If the Football League’s new chairman, Ian Lenagan, had hoped to slip quietly into his role he has chosen the wrong time to start.
The revamped EFL Trophy format, with the introduction of academy sides from Premier League and Championship clubs, has provoked anger and derision. Meanwhile, attempts to get on the front foot in negotiations with the Premier League and the Football Association over fixture congestion – resulting in a proposal to expand the league to 80 teams across four divisions – sparked questions and concern among clubs and fans.
Not that Lenagan, a quietly effective presence on the Football League and FA boards for some time, appears remotely fazed by the fuss. The former Oxford United owner, who also owns the rugby league club Wigan Warriors, is instead rather proud of the way in which the rebranded EFL has grasped the nettle.
“The best place we’re in is the place of innovation. Controlled, sensible innovation. The whole game solution and, to a lesser extent, the EFL Trophy are examples of that,” says Lenagan, who grew with up rugby league in Wigan but forged his love of football standing on the Kop as a student in Liverpool in the late 1960s and has decades of experience in the grassroots game, and as a club owner to draw on.
The rather sinister sounding “whole game solution” is a manifestation of that desire to be at the centre of the debate, he said.
The proposal for four divisions of 20 teams has prompted concern from some but Lenagan insists it is important for the Football League to contribute to the wider debate on fixture congestion with the FA and the Premier League, which is pointing towards a winter break. Besides, any changes will need the agreement of 90% of clubs, he says.
As part of that discussion, the Football League is likely to come under pressure at some stage to drop two-leg League Cup ties – and it is a manifestation of the tricky sponsorship market that its flagship knockout competition remains without a sponsor for the first time since the Milk Marketing Board came calling in the 1980s.
“If we don’t suggest solutions, the FA or the Premier League will be forced to suggest solutions that will not necessarily be in the complete interests of the Football League’s 72 clubs,” Lenagan says. “By being at the forefront of the discussion we at least have a seat at the table – and that hasn’t always been the case.”
Yet the changes to what was once the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy have provoked derision and outrage from some quarters and shrugs of indifference from others.
Even after the Premier League executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, again insisted it was not a precursor to B-teams in the Football League, many fans remain suspicious. For the Football League clubs involved some have complained the new competition is not quite as advertised.
The absence of several of the biggest Premier League names from a draw that has Cheltenham Town included in a northern pool and seems to require fans to travel huge distances on week nights adds up to an underwhelming whole.
Lenagan, pointing out that the addition of category one academy sides is “strictly a one-year trial”, says it was now or never to try something new with the competition – then hints it could disappear altogether if the revamp does not work. “With the trophy being at the end of its 10 years with Johnstone’s Paint and the need to do something to make it a more attractive competition, we felt we had to do something,” he says. “It’s been a disappointment some of the major Premier League teams have not submitted teams but the nature of football is that these are 92 individual clubs. They can make their own decisions. It may be the Premier League thought everybody would go in. We don’t feel let down, we feel disappointment.”
Taking a defiantly glass-half-full approach, Lenagan even suggests the absence of the biggest Premier League academy teams may be a good thing because it will allay fears the competition will be dominated by the newcomers.
The quietly spoken but no-nonsense Lenagan appears rather proud of a new working relationship with a Premier League with which his predecessors often found themselves at odds. “Shaun Harvey [the former Leeds United chief executive who holds the same role at the EFL] has been heavily influential in developing a professional relationship with Richard Scudamore and the Premier League,” he says. “The response to that has been excellent from the Premier League and you start to get like-minded cooperation. The Football League has finally reached a high level of professionalism and pride, stemming from the fact we’re good at what we do.”
Lenagan will not hear a bad word against the Premier League, insisting the Elite Player Performance Plan, the wholesale restructuring of youth development introduced with some controversy four years ago, has been “a great investment”. He says: “I think it has worked and continues to work.”
On another topical issue, Lenagan reveals he would be open to reconsidering the case for safe standing in light of the introduction of rail seats at Celtic Park and the conclusion of the Hillsborough inquests. As things stand, the law prohibits their introduction in the top two divisions but there is a groundswell of support among fans for a fresh look.
“The fact is so many of them do stand up at games and it’s indicative of what the mood is,” Lenagan says. “We recognise it’s a difficult issue but fans clearly want it and our clubs have given us a mandate to ask the government for change. With the Hillsborough inquest concluded there’s a chance to look at the issue again. I quite like the idea, personally, although I’m not an expert on the matter.”
As we move on to broader issues, Lenagan points out the EFL’s 72 clubs are in better financial health than at any point since the Premier League schism in 1992. At the same time, in the wake of the Premier League’s blockbuster £8.3bn TV deal, the gulf between the two seems greater than ever. Yet clubs have stopped tipping into administration with quite such depressing regularity, with none having suffered that fate for more than three years.
The painful introduction of financial fair play rules, since relaxed amid controversy, and a new long-term financial settlement with the Premier League over parachute and so-called “solidarity” payments have helped. However, Lenagan concedes the Championship remains football’s most perilous rung.
“There is a split between the teams at the top – many of them with foreign owners – who have got lots of money to throw and don’t want to be constrained by FFP. They want to throw £50m at it to give themselves a chance of being in the Premier League, which is why they’re at it. You’ve got other owners with the rightful view that they want to sustain and if they get the chance, once every five years or so, to get into the Premier League then that’s great.”
Lenagan, who sold his stake in Oxford United when he took on his new role, adds: “The average loss within the Championship is £13m. If I was an owner of a Championship club and was being asked to pay £13m a year to sit mid-table I’d wonder what I was doing it for. So that’s a debate we need to have this year with the Championship owners.”
The Football League deserves credit for some of its forward thinking in recent years – not least a well-thought-out policy on encouraging more ethnic diversity among coaches – but fans remain wary of its new zeal for being at the cutting edge.
As ever, some of those concerns coalesce around ownership issues. At Blackpool and Charlton Athletic fans are at war with their owners for different reasons and there are worrying questions over the prospective owners of Nottingham Forest.
Lenagan will not comment on specifics but seeks to reassure on the generalities. “From a general view, the amount of time, money and expertise that goes into these questions is significant,” he says. “It’s never easy when you’re looking at whether a director is a fit and proper person; it’s never easy when you’re looking at source of funds. We’re good at investigating, we have excellent people. We’ve got very good consultants and external lawyers we work with all of the time.”
It was Lenagan, who made his money in computing, who presented Greg Dyke’s ill-fated reforms to bring the FA’s governance into the 21st century to a resistant FA Council. He believes that under the more consensual Greg Clarke, who preceded him as the Football League chairman and will now take the same job at the FA, the reforms have more chance of succeeding.
Aside from his sporting interests, which take up the majority of his time since he sold his main business in 2011, Lenagan has also produced more than 100 theatre shows. He has less time for that now but remains proud of his biggest West End hit – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Christian Slater. Given the dysfunctional state of English football governance, it is tempting to wonder at the parallels.
However, Lenagan insists the future is rosy; waxing lyrical about the deep-rooted links Football League clubs have with their communities and their increasing influence on the global stage, both in terms of overseas viewers and the growing number of players they provide for international sides.
“Nothing I’m suggesting points to all-out innovation and no ‘steady as she goes’,” he says. “The Football League is a key plank of football in England and we must never forget that. That means the whole gamut – from simple and local to ambitious international owners in the Championship. We have to cater for all of that.”
