League launches fight to break transfer window

Clubs also ask for help to cut financial gulf between lower rungs and top flight

(GETTY IMAGES)

The Football League is to ask the Government to lobby Fifa in an attempt to scrap the transfer window system. The League will also ask the Premier League for more financial assistance, both by a direct subsidy to cover wage inflation, and by linkage of the respective television deals. The League believes these measures would help cut the financial chasm between themselves and the top flight which was among the issues posed by Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in his "seven questions" asked in October.

Burnham asked football's governing bodies to debate a series of subjects, primarily to do with finance and governance, and asked for a joint response. Such are the turf wars and differing perspectives this proved impossible. The Premier League issued its reply last week, the Football Association's is pending (Lord Triesman will, at the second attempt, try to persuade the FA Board to rubber-stamp it tomorrow). Yesterday the Football League responded.

The League did not just ask for help. It also offered to try to impose greater financial controls on its own clubs, with particular reference to preventing clubs racking up enormous debts to the Inland Revenue.

In his letter to Burnham, Lord Mawhinney, the League's chairman, said: "The introduction of transfer windows... caused a collapse in the domestic transfer market which, in turn, frustrated the traditional method of redistributing wealth within the game." He added that although Fifa's goal, to prevent an elite of rich clubs monopolising talent does not appear to have succeeded (see the Champions League semi-final line-up for the last two years), Fifa "remain implacably opposed to relaxing the current regime". Therefore, he concluded, political intervention would be required. There is logic in the League's bid, but the obvious obstacle is neither the Government, nor the FA, is likely to risk upsetting Fifa while bidding for the 2018 World Cup.

The Premier League currently provides clubs with £11.2m a season (rising to £33m if all three relegated clubs return immediately, thus surrendering their parachute payment). A £9.4m share of this is ring-fenced for youth development and community initiatives. The League would like more, some of it linked to Premier League wage bills, which have a "ripple effect" in the Football League, some to future broadcasting deals. The League rejected such an offer when the Premier League was founded 17 years ago. That was, said a leading League figure yesterday, "one of the dumbest decisions in the annals of the Football League. We would be immensely richer if we had not turned that down."

The League will ask the clubs, at next month's Annual General Meeting, for permission to inspect their indebtedness to the Inland Revenue with a view to imposing transfer embargos on any club whose debts prove execessive. An attempt to impose a salary cap in the Championship foundered on resistance from clubs, even when allowed to pay three players outside the cap.

In a separate development the two Leagues and the FA are close to securing an agreement on coaching which will establish the principle that clubs coach players, and the FA coaches coaches. This would appear to run counter to efforts by the FA's technical director, Trevor Brooking, to improve the skills of the five to 11 age group, and to audit clubs' claimed spending of funds provided by the FA for developing their own young players.

Key demands: What the Football League wants

End transfer windows...

Disposing of the transfer window would allow Football League clubs to raise cash throughout the season.

Increase the subsidy...

The Premier League provides each of its clubs with £30m-£50m a season from television. It passes on £11.2-£33m to the Football League. An increase would help cut the funding gap which causes relegated clubs so much trouble.

Limit debts to the revenue...

Indebtedness to the Inland Revenue is the cause of recent punitive points deductions for Leeds United, Luton Town, Bournemouth and Rotherham. Controls should prevent a recurrence.

Cashing in: How new market could have helped

Adam Lallana

Selling the youngster, who has interested Tottenham, might have saved Southampton's holding company from entering administration. Instead they start League One next season on minus 10 points.

Richard Stearman

Villa's Champions League bid collapsed after Martin Laursen was injured. The Wolves centre-half could have plugged the gap.

Daniel Fox

The talented Coventry defender could have provided the answer for Newcastle United managers trying to deal with the problem of having only one left-back at the club.