Smaller clubs should repay their PFA debts

I finally took the plunge last week. The local electrical suppliers rang to say that the ITV Digital boxes had at last arrived. Nokia had come up trumps, whereas Pace were off the pace and Pioneer had lost their way.

Despite the cynicism about the viewing figures to date, the shopkeeper was harassed,as only half his order had been met. I pay £35.98 per month and it's not bad value.

In addition to the Sky Sports channels there was plenty of Champions' League action in that first week, but my real reason for buying ITV was the live Nationwide League. During the opening weeks of the season I had quite missed the Friday and Sunday bread-and-butter stuff which supplemented the richer fare. And, yes, thank you, I do have a life.

Unfortunately, my first offering was a bit grim. Watford v Preston in the First Division must have seemed a good idea when the programmes were being scheduled in the summer, but neither team was the side of last season by the time the match limped to a dismal 1-1 conclusion.

The presentation was refreshingly honest and, if there was little of the Sky technical wizardry, neither was there any attempt to portray the event as anything other than a wet, windy night in Watford. Just as I've got myself fully geared to the demands of the television business it seems that there is a real danger that domestic football will be wiped from the screens by the threatened players' strike.

Just, too, as I think the Professional Footballers' Association's rhetoric may be wearing thin by asking their members for an annual subscription that to the top earners is absolutely meaningless, along comes a story which makes the blood really boil.

I hear that the television money dispute has dealt Nationwide clubs a damaging blow in their efforts to develop links with local schools. A £1.5m sponsorship offer by McDonald's has been withdrawn because the national Football in the Community programme could not secure matching funding for its business plan from the Football Foundation.

It is a convoluted tale, but the bottom line is that some hard-working, earnest young men have been knocked back in their efforts to employ extra community workers at smaller clubs to go into schools, simply because the community programme, conceived at the PFA in the dark days of the 1980s, is still envied in some quarters as their baby, rather than warmly embraced for the vibrant alliance of clubs and players it has latterly come to represent.

The Football Foundation rejected the McDonald's scheme not because of any qualms about the sponsor, but because of opposition from the Premier League, despite previous approval at working party level. It is this block, which has cost the smaller, clubs the chance of the new money and support.

It has fallen a victim to the politics of the moment and I doubt whether any of the Football League chairmen know anything about it.

For its community and grassroots support the Premier League turned instead to its main sponsor Barclaycard, none of whose sponsorship money, of course, goes to Football League clubs, forgetting that the PFA supported them when the Office of Fair Trading challenged their right to conduct central television negotiations on behalf of the clubs not so long ago. Had that case been lost there would not be the present dispute, there would be 92, if indeed we had come this far without anarchy.

I realise that Football League club chairmen are concerned about escalating wage costs, but I am not sure they all see the wider picture when their leaders entrust the PFA negotiations to the Premier League, because they are worried about the continuing support of the Premier League for the Football League Cup competition.

The Football League would be far better off concentrating on keeping the League Cup successful. The big clubs will always play if there is money in it and the Football Association should be relied upon to keep the European gateway open.

The League's leadership is too frightened and too forgetful. It forgets that, without the PFA's support when the bailiffs came knocking, there would not be 92 clubs to play in the League Cup today. Derby, Fulham, Bristol City, Middlesbrough, Hull, Northampton and Charlton have all been in the knacker's yard in the last decade or so.

I hope their chairmen remember who the real friends of football have been if they come on television and the Sky presenter prefaces his question with that chummy smile. Give the PFA their proper percentage before any more damage is done.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com