanagement.

Southend and Macclesfield have not been paying their players properly for months.

Bury have already gone out of business and it is only a matter of time before others call in the liquidators.

The EFL have just announced a £50m bail-out to keep their member clubs afloat in the short term. Yet even if they can somehow persuade the Premier League billionaires to provide further help, what guarantees will they give that the extra cash won’t be chucked up against the wall?

Too many clubs have been living beyond their means for years and quite a few of them have pulled every trick in the book to get around financial fair play.

Aston Villa only avoided breaking EFL regulations by selling their stadium to their owners before scraping promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs last year.

Yet that has not stopped them from squandering more than £140m on new signings.

So please spare us any sob stories if and when they are relegated whenever this season finally comes to a conclusion.

Wolves lost more than £1m a week to gain promotion two years ago and yet it is clubs such as Burnley and Norwich City who are criticised for lacking ambition because they refuse to recklessly gamble in the transfer market.

Now supporters who paid up front for season tickets are being urged not to claim refunds at the same time as clubs are bellyaching at the threat of the TV companies not paying their full whack.

At least Crystal Palace, Brighton and Manchester United are facing up to their responsibilities by offering continued payment to the hundreds of matchday staff who rely on that money to make ends meet.

Hopefully others will join in with a show of solidarity for all the low-paid employees who have kept football going for all these pre-virus years.

Turnstile operators, programme sellers, the catering and bar staff, stewards and groundsmen are all facing months of uncertainty with little or no hope of an imminent return to work.

So no matter how long football continues to be put on hold, professional footballers should be the very least of our worries.

Gordon Taylor is still the highest-paid trade union official in the world – nearly a year after vowing to step down from the PFACredit: PA:Press Association

GORD ISOLATED

IT was a year ago next week that Gordon Taylor promised he would be stepping down as chief executive of the PFA.

Yet here we are, 359 days later, and the old Klingon is still the highest-paid trade union official in the world, after pocketing another £2million in wages, benefits and bonuses.

Watching Prime Minister’s Question Time the other day, I had to do a double take when I realised Jeremy Corbyn was still leader of the opposition despite his general election thrashing last December.

Yet even Jezza can’t hold a candle to 75-year-old Taylor when it comes to outstaying his welcome.

The “full and open review” into the PFA’s finances which Taylor promised last year has yet to materialise and it is clearly going to take a crowbar to prise him out of office.

He has been in power since 1981 and is clearly in no hurry to bow to the wishes of the Association’s members for him to leave the stage.

But they say that time and tide wait for no man.

And with the government planning to put all oldies into isolation, we just might be witnessing the beginning of the end for Teflon Taylor.

OLYMPICS IMMUNE

WHILE every other sporting event has been put on ice, the Olympic organising committee  continue to insist their show will go on.

Many athletes are understandably concerned about the health risks involved in staging the games during the current pandemic.

After all, theirs is a sport which seems to attract an unusually large number of asthmatics.

But others are probably not quite so worried.

They know they have taken enough drugs over the years to make them immune to anything.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk