Premiership chiefs quit in pounds 100m row

THE WINTER cull of football administrators continued apace yesterday as the leading figures in the Premier League were shown the door for agreeing contracts with two television consultants. The deals could reportedly lead to them taking more than pounds 100m out of the game in salary and bonuses.

Peter Leaver, the chief executive of the Premier League, and Sir John Quinton, the chairman, resigned after an investigation by the League into the contract drawn up with Sam Chisholm and David Chance, two former BSkyB executives, to act as consultants in the next round of television negotiations.

The contracts reportedly offered the pair a pounds 1.8m consultancy fee each plus massive incentive payments. These were said to feature 5 per cent commission each on any improvements negotiated to the existing television deal (currently worth pounds 743m over five years, but expected to pass pounds 1bn); 5 per cent each of pay-per-view revenue if and when it is introduced; and 10 per cent equity each if the Premier League floats its own television company up to the business being valued at pounds 1bn. Thereafter they would receive 1 per cent of the value.

The two executives follow Graham Kelly and Keith Wiseman, their FA equivalents, and Jim Farry, the former chief executive of the Scottish FA, in resigning this winter. As a consequence the five major posts in British football administration, and that of the England football coach, are currently in the hands of caretakers. The sport may be enjoying a financial boom but its administration continues to lurch from crisis to crisis.

The timing of this development could be especially damaging as Mr Leaver, a skilled advocate, had been steering the League's defence against the Office of Fair Trading's investigation into the collective bargaining of television rights. If this case in the Restrictive Practices Court is lost it could lead to an acceleration of football's wealth gap and the break-up of the Premiership.

It was an attempt to manage the relationship between television and football which provoked yesterday's denouement but it was not just Mr Leaver's and Sir John's judgement which was questioned. They faced opposition for acting without prior agreement with the chairman.There was also disquiet over Mr Chisholm's links with Tottenham, a club Mr Leaver has supported for 40 years and whose board he was once on.

There was a clash of personalities too, particularly that of Mr Leaver and the more forthright club chairmen. He never quite managed to hide the superior manner acquired in a long career at the Bar as a prosecution lawyer and that inevitably grated with the club chairmen, a body of largely self-made men with strong opinions.

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday last September, Mr Leaver said: "Someone asked me what it was like at one of our meetings having to deal with 20 egos. I said, 'Well, you've got that wrong for a start, there are 21 egos now'."

Not any more.

Mr Leaver is temporarily replaced by Mike Foster, the Premier League's secretary. Dave Richards, the chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, takes over as acting chairman.

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