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Man Utd, Liverpool and Premier League rivals set for fierce Big Picture talks (Image: GETTY)
Manchester United and Liverpool are set to be pitched to Wolves, and the other 13 ‘small’ clubs, in a heated meeting of Premier League teams at the end of the week. When details of its Project Big Picture surfaced over the weekend, the Premier League board was careful to paint proposals to downsize the top flight as the brainchild of EFL President Rick Parry.
However, other clubs may be less charitable, especially since the so-called ‘Big Six’ appear to have hatched plans to sideline minor Premier League clubs in an opportunistic takeover without even consulting them.
Initially, a regular membership meeting was scheduled for today, but is being reorganized for later in the week with a radically different agenda.
A £ 250 million rescue fund is being distributed to teams lower down the pyramid to support a move to give a vote to the top nine clubs instead of the current one-club, one-vote system operated by the Premier League.
It means Liverpool and United, along with Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Spurs could form the six-club majority needed to force any further decisions.
Everton, West Ham and Southampton featured as the three cohorts that make up the group based on how long they have been continuously in the Premier League.
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Man Utd, Liverpool and Premier League rivals set for fierce Big Picture talks (Image: GETTY)
However, West Ham sources were quick to distance themselves from the possible breakup yesterday, saying they are “strongly against it.”
While EFL clubs will benefit from the promises of 25 percent of future media revenue, as well as short-term cast, as well as losing two of their number, lower clubs will get less of the income and will be stripped of their voting rights.
Over the weekend, Parry said: “It’s absolutely the right way to go from an EFL point of view. If there is some degree of pain elsewhere, it’s a shame. “
The devil is always in the details. Soccer has had a day or two to accept the explosive proposals that were leaked as part of the Big Picture details over the weekend. It was a moment that has given all of football a chance to pause and think. Parry’s involvement, for example.
He was an unexpectedly strong candidate, given his role in leading the original breakup and then overseeing Liverpool, the instigators of this proposal, as chief executive officer for more than a decade.
But he was received as president-elect in September of last year and as recently as December he was introduced to some invited members of the press at Smith and Wollensky’s to outline his vision for the job before sitting down to a festive Christmas dinner.
Man Utd, Liverpool and Premier League rivals set for fierce Big Picture talks (Image: GETTY)
It didn’t make sense at the time, but during the registration session, he was asked if he had any plans to bridge the gap between the Premier League and the EFL. It’s not that I’m talking to you. But yes, I do, ”he said.
Project Big Picture was born in 2017 and the date Parry became part of the project is uncertain. What is clear is that yesterday he was becoming an increasingly isolated figure as both Liverpool and Man United declined to comment.
The worst would come at night, when EFL CEO David Baldwin announced his intention to resign. An official EFL announcement insisted: “Today’s announcement is not linked to ‘Project Big Picture’ and the decision was made before the details of the proposals were made public over the weekend.”
But the timing couldn’t have been worse for Parry, as the most considerate critics of the plan began to form a coherent counterargument.
Aside from an instinctive concern to deliver the future of the game to such a small number of stakeholders, the practicalities of Big Picture’s proposals were slowly being worked out.
To begin with, the Premier League insists that the £ 250 million rescue package for the EFL and the £ 100 million promised to the FA would have to be loaned. They can hardly take another stance when they are currently pressuring the government to help them.
Yesterday details of additional infrastructure funding emerged to help build stadiums, with Tottenham able to retrospectively claim £ 125 million for the new White Hart Lane offered by way of illustration.
But a Big Six vote could end that windfall at any moment. Currently, the gap in prize money between the top and bottom clubs is only 1.7 to 1. Under the new proposals, the top club will take home four times the amount the club earns. down.
Additionally, merit payouts will be determined based on average performance from the previous three seasons, protecting big clubs from trouble and causing newly promoted clubs to wait three seasons before gaining full recognition.
The salary caps applied will make the jump even bigger for newly promoted teams trying to take a Championship team to the top flight and if there is something that does not suit the largest clubs in the country, they can fix it with a simple Vote. To six.
But don’t worry, says Parry, he relies on the Liverpool and United boards of directors to care for the soccer pyramid, although there are no guarantees.
“This is a COBRA plan,” he insists. “This has been years in thought, months in the making.” It is understandable, then, that football may be worried that it will bite him again.
Former QPR, Leicester, Blackpool and Crystal Palace chief Ian Holloway criticized Liverpool and United’s plans as “selfish” and called on the government to intervene to fix the current soccer problem.
As manager of Grimsby Town, 23 in League Two, he couldn’t be further from the best teams in the Premier League when it comes to the big picture and fears that “greed” at that level could kill the game further down the line. pyramid. .
What are Liverpool and Manchester United thinking? How selfish are you? It breaks my heart to say it, I don’t get it, ”Holloway said.
“Greed is disgusting, and that’s what I see everywhere. He’s absolutely vile and I hate him so he steps in.
Man Utd, Liverpool and Premier League rivals set for fierce Big Picture talks (Image: GETTY)
“Get the government to control our game and make sure the people at the bottom still have a club. Go tell the best clubs you can’t do that, please. Someone needs to do it.
“The game belongs to people from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It belongs to us. All communities deserve it and you are at the top, so who do you think you are?
“There is more than enough money in the game to keep it from shutting down, and it needs to be done now. They are not going to do it, because they want to get richer and richer.
“Money is coming out of the game from the left, the right and the center: billions and billions of pounds buying footballers, and it is coming out of the game.
“The money is going to run out. But they want to crush the competition and make sure they are in the top six forever and one day. You have to earn that right, because we all want to get you.
“We all have to have a dream, right? We all have to be able to believe, and it doesn’t make sense to me. Soccer cannot die, but selfishness is what is killing it. “
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