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Wigan, other clubs hit at Liverpool TV demand

Comment: 0 October 13th, 2011 by: admin

Liverpool’s threat to break away from the Premier League’s current TV rights arrangement was attacked by a number of its fellow League members.

The club recently announced intentions to separate from an arrangement that sees the total earnings from overseas broadcasts of all Premier League games distributed to all clubs.  Instead Liverpool would begin selling the television rights for their own matches.

Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s managing director, explained that doing so would allow the club to get a greater share of the rights revenue.  This is as opposed to the current arrangement where broadcast rights earnings, with a large percentage of it assumingly from high-profile clubs, are cut and then dispersed equally amongst the 20 clubs.

Wigan head David Whelan was quick to step up and publicly call Ayre’s statements ‘diabolical.’

‘They are thinking “how can we get more money?” You won’t get more money by killing the heart and soul of the Premier League…[and] football in England’, said the Wigan chairman, as quoted on Yahoo! Sport UK.

He continued, accusing Liverpool of destroying ‘the finest league in the whole world’.

Additionally, Manchester City’s chief of communications office Vicky Kloss said that the concerns forwarded by Liverpool had never been expressed by other clubs within their club.

‘The subject has ever been up for debate either inside the club or externally’, said Kloss.  ‘We are well aware of the benefits of the collective selling of the Premier League television rights.’

Manchester United chief executive David Gill had spoken to Parliamentary committee earlier this year, praising the current collective distribution arrangement.

‘The collective selling the television rights has clearly been a success and it has made things more competitive,’ he said.

Criticism towards Ayre’s comments also came from Chelsea FC, whose spokesman declared that the club fully supported the current deal, and that they are currently ‘content’ with the arrangement.

Liverpool’s desired arrangement of clubs individually selling TV rights is similar to that of Spain, where Barcelona and Real Madrid are allowed to earn from their own broadcasts.

Stoke City’s Peter Coates criticised not just Liverpool but the Spanish model as well.

‘I don’t think what Spain has done has done anything for Spanish football’, The Guardian quoted the Stoke chair. ‘As I understand it, their own clubs and supporters and everyone connected with the game in Spain is pretty depressed with what has happened there.

‘I think we’ve got it about right, and I’m disappointed that Liverpool think differently.  But hopefully the majority of clubs will recognise we’ve got a system that works well.’

The current collective selling practice could see overseas deal surpass domestic arrangements, currently worth £2.1 billion over the span of three years.

A total of 14 votes from the 20 clubs is needed to enact Liverpool’s desired changes.

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