Football League chairman Rick Parry has set out the recommendations he gave the government to narrow the "unbridgeable" wealth gap between the Premier League and the Championship, which is "enshrined" within current rules.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Parry outlined the recommendations he made to Tracey Crouch MP, leader of the government's independent review of football governance.
Parry's proposals include the scrapping of parachute payments and the introduction of merit payments in the EFL, which he says would reduce the earnings gap between the bottom of the Premier League and top of the Championship by half.
On the abolition of parachute payments, which totalled £228m in 2019-20, he said: “That might bring people to the table fairly quickly because relegation without parachute payments at the moment is curtains.
"A regulator could say, ‘We are not going to tell you what you should pay but we are saying you shouldn’t be paying this small group of clubs selectively’. It would be a catalyst [for discussion].”
He added: “Owner funding has to be cash rather than promises. Go in up front, bonded. Two or three years commitment … but you will never solve the issue of what happens when the owners stop.”
He also wants to see the Premier League handle the sale of EFL broadcast rights, with 25% - as much as £750m - of the combined total (Premier League and EFL) being split between all EFL clubs.
New “cash break-even” rules are also being called for, as well as a fixed 60% wages-to-revenue ratio and owner investment to be counted as revenue. The latter, he says, would stop "an insanity" that has taken over owners pushing for the Premier League.
Parry's also wants to see amortisation – the process of declining player values in club accounts over months and years - removed from the profit and sustainability regulations.
