Premier League clubs must seize control back from players and agents, here’s my five-point plan

THE Premier League has its greatest opportunity since the 1992 Sky ‘revolution’  to rid a plague on its own house.
And that is the disproportionate power and financial influence of players, agents and the union over the game.

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Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan believes the players run the game completelyCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

Alan Sugar famously said the brand new broadcast deals were fabulous but added: “Why the bleedin’ hell didn’t we tell the players we got half the money we got, then they could only have had that rather than the bloody lot?”

The genie is out of the bottle with wages and agents but football should now have the will and the way to ram it back in.

Premier League clubs have now a clear vision of what happens if, say, a broadcaster took their money away.

They have seen what happens when the finances  disappear and, if that doesn’t bring about change, then they deserve all they get.

Former Spurs chief Sir Alan Sugar has urded the PFA to get Premier League players to wise up

The only thing that clubs can do to change the  conditions surrounding the loss of all income is to reduce their biggest cost — player wages. Do that and they have got their answer.

Frankly, we’re seeing football’s backside right now — the embarrassment of begging players for help.

Tragically clubs have paid players “f*** off” money and they have repaid it by effectively telling the clubs to “f*** off” in their hour of need.

Players — who benefitted incredibly, alongside managers and agents, from their clubs abilities to negotiate huge money from broadcasters — were given 80 per cent of it and most of them couldn’t really care less about their own industry.

The PFA — funded by Premier League money obtained by threatening strike action — are now kicking up dust about “players being put in corners”, demanding clubs show accounts when even Blind Pew could see the revenue losses.

The NHS is being used as currency by players and unions to justify why the football industry itself is calling for financial help.

Shouldn’t it look to its biggest beneficiaries for long-term benefit?

Pay cuts may well come (but more likely pay deferrals, which solve nothing) with great reluctance (to be fair, who greets pay cuts with enthusiasm?), along with distrust of the very people who pay them but are not respected in the slightest when it comes to times of adversity.

Football cannot ever allow itself again to go cap in hand to the players. Change must now come and in a hurry.

The industry needs to clean up its act. Here’s my five-point proposal . . . 

• Salary caps across leagues linked to a percentage of turnover — eg 50 per cent. This would reduce Premier League and Championship wage bills by £625million per year.
• The transfer market also has to change, so clubs get their other major outlay under control. A net allowance of 20 per cent of the previous year’s turnover on transfer spend.
• The transfer window to be abolished. It has  created a bad business market —  specifically ratcheted-up  January prices. The market should instead be open all year for clubs to trade at times when their cash flow needs it.
• Agents should only be able to act for one party — clubs or players. They should be reduced to five per cent commission and levies of between three to five per cent placed on that commission. That would put another £15m back into  the football pyramid.
• The PFA should be stripped of its £27m-a-year GIFT from the Premier League after their divisive and destructive behaviour in this crisis. Instead it should be given to grassroots football, funded by its own members. If players had to pay the £27m, it works out to be 0.75 per cent of their salaries, so the average Premier League player would pay just £27,000 a year.

It might be wishful thinking but it shouldn’t be. It would give sanity and financial stability to the football industry.

Alternatively,  given what we’ve seen with the players, let’s just allow the lunatics  to continue to run the asylum.
SIMON JORDAN’S Final Word is on talkSPORT on Sunday from 5-8pm.

PFA chief Gordon Taylor has come in for some criticism during the coronavirus crisisCredit: Getty

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