By Andrew Warshaw, Chief Correspondent
January 14 – Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore is confident the division’s 20 clubs will all be able to meet UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules – and has also addressed the debate over inflated ticket prices.
UEFA’s strict measures – designed to ensure that clubs do not spend more than they earn in order to balance the books – kick in during the 2013-14 season.
Big spenders like Chelsea and Manchester City are particularly vulnerable and Scudamore admits it will be “tight for a couple” of clubs who will nevertheless just about manage to comply.
“If you look at what has happened with Manchester City’s latest accounts, when you see what has happened with Chelsea’s, there has clearly been some action taken by those clubs to get themselves into the zone where they should be able to qualify,” Scudamore said.
“Probably we will see the clubs just about get there. It will be tight for a couple, but we will all get there.”
“It will be tight for Chelsea and Manchester City. That is fairly obvious when you look at the sustained losses they have had over the last few years, but I know the executives there are working hard and are not ignoring it.”
Although the Premier League is by far the most popular in the world, with an unrivalled television deal and watched fanatically every weekend by millions of fans, the downside is that tickets for
matches have become unaffordable for average wage earners.
In the starkest protest yet, defending champions Manchester City sent back almost 1,000 tickets for their game at Arsenal on Sunday after refusing to pay £62. By contrast, Fulham let in children for one pound for their far less glamorous fixture with Wigan on Saturday.
Scudamore, while conceding that Arsenal might have to review their pricing policy, argued that the near-capacity level at stadiums proved the success of the market forces strategy.
“We want to see full stadia and what’shappened over last five or six years is that we have managed to achieve 90% occupancy; it’s up to 95% so this season it could be an all-time high.”
But he added: “Manchester City fans are sending Arsenal a very clear message which the club have to deal with. They’ve chosen their pricing categories and, next season, will have to take that into account because they want a full stadium and we, at the Premier League, want to see every club take up their away allocation.
“Arsenal have clearly made a judgment and the Manchester City fans have done what they feel they should.”
“I’m proud of what the clubs have done in the last five or six years to try to make sure their tickets pricing keeps grounds full. The clubs are pedalling awfully hard to keep grounds as full as possible and meet financial fair play rules.”
Scudamore rejected the suggestion that clubs had priced a huge chunk of loyal fans out of the
market. “I can’t argue with the fact there has been a shift in the demographic. We may have lost a segment but we’ve picked up new audiences.”
He also re-iterated that Glasgow giants Rangers and Celtic would never be allowed to join the English top flight.
Rangers chief executive Charles Green has pledged to explore ways of getting out of Scottish football as a result of reconstruction plans for a new league set-up of 12-12-18.
But Scudamore said there would be no route for Rangers into the Premier League. “It’s only my 14th year of answering this question. No!” he stated. “Quite a lot of clubs around the world would like to play in the Premier League (but) the only clubs we are going to take are those that are promoted from the Championship. Our rules say it is only clubs from England and Wales and I don’t see that ever changing.”
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