Parachute Payments.

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Hornpete, May 17, 2022.

  1. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    Do we get 2 years or 3 years?

    Some think pp should be scrapped as its unfair on little championship clubs like Luton who can't compete with huddersfields and fulhams or bournemouths.

    On the other hand if it was phased out, promoted clubs would need to be tighter with purchases and wages in case they went down and therefore wouldn't even begin to compete in the premier league.

    Whats the answer?
     
  2. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Think it's 2 years now?

    I guess it's a case of the haves and haves not.

    Luton have proved you can still do well without them whilst West Brom have shown having them doesn't always lead to success.

    I suppose the issue for people is teams like Norwich seem happy to bounce up and down between the 2.

    Fulham I think are a bit different - they seem to spend to either stay up or go up and it has varied levels of succcess.
     
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  3. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    2 years, approximately £50m then £35m.

    If you only stay up for one season you miss out on the final £15m.

    It’s basically one years TV money split over three seasons but paid on a 50/%/35%/15% basis, unless you go down in year one like us.

    They can’t be scrapped as things stand, look at the state of us and Norwich this year, imagine we didn’t have PP to fall back on.

    The distribution of wealth needs a complete overhaul before you can even consider scrapping them, people forget why they came in in the first place. They’re a symptom not a cause.

    Huddersfield were no longer receiving PP and look how bad they were last season, they almost got relegated. PP have nothing to do with them beating Luton.

    The answer is reduce the PL to 18 teams, scrap PP and redistribute that wealth down into the championship (that’s about £500m) so the prize many gap is only something like £90m bottom of PL, £60m top of championship. You’d remove the cliff edge, make the championship far more competitive, but take no money away from the remaining 18 PL teams. Relegation wouldn’t be a disaster like it is now, promotion would be shared around a lot more.

    The issue at the moment is that TV revenue is £5m per club in the championship and £100m+ in the PL. Of course PP distorts that, but without changing the redistribution of wealth you can’t scrap PP as they’re at necessary for any team going up to have a hope in hell of competing and it completely stinking the place out.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2022
  4. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Smaller clubs like us and Norwich will probably need to become "yo yo" clubs to retain our existence. Our debt will reduce gradually over time if we did this, but for us as fans, that means one season of exciting, attacking football followed by a season of struggle and depression. Just like we have endured these past two seasons. For all Gino's faults, you can sort of understand why the money was tightened this season - had we spent more we would be in even more debt than we are now.

    That does not however, excuse the performance of the team this season. I will not go over it here as it has been discussed to death in other threads. If we didn't have a debt, or a much smaller one (10M or so), we could probably survive a good few seasons in the lower division, gradually chipping away at it until it's finally gone. However, since it's about 100M+, we cannot afford to languish in the Championship for too long. The parachute payments will help ease the drop a little, but as we all well know, selling our assets and replacing them with cheaper but reliable replacements will give us a push towards getting back into the PL.

    Being a yo-yo club is only really sustainable if you can reliably bounce back each time and use the larger finance pool to help in reducing our debt each time, little by little, and not making stupid expensive signings like Sarr for 40M which probably cost us our lengthy PL stay. If we languished in the Championship for more than two seasons now, as others have said we would be almost totally crippled - and because Gino has borrowed half of our loan against Vicarage Road (about 50M), if the lenders do not begin to receive payments back in sums they demand - well, we could lose the stadium.

    As much as I hate the PL for the "men against boys" division between the sides, for a club of our size, the only way we are going to still be here in say ten or so years time is to become a mainstay. That won't happen with these clowns in charge who throw money at tyrant dodgy businessman and continue to extend contracts of over the hill aging players who don't give toss about the club, not to forget about the millions we spend each season paying off managers who were no good or the players' "didn't like". We have been in a downward spiral since the FA Cup final and we know this. End of that season, with a brilliant 11th place finish (despite how it ended), we had the basis to build but instead we went the other way. Now we are paying the price of 4 years of utter neglect of our squad - while we hope and pray to get back to the levels of 18/19 and before - with a squad who could compete with the elite, and wanted to wear the shirt with pride.
     
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  5. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    The issue is the large variation in TV rights payments.

    There's £2.2M per position in the PL which is fair but the TV rights also gets distributed according to position, and facilities.
    https://sqaf.club/premier-league-tv-money-distribution/

    For 2020/21 Sheff United ended up with nearly £100M less than Man City. When all things are considered that is too big a gap. Then you look at stadium size, sponsorship etc and the cash advantage is just multiplied further.

    TV rights should be split evenly. If you're paying Man City £21M more because they have better facilities than Sheff United, then how can Sheff United improve those facilities. Sheff United have already been penalised for coming last with the Prem and now they're penalised again so can't imrpove with extra budget.

    You need to equalise a £100M top to bottom spread before considering taking out parachute payments.
     
  6. LeedsOrn

    LeedsOrn Reservist

    Isn’t facilities fees just a function of how many times that club is broadcast domestically?
     
  7. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    'Facility fees' are for facilitating (taking part in) live broadcast games.
     
  8. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    I think it might be a mix of both. The thing is if a team is unattractive to show on telly then give them more money to make them attractive to show on telly will help them.

    Teams are obviously able to arrange their own sponsorship and secure ticket revenue accordingly, but a £100M difference in payments from 1st to last repeated annually is a massive discrepancy to make up. It basically ensures that the top few teams will only get challenged if a sugar daddy owner comes in.

    Actually it's on a par with the Spanish league which gets slated for not producing competetion because of the revenue split.

    Salary caps etc are all artifical wasy of helping, really we need to takle the underlying problem that distribution of income is disproportionate.
     
  9. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    When you look at how the money ends up distributed in the PL from 1-20 it’s very fair though, it’s mainly merit based which is how it should be, the differences between each position are relatively small, it’s much fairer than La Liga for example. The issue isn’t so much within the PL itself (although of course there is still an issue with the bank rolled clubs who flout FFP) it’s that the team below Sheffield Utd got £5m and so did the 23 clubs below them. The difference between Sheffield Utd and the 19th placed club was probably a few million, not nearly £100m.
     
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  10. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    The TV companies pour money into the Prem because it's much more competitive than the leagues in the other big European countries. But we're supposed to want our current big teams to do well in European competition even though that drives more money to them and makes the Prem ever less competitive. Go figure.
     
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  11. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    And the fact that this vast revenue is massively biased towards the top teams means that the league will ultimately become less competititveand thud less attractive. Likely future revenue will therefore reduce.
     
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  12. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Where was this “season of exciting, attacking football” last year? I must have missed it.
     
  13. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    Did he say it would be at Watford?
     
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  14. LaClusazSki

    LaClusazSki Reservist

    We have borrowed against the one season parachute payment already.
    It is why we are reportedly £139m - £180m in debt.
    The Duxbury/Pozzo relegation business plan allowed for the expected Premier league failure.
     
  15. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Well if we were relying on the 2nd year after going down last time then messed that up !
     
  16. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Not sure that we have (yet). We've borrowed against this year's tv revenue certainly but unless it's happened super recently I don't think we've borrowed ahead of future years.
     
  17. hornetfan

    hornetfan Academy Graduate

    You probably missed it because spectators were not able to attend games due to the Covid pandemic.
     
  18. LaClusazSki

    LaClusazSki Reservist

    My executive source at another Premier club tells me it's a strong rumour. Who really knows?
    You are right, we have borrowed against the TV money.
    Everton and Burnley are likely to be the next Derby County/Reading if the sh*t hits the fan, but we are not very far behind them.
     
  19. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    Reducing the prem to 18 clubs would make it harder for smaller clubs to get into the PL and stay there. Reducing parachute payments for relegated teams would make it harder for small PL clubs to offer attractive contracts to be competitive in the PL due to increased fears of the financial consequences of relegation. Like our situation with Will Hughes.

    Your suggestion would be a backwards step giving less teams access to the PL and giving relegated (usually) smaller teams a smaller slice of the PL pie which would make them more likely to implode financially if they get relegated and doesn't generate any more money.

    I say open up the PL to 32 teams by having a 2 part season with 2 mini leagues of 16 in the first half to decide the top 12 and bottom 20 and then in the 2nd half of the season have a top 12 mini league to decide champions and european spots and a bottom 20 mini league (with results against other bottom 20 clubs carried over from the 1st half of the season) to decide who gets relegated.

    This model:
    1)gives 12 extra teams a season access to the PL
    2)generates way more income
    3)isn't just window dressing
    4)doesnt reward badly run, low quality championship clubs who are massively overpaying mediocre footballers to play dire, brainless pub football.
     
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  20. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    Excellent analysis of our current situation/predicament.

    Usually yo yo status is temporary. Its an unsustainable model. A few misjudgements or pieces of bad luck and its gone.

    If Troy hadnt got injured against Brum and Troost hadnt stepped up, we wouldnt have gone up last time, imagine how our finances and squad would look now!!! One tackle got us promoted. So so lucky. Can we base our business model and debt repayment plans on that kind of luck repeating itself? Not unless Pozzbury have taken leave of their senses (a distinct possibility)

    I can only think of West Ham who have bounced back fast after every relegation since the 1950s and Newcastle who have bounced back immediately after their last 2 relegations over a 10 year period who are reliable medium to long term bouncebackers although they dont count as yoyo teams.

    The current 'parachute payment yoyo teams' like us, Norwich, Fulham, Bournemouth and West Brom are unlikely to be able to sustain it in the medium term. Norwich have only spent 6 seasons in the PL since the mid 90s. Their yoyoness has been a largely one way street.

    If being a yoyo team is the ownership's plan to avoid administration and losing the stadium they've lost the plot. But I guess we already knew that anyway.

    Im convinced that Pozzbury believe it was them who got us promoted last time and they have no concept of what was really going on that season. If they act in the same way and demonstrate the same atrocious decision making and complete inability to create an effective management and leadership structure at the club (which following Hodgson and Foster's comments it seems they dont even realise they need to do, let alone are attempting to do, let alone are succeeding in doing it) we have no chance next season and the yoyo plan to pay down our debt and save our stadium will lie in tatters.
     
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  21. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    But for any rules to get changed in the premier league you need 14 clubs to vote for it. There is no way any club will vote for a situation that ends up in them getting less money. The only chance of any change is getting 14 teams to vote for that change, the best chance of that is to make sure the existing teams don’t lose money, and the only chance of getting a change to 18 teams through (which would be extremely unlikely in any scenario anyway) is providing a decent safety net (the redistribution of wealth down into the championship) so that they would vote for the reduction. Without the reduction to 18 teams you can’t free up enough money with just parachute payments to provide enough money to narrow the gap between 20th/21st and provide the safety net that might convince enough clubs to vote for 18 teams.

    You've completely missed the point about scrapping parachute payments, it wouldn’t be harder to get into the premier league as 3 teams would still go up, but championship teams would be richer and much closer to the teams at the bottom of the league in terms of their ability to compete.

    It’s all very well coming up with horrible convoluted US sports style ideas, but if it doesn’t work for the Premier League teams they won’t vote for it.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2022
  22. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    I think I watched every game on Hive Live as well as going to one game at home when we were able to (1-0 defeat). I was was rarely excited at any point.
     
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  23. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Particularly away from home - seemed like we were playing for a 0-0 or 0-1 most games !
     
  24. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    1.The best way to get 14 teams to vote for a change is if they will make more money and/or have more chance of staying in the PL long term. Under my model the PL would make more money, have more big games per season and PL teams outside the big 7 would have much more chance of long term survival. My model would be a no brainer for any current PL team to vote for.

    2. Of course its harder to get promoted to an 18 team PL doh!! It means that the 19th and 20th best teams in the country will be fighting for promotion in the champo not playing in the PL durrrr!!! It makes the PL accessible to even fewer teams by turning it into even more of a closed shop. My model has 32 teams taking part in the PL making it way more accessible and removing the chasm between 20th and 21st. Sorry u didnt pick up on the obvious benefits of this model in this respect. You want to subsidise champo teams for being sh1t€. I want to put the top 9-12 champo teams in the PL and give them more money but make them earn it.

    3. PL teams voting to reduce the PL to 18 teams would be like turkeys voting for xmas. It will never happen. It would mean you would have to finish 15th to avoid relegation making it much harder for smaller teams to survive in the PL - the exact opposite of my model that you dont seem to understand. It's not complicated, just innovative and guaranteeing the long term future of the Englush game at home and in European competition.

    4. I think PL teams would vote for it cos the elite would make even more money and have more big games and the smaller teams would have more chance of long term PL survival. Obviously it would be a much more viable option with Rangers Celtic and an Irish franchise. With these clubs involved the PL would have a lot more big games than the Champions league.

    5. Regarding your knee jerk reaction calling it a 'US sports style' idea, can you name a US sport that uses this system?? My model has promotion, relegation and the champion is decided by points not a play off. It's actually a version of a system that was used in Scotland but didnt work cos there are only 2 big teams and very few of the rest are even mediocre.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2022
  25. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    The NFL is 32 teams split into 2 divisions Lol.
     
  26. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    So u think the number of teams in a league has national characteristics? An 18 team league is 'German style' and a 12 team league is 'Scottish style'. In the NFL the 2 divisions are divided into 4 team groups, the winner is decided with a cup final and there's no promotion or relegation. So if you think my model is comparable to NFL then all I can say is......oh dear!

    What I would say about NFL is that it has made a big success of having 32 teams in its league. I dont think anyone would claim the NFL isnt a sporting success story. But I believe promotion relegation and a points based champion is a key part of the English game that should be retained. However, there are certainly things a revamped 32 team PL could learn from the US.
     
  27. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    The TV deals have platued the last couple of deals and the last deal was just a straight rollover, where does the extra money come from to fund another 12 teams? And how would you get the extra 12 teams suddenly in this 32 team league up to speed revenue wise and being competitive with the 16/17 incumbent PL teams?
     
  28. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain


    Interesting idea, which I know you mentioned on the other thread at the weekend. I’m not convinced your suggestion would deliver the benefits you suggest though. Plus in my view there would be a few big downsides:
    • Arguably it’s no longer a ‘Premier’ product if it involves a third of the 92. Sponsors, broadcasters etc would down value it accordingly.
    • GW15 in the PL this season was early December. How would PL2 fit 29 games in from then on? Sounds hectic. What would happen to the FA Cup, which traditionally starts for these clubs at R3 in early Jan? Plus how do you fit international windows in?
    • TV companies ain’t going to be particularly interested in PL2 after the split. Why would the likely PL1 clubs accept an even share of the revenue if that’s the case?
    • PL2 would likely quickly become full of dead rubbers. You propose no promotion from it as every season each 16 is decided by a seeded draw. So zero incentive for winning PL2.
    • What would be left for the rump EFL? It’d be a beggars league and likely end up semi-pro.
     
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  29. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    The PL defines facility fees as payments for “providing such rights, facilities and services as are required to enable the League to fulfil any UK Broadcast Contract”. They’re fixed too, so Watford or Burnley get the same fee per match as Liverpool or Man City.

    And surely broadcasters have a single metric for deciding if a team is attractive for showing on tv - how many subscribers / viewers they bring in?
     
  30. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    If you include Newcastle in a big 7 that means in the future the PL will have 42 Matches between the big 7. Under my model with a big 7 it would be 51 matches (9 in the 1st half of the season, 42 in the 2nd half) which would mean more tv/streaming money. If Rangers, Celtic and an Irish franchise were included there would be 110 big games per season (20 in the 1st half and 90 in the 2nd half) plus a huge cash injection from the sale of the Irish franchise (based in Northern Ireland between Belfast and Dublin).

    The top 12 would play 37 games in a season and the bottom 20 would play 44 (with results from the 1st half of the season against bottom 20 teams carried over). That means in a season there would be a total of 662 PL games as opposed to the current 380 PL games. The extra big games can be sold in a variety of ways for larger audiences. The smaller games could be shown through club platforms like hive live or other streaming services.

    In terms of getting the 12 new teams up to speed I dont think Irish FC with a global following from the Irish diaspora and American billionaire backing, Rangers who hold the record for the largest number of fans ever to travel to another city for a club football match anywhere in the world and Celtic would have too much trouble. For the other 9 it would really be up to the PL how to split up the significant amount of extra cash this model would generate. Bear in mind the bottom 20 teams would only play 6 games a season against the top 12. Their other games would be against teams more on their level.

    The aim of this model isnt to create a level playing field in the PL. It's to turn the PL into a juggernaut, to have more big teams while also massively increasing access and participation in the PL for smaller clubs as well as bigger clubs that have fallen from grace. To remove the chasm between 20th and 21st while also creating the opportunity to significantly increase revenue. In my opinion it's a no brainer. Id be surprised if Rangers and Celtic wouldnt sign up for this or if an Irish PL franchise went for less than £2bn.
     
  31. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Sounds absolutely hideous.

    Why on earth do you want to turn the premier league into an even bigger Juggernaut?
     
  32. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    Very good points UEA.
    1. Given that there would be more big clubs and more than double the big games. I think it would be an even stronger Premier product. Obviously the 'premier product' in the 2nd half of the season would be the top 12 for beoadcasters but i still think fans would watch/stream their own clubs games in the bottom 20.

    2. I would consider finishing the league cup in the first half of the season and part of the FA cup

    3. Thats a good point. You would have to hope they would be willing to share part of the extra revenue given that the expanded PL would also allow them to make more money.

    4. Youre right there's no incentive to win the bottom 20. But Id have 3 relegation spots and 4th bottom going into a play off with 4th, 5th and 6th in the champo which would keep the relegation fight alive for more teams for longer. As a watford fan would a PL game against Sheff United with nothing at stake mean nothing? I dont think so. It would just mean nothing to the global audience who'd watch the top 12 league in the 2nd half of the season plus maybe a few relegation games. But fans of the bottom 20 would still watch streams of their games even if they were safe from relegation.

    5. The EFL would have 3 promotion spots plus a play off spot if they can beat the PL team in the play offs. That means the 33rd 34th 35th and maybe 36th/37th/38th or 39th teams in the pyramid could get promoted to the prem. This offers a genuine chance for many more smaller clubs to get into the PL. Id say its an incentive for the EFL not a disincentive.
     
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  33. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    Because I love football. As an English person Im proud of the PL, its one of the few positive things we're known for around the world. There are few things I enjoy more in life than seeing an English team win the Champions league, a premier league juggernaut makes that likely to be more frequent. I remember when Nottingham Forest were the only English team left in Europe in the UEFA cup quarter final....and they got knocked out. I remember the days when people were salivating over English players of the level of Joe Cole and Jack Wilshire as if they were the next Maradona. Now we have so many top young players people just think its normal. Thats largely thanks to the PL. I love the quality of football at the top of the PL but it sucks for clubs like Watford. Its got so bad that the only reason I want us to get promoted next season is to avoid administration and save our stadium. A 32 team split season PL would be perfect for a club like Watford and many many others outside the big 6/7.
     
  34. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    That’s funny because there are few things in life I enjoy less.

    Any plan I’d have to rejig football in this country would have clubs like Watford in mind, absolutely **** the likes of City etc, I have no interest in giving them anymore power or money and couldn’t give two ***** how they perform in Europe.

    Your comment about the England players doesn’t really make sense, the golden generation were plenty skilful enough and around at the time Utd were winning Chanpions leagues. Joe Cole and Wilshire came afterwards.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2022
  35. Moosegasm

    Moosegasm Reservist

    The golden generation were skilful enough?? Are u joking?? Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Ledley King who else? Scholes had amazing vision and was a great passer but his actual technique on the ball wasnt world class as he proved at multiple tournaments. Beckham was world class at crossing but also lacked techique on the ball. Gerard, Lampard, Neville, Owen, Terry, Carragher, Campbell and Rooney were just very very good pub footballers. Compare them to players like James, Saka, Foden, Trent and Bellingham. chalk and cheese on technique. These are the new types of English players the premier league is creating. Players comfortable with the ball at their feet. Long may it continue. We've got the skills, now we need to catch up on in game intelligence which we've been lagging far behind on for generations....
     

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