(I thought this needed a thread of it own)current season needs to be concluded before 31 July

English Football League chairman Rick Parry has said the current season needs to be concluded before 31 July and that clubs face a "£200m hole" by September.


The former Liverpool chief executive admitted the EFL needed a "proper reset post-Covid", with clubs currently "stacking up creditors".
Parry said it was "difficult to answer" how many might go out of business.
He was giving evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee about the impact of coronavirus.
"Our end date realistically is 31 July because of the situation with contracts," said Parry. "We can't go beyond July.
"Players and staff have been furloughed and to expect clubs to bring them back in now, to forgo the furlough, only to then find in a month they can't play would be a complete mess.
"We need within days to be taking decisions."
He added: "We have a great deal of uncertainty around next season and the undetermined matter of when we'll be able to return with crowds, which for the EFL is absolutely critical. We're much more dependent upon the revenue and atmosphere generated by crowds than the Premier League.


Parry covered a wide range of subjects during his 30 minutes giving evidence, including what should happen with promotion and relegation, his view on wage deferrals and the future of parachute payments:

Promotion & relegation

Parry, who was giving evidence alongside England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tom Harrison and Rugby Football Union CEO Bill Sweeney, said he still expected three clubs to be promoted from the Championship to Premier League.
He added that it could get "very messy" if the threat of relegation from the top flight was removed - as has been reported.


"The Premier League is aware of our position on that," he stated, going on to suggest "lawyers are going to get wealthy" if the Premier League opted not to relegate three teams.
"There would be a degree of outrage from a number of clubs in the Championship and it would be a breach of the tripartite agreement," Parry continued.

Playing behind closed doors

Finishing the season behind closed doors would primarily be about "sporting integrity" rather than generating revenue for clubs, said Parry.
"If we were starting behind closed doors it would be finely balanced economically," he explained. "It's almost neutral but for many clubs it would actually cost them to play.
"We stand to lose an element of broadcast revenue if we're unable to complete the season, but given the broadcast contract is nowhere near that of the Premier League it's a relatively small contribution."


Parry said he supported the Professional Footballers' Association's appointment of financial services firm Deloitte to look at club accounts and assesses if there was a genuine need for wages to be deferred.


"Our approach really is to say we're all part of the problem and so we all need to be part of the solution; the clubs, the players and the owners," he said. "We all need to share the pain.
"We're having an open-book policy. We're absolutely on board with the Deloitte process."

Player contracts in the EFL

Explaining the situation around player contracts, Parry said the "landscape going forwards has got to change".
"We have 1,400 players coming out of contract at the end of June," he said. "That is a train coming down the tunnel very quickly.
"They are going to be extremely concerned about their futures."

Rescue package for EFL clubs

Parry said he "completely agreed" that a rescue package would now be needed to help support EFL clubs.


"The Premier League has said if they're allowed to play then they will be in a position to talk to us about support for the lower leagues," he added.
"We await that day - discussions to date, I think it's fair to say, have been limited."

Revenue redistribution & the future

Parry also said they could not just rely on going from "one bailout to another bailout", suggesting a "complete reset" was now needed in terms of the redistribution of revenue within the game.


"Parachute payments are an evil that needs to be eradicated," he said.
"We have six clubs in the Championship receiving parachute payments giving them an average of £40m per club. The other 18 clubs get £4.5m each, so they're then struggling to keep up.


He added: "We need to know where we're heading in two and three years. We need hope, we need a plan and we need some clarity on the longer-term future."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

What a mess.

£200 million is over £2million for each Club. Teams in the Championship might be able to deal with that but several Clubs in L1 & L2 could go to the wall-and that's assuming turnstiles are open again this year!

It's just a question of how many Clubs L1 & L2 can lose and still carry on in the present format-even losing the income from 8-10 games a season is half a million lost revenue.

As I've said before, I think major restructuring will be needed.

Bin this season award places as season finished and try and move on when possible. Leave the leagues alone Grovey or we will have a choice of watching semi pro football at home or televised prem wank fest.

if the government is willing to prop up rugby league which i think was a political move to win favour with the northerners with a loan then they should be doing the same with the efl. Not the whole £200m obviously but certainly a decent whack

Angry wrote:

if the government is willing to prop up rugby league which i think was a political move to win favour with the northerners with a loan then they should be doing the same with the efl. Not the whole £200m obviously but certainly a decent whack

Why shouldn't the EFL prop up their clubs? Most clubs will muddle through some won't even be affected at all, even if we bail them out the EFL will let clubs fold yet they have more than enough revenue to bail out clubs if they so wish, which they don't.

With obvious government support going on today's daily briefing the premier league season is now sure to be completed behind closed doors. The EFL however clearly cannot be completed so it's time to call it now either null and void (unlikely) or on positions as they currently stand (probably).

Freathy wrote:

With obvious government support going on today's daily briefing the premier league season is now sure to be completed behind closed doors.  The EFL however clearly cannot be completed so it's time to call it now either null and void (unlikely) or on positions as they currently stand (probably).

they should be doing that with the premiership, i saw they plan to make the halfs shorter aswell all so the premiership and the clubs can coin it in while the rest of the football pyramids suffer.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Angry wrote:

if the government is willing to prop up rugby league which i think was a political move to win favour with the northerners with a loan then they should be doing the same with the efl. Not the whole £200m obviously but certainly a decent whack

Why shouldn't the EFL prop up their clubs? Most clubs will muddle through some won't even be affected at all, even if we bail them out the EFL will let clubs fold yet they have more than enough revenue to bail out clubs if they so wish, which they don't.

that said why shouldnt the rugby league governing body pay for their short falls?

Angry wrote:

Freathy wrote:

With obvious government support going on today's daily briefing the premier league season is now sure to be completed behind closed doors.  The EFL however clearly cannot be completed so it's time to call it now either null and void (unlikely) or on positions as they currently stand (probably).

they should be doing that with the premiership, i saw they plan to make the halfs shorter aswell all so the premiership and the clubs can coin it in while the rest of the football pyramids suffer.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Angry wrote:

if the government is willing to prop up rugby league which i think was a political move to win favour with the northerners with a loan then they should be doing the same with the efl. Not the whole £200m obviously but certainly a decent whack

Why shouldn't the EFL prop up their clubs? Most clubs will muddle through some won't even be affected at all, even if we bail them out the EFL will let clubs fold yet they have more than enough revenue to bail out clubs if they so wish, which they don't.

that said why shouldnt the rugby league governing body pay for their short falls?

I wouldn't argue that they shouldn't pay for their own losses. There are fookin loads of us that haven't worked for six weeks now and have got fook all from the government and don't know when or if we will. We will all survive although some will have to start from scratch. What's typical of this country is that we will go into debt for another generation whilst giving handouts to Billionaires who don't even pay tax here, supermarkets immediately received £381m rates holiday and they are coining it in. Well probably lose half the fish and chip shops in the country whilst we subsidise another year of record profits for tescos and when I and millions like me get any money again it will be siphoned off some more. Big business should stand on their own fookin feet and that includes all the clubs.

Totally agree with the above.

Far more important things for the Country to spend money on than bailing out sports teams owned by wealthy individuals-a lot of whom are either non UK taxpayers or who make great efforts to reduce their tax bills (for example, half the Clubs in PL, at least a third of CCC clubs are under overseas ownership)

If you're on Benefits, it's not good to see a headline that a millionaire US businessman is getting a six figure sum from the taxpayer to help fund what is basically his hobby.

And who bailed out PAFC in its darkest hour? Us, the fanbase we didn't get a lot of help, nor should we really. If their is enough ground level support for a club then it will survive.