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Compromise ends threat of players' strike

Nick Harris
Saturday 24 November 2001 01:00 GMT
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David Beckham can put his barricade back in the loft and Gary Neville can cancel his charcoal order for the picket-line brazier. The Professional Footballers' Association and the game's authorities agreed a deal over television income yesterday that will avert English football's first strike.

The full details of the agreement will be outlined by the PFA on Monday but the essential facts are that the Premier League, the Football League and the FA will give the PFA £52.5m over the next three years – £17.5m a year – towards its work helping young, injured and otherwise needy players. The PFA will have total discretion over how it spends the money.

A long-term deal, thought to stretch 10 years or more, has also been sealed. "Things have taken so long to finalise today because we've been writing sections into contracts to make sure this won't ever happen again," Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, said. It is thought that the PFA has made a contractual commitment never again to threaten strike action over the issue of TV revenue. It is also understood that the PFA's share of future television deals has been guaranteed. A clause in the new agreement will see a formula calculate the union's cut in the long term, with increases when TV revenue rises but no significant drops if rights values fall.

"I am delighted to see in the agreement a proper respect for the players' input into the game and I can assure you that respect will be mutual," Gordon Taylor, the PFA's chief executive said. "I hope there is a new spirit of mutual respect and working together."

Taylor, who had dropped his original demands from £36m per year to £27m per year before finally accepting yesterday's package, conceded there had had to be some degree of compromise. He added, however, that both parties had come out of the negotiations with a fair deal. "We have worked night and day to find a formula whereby both of us can leave the table with satisfaction, and that is exactly where we are," Taylor said. "It's an agreement that's satisfactory to all parties. It was important to avoid all the acrimony we've seen in recent years.

"There is a long-term agreement that's satisfactory to my members. The terms of the agreement acknowledge the integrity and independence of the PFA, because the PFA has been given full discretion on the use of that money. I can assure everyone that this money will be well used." To put the agreed deal in context, the PFA received a total of £8.8m last year from the football authorities.

Yesterday's breakthrough came the day after the leagues had started legal proceedings to gain an injunction against a strike, which was planned to start a week today. That step no doubt focused minds on both sides of the table. A High Court defeat would have meant humiliation for the losers and the prospect of terminal antagonism in the game. The brinkmanship had gone further than most had expected and the time for the inevitable compromise had all but run out.

"What we've got instead is a satisfactory conclusion to this matter," Brendon Batson, the PFA's deputy chief executive, said. "We said all along that we didn't want to go on strike but we were prepared to go to court and use that as a last resort. It has not come to that and everyone can walk away satisfied."

Adam Crozier, the chief executive of the Football Association, who had mediated in the talks, added: "The agreement is based on a new level of trust and partnership and mutual respect for the players who are at the heart of the game."

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