Premier League and EFL chiefs to face questions on TV revenue deal progress

Richard Masters and Rick Parry will be quizzed by MPs on the CMS committee.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters is due to appear before the CMS committee next week (House of Commons/PA) (PA Archive)

Premier League and EFL chiefs are set to be questioned by a select committee next week about what progress has been made towards a new agreement over top-flight television revenue.

The PA news agency understands Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive, and EFL chair Rick Parry are due to appear before the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee on Tuesday.

The leagues are involved in discussions, which also include the Football Association, on a so-called ‘New Deal For Football’.

The talks cover a new, enhanced funding package for the EFL and its clubs but also financial controls, calendar changes and work permits.

The Premier League is understood to have paused talks with its clubs over the deal for extra funding to the EFL last month, and sources close to the ‘New Deal’ discussions told the PA news agency on Friday morning that a resolution looked “further away than ever”.

There is understood to be division among Premier League clubs over what the offer to the EFL should be, and how that extra cost would be split among clubs. Clubs discussed in December the possibility of funding the extra money through the existing solidarity system, a transfer levy or a combination of the two. The 20 top-flight clubs are not due to meet collectively again until early next month.

Talks last year between the Premier League and the EFL had centred on an agreement giving EFL clubs 14.75 per cent of pooled domestic and international media revenues over a six-year period, which was forecast to lead to an uplift in funding for the EFL of more than £900million. That percentage excluded parachute payments to relegated clubs and a transfer levy which provides support to club academies.

Last month the Premier League announced its next domestic TV deal, which will run for four seasons from 2025-26, would be worth £6.7billion.

PA understands the EFL remains concerned over proposed cost controls, which it believes will still leave a massive imbalance between the Premier League and the Championship.

Clubs coming down from the top flight will still receive parachute payments and be able to spend a higher percentage of the revenue they receive – 85 per cent – than their second-tier rivals.

PA understands the percentage for Championship clubs will be closer to 70 per cent, broadly in line with UEFA’s already-announced squad cost ratios. The effect of the deal would be to slow the rate at which the gap between the leagues is growing, but do nothing to close it.

EFL chair Rick Parry said in October that Championship clubs were being put in a “horrendous position” and effectively being forced to choose between being sustainable and competitive.

Football’s new independent regulator is set to be given ‘backstop powers’ to impose a settlement via arbitration if the sport’s authorities cannot agree one.

The Football Governance Bill, which has the creation of a regulator at its heart, is set for a first reading in the House of Commons early this year.