Sky Bet EFL 2018/19

[Bobfoc]

Didn't Glenn Whelan play against Henry when the infamous handball incident took place? That should make for some awkward conversations on the training ground.

[Baddar]

Looking like Rui Faria will be taking over at Villa with JT as his assistant. 

[DavidMarrio]

John Terry is missing his calling in life. Needs to be the kitman. 

[Matt]

Sergio Canos won't be punished for headbutting Alioski because of course fucking not. Meanwhile Jansson will probably get a 10 game ban for rightfully calling the referee a cheating Sol Campbell.

[Lineker]

6 hours ago, Baddar said:

Looking like Rui Faria will be taking over at Villa with JT as his assistant. 

Faria has told them to jog on apparently. 

[Lineker]

Dean Smith has been appointed. 

[Cymbols]

Happy days. Definitely the most sensible option of all the names touted.

[FLiam]

Does this mean that Alan Curbishley will be appointed at Brentford?

[Lineker]

He's available. 

[Lineker]

Quote

The Leeds owner, Andrea Radrizzani, has called for a Premier League Two, saying the Championship does not make enough TV money for the division to be sustainable, which condemns its clubs to repeated crisis and takeovers.

The Championship is blighted, he said, by EFL money being too little and shared with clubs in Leagues One and Two, and the “huge gap” with clubs relegated from the Premier League benefitting from multimillion-pound parachute payments. Radrizzani, who took over Leeds in January 2017 and claims to have received and turned down takeover offers for the club, said fellow chairmen, who he did not identify, agree a reconstruction is needed.

“I think the model of the Championship should be reconsidered, because the turnover of owners is not really a healthy system,” Radrizzani said at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London. “It is not sustainable to stay in the Championship. This model, and also the small money they [the EFL] generate from TV rights, split between 72 clubs, maybe they need to reconsider, and consider another way, to create a Premier League Two or something else that can be sustainable.”

Deloitte’s analysis of Championship clubs’ accounts for 2016-17 found 19 out of 24 had made losses. Radrizzani also argued a big, popular club like Leeds suffers in the Championship.

“We should concede that a club like Leeds that is watched by 500,00 to 600,000 people live on Sky is getting from the league only £2m to £2.5m [TV income] and are actually penalised, because we are more than 20 times on TV. Maybe we should reconsider the system because it doesn’t work.”

Radrizzani said he does respect the league’s financial fair play rules, which limit a club’s losses to £13m per season but argued they did not make the Championship sustainable: “It’s difficult to be in a league where we make losses because there is not enough income generated from media rights,” he said. “So I think all the clubs should open a discussion to see how we can change this league so it’s sustainable – and [so we] don’t have a crisis every two years with every club going bankrupt or changing ownership.”

The desire of Championship clubs to share in the Premier League’s vast TV deals has been raised regularly in the years since the First Division clubs broke away to form the Premier League in 1992. It was last rejected most publicly after the late Bolton chairman, Phil Gartside, raised the idea 10 years ago.

The EFL responded to Radrizzani’s comments with a statement emphasising the improved TV deal worth £600m over five years from next season and the £4.6m “solidarity” payments to each Championship club from the Premier League. “The Championship remains one of the most competitive and unpredictable divisions in world football,” the statement said.

[Adam]

Why is Leeds only ever owned by total dingbats?

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Adam es Tranquilo said:

Why is Leeds only ever owned by total dingbats?

He isn't. This idea is bad though. Saying that I get where he's coming from. We've been on tv i think 7 times already and something daft like 7 of our next 8 games are on tv. We get viewing figures that are better than half the premier league clubs yet our slice of the pie is... Well it's basically a few crumbs.

[MDK]

Or maybe we could just deal the money out a little bit fairer? Hmm?

[Lineker]

3 minutes ago, MDK said:

Or maybe we could just deal the money out a little bit fairer? Hmm?

Alright settle down Corbyn.

[Matt]

3 minutes ago, MDK said:

Or maybe we could just deal the money out a little bit fairer? Hmm?

Basically that. Radz's idea is a silly way to get to a far simpler solution

[MDK]

Just now, Lineker said:

Alright settle down Corbyn.

Could peel orange in your pocket.

[Adam]

Back into 4th place after a hard fought 3-2 win away at Rochdale today. Windy as owt, pretty gloomy (as always in Lancashire) but well worth it for three points.

[Lineker]

11 have backed down and will no longer defy the blackout.

[Nelson]

13 hours ago, Lineker said:

11 have backed down and will no longer defy the blackout.

Personally I think the blackout is an out-of-date concept now so I'm with Eleven in their stance. People find illegal streams of Premier League 3pm Saturday kick offs anyway, they always do so if they get rid of the blackout rule at least they can make some money off it. I don't think it would affect lower league attendances at all.

[Adam]

45 minutes ago, Nelson said:

Personally I think the blackout is an out-of-date concept now so I'm with Eleven in their stance. People find illegal streams of Premier League 3pm Saturday kick offs anyway, they always do so if they get rid of the blackout rule at least they can make some money off it. I don't think it would affect lower league attendances at all.

I really think it would. Plenty of floating fans with "second" teams who won't make as much effort to go to watch their local team because they can sit at home after a busy week and watch Chelsea v Watford instead.

The concept of the blackout is not out of date at all. It protects football below the top league where attendance revenue matters a lot more. If the move towards more streaming keeps going, football will look a lot more like that awful Croatia v England game from last week before long.