Anyone know which is the first of our games due to be cancelled? Having congratulated myself on buying one of those £20 return train tickets to get up for the Derby game I suspect I may have just thrown £20 down the toilet.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

Answers

Are they actually cancelling games? Not up to date with this but thought they just wouldn't be televised? I could be wrong though.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

I am under the impression that it only applies to televised(live) matches.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

Yes it's only live televised games, as they hit them where it hurts most as that's where they will lose most revenue

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

I'd have thought the Derby game would be too early anyway. Don't they have to give a month's notice? So it could be the Tractor Boys weekend, but as that's not a live match, again, should be OK.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

I'm still not sure how the PFA think they can get away with a strike. The players are employed by their clubs - it is not the individual clubs that the PFA is taking action against so how is such a strike legal?

Personally, I think they are both as bad as each other. If I was earning eight grand a week I'd make a effort to look a bit happier than that git Gordon Taylor!

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

is Taylor on 8k? thats scandalous

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I dont think it will happen , doesnt it all go to court today?
As has been said allready the players are employed by the clubs , and the dispute is with the premier league, the clubs also have contracts with sky so it will be a non starter. BUT if so much as 1 player decides to NOT play in a match i have paid around 30quid for I shall be asking for that money back from the club.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

A ban on televised games? yes please, that would surely be enough to guarantee us a top 3 finish.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I just can't see the PL Clubs allowing this to go to a strike that could put their present TV contract at significant risk. I suspect the PFA are going to win this one, perhaps with a compromise that significantly favours the players, but allows the PL to save some face.

Sooner or later the Clubs will need to take on the players over wages, but they look destined to lose this partuclar battle.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

the PFA are talking about striking at games where cameras are present. This means all Premiership games at shown either live or recorded for later use. Which of course means all Premiership games.

Some boring stats (aren't they all :0) .....

Television have upped the money paid to the Premiership from £43m in 95/96 to £242m in 2000 and a whopping £1300m next season. In the same period fans have increased their matchday entry contribution from £163m to £260m. The amount of money the clubs get from commercial activities has stayed roughly similar to the matchday figures, increasing from £140m to £270m. So in summary the Premiership clubs en masse are getting roughly £200m per year extra from match income and commercial stuff, and £200m more from telly (in 2002 the telly figure will be £1000m higher).

So lots more dosh to go around you'd have thought. So where does it go.

Well in 1996 Premiership clubs spent £163m on transfer fees (exactly the same as the money they got in from bums on seats !). In 2000 season they spent £255m on transfer fees, essentially still the same as they get from bums on seats.

Then there is player wages. In 1996 player wages (with all the extras included) came to £163m (hugely up from £75m in 1992). It could be said that at that point the wages matched the commercial income from sponsoship, shops etc. Last season the players salaries went up to £471m, or a threefold increase from 96. If you say each club in the Premiership has 35 players and you ignore all NI, pension stuff, then the average Premiership player is on over £400,000 per year. (to put this into perspective write down our "35" and then realise where the clubs money is going, NUFC had the 5th highest wages bill in the Premiership in 2000).

Okay

match revenue up £100m, transfer fees up £100m

telly revenue up £200m, sponsorship up £130m, player wages up £308m

The other big outgoing for clubs as been on stadia. Since 1992 a total of £746m has been sent on grounds, over £100m in each of the last 4 years.

Clearly the biggest beneficiaries from the extra TV money have been the players. They must be mad to trying to bit the hand that feeds them so well. All of this is from Deloitte and Touche's report in April.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

So what you're saying MacB is that the Derby game might be cancelled after all? Bollox!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

There is an obvious solution to this that will be guaranteed to avert a strike.... DSS must sell his ticket for the Derby game!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Put like that Mac, it looks like the players don't have a leg to stand on, but aren't the conclusions (I'm not disputing the figures you've quoted) distorted purely through using averages ?

I have absolutely no evidence that this is the case, but the thought that strikes me is -

What if it's the spread of all this extra money that isn't so obvious when averages are being used ?

What if there's a huge percentage of the cash going to a minute proportion of the people benefitting ?

Something like the spread of landowning in Britain.

I believe the players would have a more obvious case if two or three big clubs are gaining most benefit from all of this extra cash.

As I understand it, the main purpose of what they're after is to improve the pension type benefits of players who leave the game never having got any further than the lower leagues.

If it is simply that, then I can see a case for them taking some sort of action, and if a compromise has to be reached, I'd say it will have to include player contributions as a percentage of their pay, rather than the fixed amount it is now.

I suppose it really boils down to whether or not we really care about the lower leagues, to any greater extent than that we're not in one.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Macbeth makes some good points here.

From what I understand the players only pay £75 pa to the PFA, a rate that has remained the same for a number of years. Whilst earning considerably less than most footballers I pay considerably more for my union membership. I do not expect my employers to pay for the running of the union, Also, my union leader is not on the same ridiculous salary as Taylor.

I would have some sympathy for the players if the people who were making all the money out of football were the directors or the clubs, but, as Macbeth above has so clearly shown, the people to benefit the most from TV have been the players. It really gets my goat when one of the players or their representatives comes on TV and tells us that this is all being done for the benefit of players from lower divisions. My Arse, if the players cared they could donate some of the extra money that they have received as a result of TV.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Well if they're not going on strike for the benefit of players in lower divisions then what are they on strike for? The better off players stand to lose a lot of money if the strike goes ahead and they will benefit very little if the PFA gets all it wants.

A lad who plays for say Darlington will presumably still play as their games are not covered by Sky so will lose nowt (might even get a few more through the turnstile) and is far more likely to benefit from increased funding of his union.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

"I suppose it really boils down to whether or not we really care about the lower leagues, to any greater extent than that we're not in one." What it really boils down to is raw power, and who exercises it. The players have the power and they are wielding it.

As I understand it, their argument is that they have traditionally received 10% of TV revenues, and have, magmanimously agreed to reduce this to only 5%. The fact their cost base is not based on %'s but on absolute numbers, and that they will be raking in enormous sums of money from their proposed deal, is being neatly side-stepped.

It seems doubtful they could usefully spend all the money they would receive, and their demands of course are entirely outrageous. If they were indeed short of the money needed to look after their less well off members, this could be readily resolved by levying a Union contribution based on a % of wages on their better paid members. Not unnaturally, they simply don't feel like volunteering to do this.

Player power has reached extremely dangerous proportions for the long-term financial health of the game, and will need to be faced up to, sooner or later.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

The report I'm on about does carefully note that their estimate of £400k per year is an average for Premiership players.

More anecdotedly, I used to sit next to a family friend of Graham Fenton's and got regular updates on his progress, or more latterly, lack of it. This would relate to about 1995-98 I guess, when Fenton was an U21 international and probably a decent prospect. He moved to Leicester and got £150k a year and a signing on fee. I'd guess extrapolating wildly then we'd get ~£500k per year for someone of that standard.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I'm sure that I heard PFA used to always get 5% of TV income money. This was never formalised as an agreement, but the convention was set. Given that I reckon the PFA has a good case. The game and top players may well be enjoying a healthy salary, but for me this seems like an attempt by the clubs and PL to sideline the PFA from future negotiations. And that is wrong.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I think I'd rather the power was in the hands of the players than in the hands of the TV companies.

I get the impression that the TV companies are whingeing not from an altruistic point of view but from the point of view that they're expecting the revenue to reduce significantly in the near future, and are trying to stay on the gravy train for as long as possible.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

mmmm but if the TV money goes away who will pay the now inflated salaries ??

A verbal agreement is of course not worth the paper its written on.

If the PFA get 5% of the TV money from next year, they will have an annual revenue of ~£60m which was is more than all Premiership clubs bar Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea has last year, and is £5m more than NUFC. Now I know they do lots of training of kids who miss out, but it does look to me like they are trying to tax the PL for 5% of their telly income. You can get 60,000 training courses of £1000 each out of their annual income.

Other question would be why do the PFA only want money from TV income, why not 5% of club sponsorship money, or 5% of fans season tickets sales. At one time a 5% of TV money number was picked out the air and this they were happy with. I'd guess they were happy with the absolute amount of money this gave them rather than it being a specific 5%. I would be happier if the PFA rather than just quoting 'looking after player interests' actually stated what they intended to do with the £60m a year they now need .

I have no feel for how many kids are rejected each year and have to go through retraining, say 10 per club per year throughout the leagues, would be about 1000. This is a valid area for the PFA to support. If the PFA get their £60m a year then they could give each of these kids a start in life of £60,000, surely a sum that would get them sort of skills, and lots more than any other failed 19 year old ?

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Re Taylor's salary. I understand it was arrived at on the principle that it was what the average Premiership footballer received - as confirmed by MacBeth above. If that is the case, does it mean we can all go around to his office and watch him while he's at work so that he has the same pressures as a Premiership footballer. We could stand at his window shouting "You're bloody crap on that PC Taylor." "Call yourself a bloody front man - you were a disgrace on the phone there." "Tayor, you're a miserable git - bugger off to Scotland."

Just a thought!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

yeah but maybe he could teach Elena a new injury, repetitive whinge syndrome ?

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001