European league would be bad for Everton

Following the collapse of their plans for a revamped Premier League, Liverpool and Manchester United are again being linked with fresh moves to create a European ‘Super League’. What would this mean for Everton?

‘Project Big Picture’ was the suitably pompous sounding idea that the Reds of Merseyside and Manchester came up with recently for Premier League reform. It was a project Everton along with other clubs, flatly rejected.

I thought that the Blues hierarchy reacted a little too predictably. The comments of Everton CEO Denise Barratt-Baxendale smacked a bit too much of virtue signalling instead of a serious rational reflection on the merits or not, of the proposal.

In essence, the idea was to shake up the commercial and power structure of English football with each of the Premier League clubs offering eight games per season via their own streaming services, independently of the existing broadcasting deals to be agreed when the current TV contract ends in 2022.

There was a sweetener in it for the EFL with the offer of a 25% redistribution of Premier League revenue to them. That was designed to allay fears this was simply a naked power-grab by the most high-profile and wealthiest clubs in the country.

Despite that, it was obviously primarily designed to enable the self-styled ‘big six’ clubs – Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham – to hoover up more of the game’s revenue as their matches would be by far the most popular to watch online.

There are several ways to look at all this. The main reaction from the other ‘lesser’ Premier League clubs was skeptical to say the least.

For the Toffees this sort of thing creates an interesting dilemma. Traditionally and historically,  Everton are most definitely one of English football’s super powers.

Founder members of the Football League, the club have won nine league championships, a record still only beaten by Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal and five FA Cups. That together with more seasons in the English top flight than any other club and the second most points ever won, make the Blues a genuine heavyweight.

However, despite that impressive roll of honours, the Blues haven’t in truth been a genuine contender for 25 years and Everton’s profile is much lower than a club of it’s status should be. This translates into a situation in which the Toffees are largely ignored by the main stream media except to make snide remarks for example about the club’s transfer strategy.

Like Everton, the other clubs could see their share of football income drop significantly in this scheme as the ‘big six’ hive off their most popular matches, (like Liverpool v Man United for example), for their own TV streaming services.

That would leave them with the less popular games to try and sell. And this would be in the context of a presumably reduced TV deal if the economic impact of the Covid crisis is anything like as bad as is being predicted.

However, in reality this financial imbalance is more like the situation in other European leagues such as Spain, where Real Madrid and Barcelona get the lions share of income as they are the big two in La Liga.

The truth is that football is in many ways the ultimate example of a properly functioning free-market where the money goes to the places the paying punters want it to, based on their consumer choices.

Strangely though, while the Premier League is often criticised for it’s vulgar pursuit of money, in reality the distribution of TV revenue has actually been quite egalitarian with guaranteed live matches for all clubs and a more even income reward based on where you finish in the table.

Then because the English Premier League is the wealthiest due to the huge TV contracts it secures, it can provide very big parachute payments as compensation for relegated clubs. It’s no wonder the Championship playoff final is called ‘the richest game in football’.

So you could argue that in fact what the men running Anfield and Old Trafford were proposing was actually a more honest financial reflection of football’s pulling-power.

Than again, having said all that football, like all sport, must surely be more than simply a commercial exercise in money-making for the few.