Clubs are warned of second cash blow

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Reality comes crashing down on fools' paradise

One of the four chairmen who helped negotiate the Football League's windfall television agreement two years ago has warned of the next financial threat to clubs imperilled by its collapse – transfer windows. Charlton Athletic's Richard Murray believes that smaller clubs who manage to survive the potential loss of television revenue now that ITV Digital has gone into administration will be in even more trouble if they are not allowed to sell a player at short notice because of restricted transfer periods.

"New international transfer arrangements become fully effective from September, and there remains a degree of uncertainty about how they will operate," Murray said last week. "I'm particularly concerned about the effect the possible introduction of transfer windows could have if applied domestically – especially for Nationwide League clubs, who already have concerns about the long-term viability of their television contract."

Murray and Ipswich Town's David Sheepshanks were among the four-man team who persuaded ONdigital, the forerunners of ITV Digital, to agree a contract worth £105 million a season over three years in June 2000. That compared to £25m a season for the previous BSkyB deal and should have been a lucrative legacy left to League clubs as Charlton and Ipswich, coincidentally, won promotion to the Premiership.

Both clubs have subsequently come to be regarded as models of financial prudence, developing their ground – each with a new stand this season – and their squad without taking on unsupportable levels of debt. While sympathetic towards smaller clubs, however, the two chairmen hope the current crisis will force others to follow their lead and adopt improved housekeeping.

"The finances of football have been underpinned by television for several years now," said Sheepshanks. "This action will hasten the day for the whole of football to review its dependency on such contracts. Perhaps there is one bit of good news among all this – the forced introduction of a salutary dose of reality for football as a whole."

Nor will Premiership clubs be exempt from the new realities. "Several clubs have taken on high levels of long-term debt," Murray warned, while his chief executive, Peter Varney, added: "Premiership clubs are suffering because of their high wages, and the clubs relegated this season will suddenly find themselves having to sustain those bills in the face of massively reduced revenue. For them, there will be serious consequences, possibly more serious than for most of the clubs already in the Nationwide League."

League officials are worried that transfer windows would prevent moves like Nottingham Forest's recent sale of the England Under-21 midfielder Jermaine Jenas to Newcastle when the Midlands club needed some cash at short notice. Under plans formulated by Fifa, the world governing body, there would be only two windows each year, one in the European close-season and one around Christmas. The League have so far received no response to their protests that this should apply only to international transfers.

"Because we have so many small-scale professional clubs in this country, they need to be able to sell players at short notice to meet cash-flow problems," said one League source yesterday. "It's just bizarre to impose a system that could force clubs out of business. Football League clubs need to be allowed to do their job of developing the next generation of talent and letting it feed up the pyramid.

"Look at Howard Wilkinson's Charter for Excellence and the idea of getting more talented young English players to the bigger clubs. If you had an international transfer window, but not a domestic one, it would suit that objective, because clubs at the top would be able to buy from English clubs, but not foreign ones. So we'd get more young English players moving up towards the Premier League, which has got to be good for the domestic game. If Fifa don't allow that, it will lead to a legal challenge – how can anyone deny two private businesses the chance to trade –assets between them? We can't impose it, it will put clubs out of business."