By David Gold at Westminster in London
July 10 – Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the English Premier League, today gave a vigorous defence of the regulation of their clubs, despite the excessive debt still swirling around the English game.
Scudamore (pictured above and below) was giving evidence today to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which published a wide ranging report last year detailing changes it wanted made to the way the game was run in England.
Premier League teams made a £361 million ($560 million/€426 million) loss for the 2010-2011 season despite record turnover of £2.3 billion ($3.6 billion/€2.7 billion).
By comparison, the German Bundesliga made a profit €52.5 million (£44 million/$69 million) for the same season, despite lower turnover.
However, Scudamore insisted here today that he would not swap places with his German counterparts, justifying his stance on the Premier League’s global appeal.
While conceding that German teams spent less on wages than English sides, Scudamore added: “The result of which is we are universally much more popular around the world than the German league.
“Taking it around the world we are far more popular than the Germans are…we look at them and know there are things they do well.
“I would not swap what they have got for what we have.
“They are just in a different place with a different situation.
“Our 20 clubs are in the top 50 in Europe in terms of income, the Germans have fewer.”
Last year British MPs had threatened to use legislation if necessary to force changes through after making a raft of recommendations.
Among those was a change to the English Football Association’s (FA) board to bring in two more executive members from the association while reducing the number of professional game representatives from the Premier and Football Leagues.
They also wanted to reduce the average length of tenure that members of the FA council can serve for.
Those reforms would have strengthened the FA’s ability to force through change by increasing their power against vested interests.
Today’s evidence was the first of two sessions due to take place on the range of issues MPs identified as affecting the game in the aftermath of England’s disastrous 2010 World Cup campaign.
Scudamore was questioned on the football creditor’s rule, which ensures that debts to service providers outside of the game are given second preference when a club is in financial difficulty.
“I support the rule because the cascade effect on other clubs is very damaging,” he said.
“I am happy to defend it being the least worst alternative to keep the football club in business.”
Given the current situation with Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers, who may start next season at the bottom of their league pyramid after their liquidation last month, the issue of who runs Premier League teams also came under the spotlight.
The Premier League chief also said it had tightened up its fit and proper persons test in response to the situation that Portsmouth faced when they went into administration.
He said it had blocked attempts by some individuals to take over Premier League teams, and argued that its Scottish counterparts “do not have the same rigour of rules” as it does.
Earlier this year the FA, Premier League, and Football League issued a joint statement following the Government’s own response to last year’s Select Committee report.
However, the Committee says they failed to engage with several of the key recommendations in the report and, as a result, Scudamore was called to what is the first of two further evidence sessions to be heard.
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