Football review MP: Transfer window shows need for reform
THE MP BEHIND a wide-ranging review of football governance has said the latest transfer window has shown the need for reform of the game.
Premier League clubs spent £295m in the January window, one of two across the year in which clubs can buy and sell players.
But only £1m of that spending was on players in the football league – the second, third and fourth tier of English football – raising questions about whether money at the top of the game is trickling down through the leagues.
Tracey Crouch, who penned a fan-led Government review on football governance published late last year, said the spending strengthened the argument for more drastic measures to ensure smaller clubs and the grassroots benefited too.
“The Premier League is the best in the world and rightly attracts phenomenal talent, leading to its continued growth. It’s wealth is to be celebrated but this window shows that wealth is concentrated at the top, rather than at the bottom,” she told City PM last night.
“The clubs are demonstrating exactly why we need to do something,” she told City PM last night.
Crouch’s review, which was welcomed by government, called for a levy on transfer spending by the top clubs which would see funding reallocated lower down the pyramid, where a number of clubs remain in a precarious financial state. The proposal was described by one Premier League chief executive as akin to “Maoist collective agriculturalism.”
Crouch proposed a one year grace period for Premier League clubs to work out an alternate plan. She also called for an independent financial regulator, modeled on similar lines to the Financial Conduct Authority.
Read more: Football review chair: Game could face “existential crisis” without reform and regulation