Graham Kelly: Good start for Mawhinney but tough decisions await Nationwide League

Sir Brian Mawhinney walked into a firestorm the first time he chaired a meeting of Football League chairmen three months ago. That was his own description of events, after his attempts to broker a peace deal between the First Division clubs, who aspire to separate leadership and income generation, and the rest of the League ended in stalemate.

In the meantime, life in the Nationwide went on. As in the Football Association, while their ego-laden masters argue the toss, most football officials continue working with impressive professionalism. What the chairmen had before them at their latest meeting last week was an array of proposals designed to reinforce the concept of a robust Football League moving forward out of the adversity of the ITV Digital disaster which so paralysed the clubs a year ago.

At that time the board's long-established policy on insolvency came under serious threat from professional practitioners who proposed putting it in abeyance for a six-months moratorium. Fortunately for the League's credibility, common sense prevailed. Now the Enterprise Act, which abolishes the previous preference given to the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, threatens problems for the League. Leicester City's promotion to the Premiership, after exiting administration following a deal with the Revenue which guarantees much less than 100 per-cent payment, highlights the concern felt by many about the possibility that clubs could be felt to derive a competitive advantage by using the administration route.

Complex proposals seeking to penalise clubs which go into administration were overwhelmingly accepted in principle; a scale of point deductions between six and 12 is contemplated in order to deter clubs, although the detail has yet to be finalised.

The suggestion is that there is a maximum time a club may spend in administration, say one season, and a club exiting administration may not be promoted within the next 12 months. It was revealed to the meeting that the Premier League were contemplating introducing similar administration/insolvency proposals.

There has been some vehemence expressed by officials of clubs who have experienced administration that the proposed sanctions would hit the wrong target and should in fact be directed at the directors whose actions caused a club to enter administration. While I sympathise with the sentiment that the innocent fans may be hit, it would be dangerous to deflect the guardians of the competition from focusing on the main beneficiary.

Alan Sugar argued until the cows came home that he did not break the rules personally at Tottenham Hotspur, but the club benefited from earlier breaches and there was no reason why they should not have paid a similar penalty to little Swindon Town, who were demoted for transgressions involving irregular payments to players.

The League inched further along the wage restraint road stipulated by the Football Foundation as part of the major rescue package put in place following the ITV Digital collapse. There are still probably as many reservations held inside the League as by the Professional Footballers' Association about a formalised system of wage control, but the Third Division are the guinea pigs for a one-year pilot scheme whereby clubs are restricted to spending 60 per cent of their turnover on players' wages and 75 per cent of their turnover on all staff salaries.

As with the insolvency policy, no statutory sanctions have yet been determined. Other clubs will merely be required to notify their figures to the League office as the game continues to get to grips with the costs which have so shot through its stability over the last few years.

Another uncertainty is the European Commission's threat to intervene in the Premier League's television negotiations with a view to ending collective selling next year. Mawhinney has written to the European Commissioner concerned, Mario Monti, telling him that any decision will have far-reaching implications for the Football League, if there is any suggestion that Premier League clubs will have the ability to sell matches individually, or if there is an increase in live games across a range of different broadcasters.

Whatever solution is contemplated at Brussels it is important Monti recognises the special nature of the strength in depth of the English Football League, something that has often unforgivably gone unnoticed in the past, even at Uefa.

Mawhinney ended a good first quarter strongly, but with the crucial issue of the fissure in the League structure as wide as ever. The First Division want to explain their ideas to the other clubs for their own dedicated managing director to enhance their brand, but the rest of the League, who are sceptical that the First Division will ever bridge the income gap with the Premier League, are in no hurry and want the top tier to put their ideas in writing before they sit down. Some tough talking is needed, Sir Brian.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com