"Project Big Picture"

[davieG]

Yes, English football needs leaders – but not mercenary opportunists like Joel Glazer and John W Henry
Henry Winter
, Chief Football Writer
Monday October 12 2020, 5.00pm, The Times

 

Yes, Joel Glazer, I saw you. I saw your contempt for English fans. I was there outside the main entrance at JJB Stadium in Wigan on May 11, 2008. I was chatting to Manchester United supporters an hour and 20 minutes before kick-off, genuine football people whose life revolves around this great club you’re privileged to own, proper football souls who care for the greatest game as well as their beloved club. And you swept past, smiling smugly.

Yes, Joel, I saw you, you ambitious ruler of the English game. I saw your bouncers pushing United fans out of the way, your fans. I saw your look, your sense of self-entitlement. I saw how out of touch you were with English football, the passion, the flaws, the glory, and you still are. As now, I saw then that you don’t understand the responsibility of being guardian of Manchester United, the absolute honour, and the opportunity for leadership for club and sport. You’re not fit to spend a second in the distinguished company of Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton, legends who have given so selflessly to club and sport.

We know your game, Joel. Your game is simple, fistfuls of dollars. Fair enough. Money’s your business, turning sport into business, into dollars. Sadly, you don’t have any emotional connection with United. Your game is the Bucs and the bucks.

But hear this: we don’t want Joel Glazer running English football. Fans, government, clubs don’t want the representative of a family who have taken almost £1 billion out of Manchester United deciding who is a fitting owner of another club, deciding how much other clubs should receive in broadcast money, restricting opportunity for those wanting to challenge him and his Gang of Six in this disgraceful, doomed “Project Big Picture”.

 

Welcome to English football: behind closed shops? No chance. We’ll fight the cabal. We don’t want Joel Glazer, or John W Henry at Liverpool, deciding that two places are to be cut permanently from the vibrant, competitive Premier League, that two places are to be cut permanently from the historic, passionately supported EFL?

Who are the leaders? Not you. “The fact that our two greatest clubs are showing leadership at a time when the game is crying out for it is fantastic,” Rick Parry, chairman of the EFL, told the Daily Telegraph. Parry’s right, the game is crying out for leadership, but not the type of commercial opportunism masked as altruism from Glazer and Henry.

 

Where have all the real footballing leaders gone? The men and women who thought of the interests of their sport first, themselves second? The people not seduced by the power, the inflating of their egos and, occasionally, bank balances? Where are those like David Dein and David Sheepshanks? Owners and administrators who cared.

 

Richard Scudamore kept the 20 Premier League owners in a line, which Richard Masters has failed to. Adam Crozier was a leader of the FA, too strong for the internal politics, but an undeniable leader. Ian Watmore walked away from the FA, exasperated by the agendas. English football is too riven with self-interest. Gordon Taylor at the PFA loves the game, genuinely, but fails to lead properly, sadly.

So a message to Glazer and Henry as you try to seize leadership of English football. Some humility, please, some respect for this great game, for this footballing country that nursed into life and codified this wonderful pastime that already provides you with such profits.

 

Please, some acknowledgment that fortunes, footballing and financial, fluctuate. Special status? How entitled you are. Know your history. Big six? Leicester and Leeds have won the title since Spurs have. Villa have won the European Cup more than City, Arsenal and Spurs. This is not to decry any of those magnificent clubs, simply to apply the big picture.

 

So, Joel and John, you don’t offer the leadership English football craves, the sense of financial probity and community. They do exist within football. I’d trust Mark and Nicola Palios at Tranmere Rovers and Steve Lansdown at Bristol City to lead the EFL better than Parry. Port Vale’s Carol Shanahan would represent and work better for the EFL than Parry; she cares for her club and community, and runs a hugely successful business.

I’d trust Matthew Benham at Brentford to do a better job with the maths than Parry, who is trying to sell football’s soul for £3.5 million a club. I’d trust Tony Bloom at Brighton to get the figures right without wronging anybody. I’d trust Clive Nates at Lincoln City, Andy Holt at Accrington Stanley and Simon Sadler at Blackpool to be more in tune with balance sheets and fans’ concerns than Parry.

I’d trust Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s owner, and his principled chief executive, Susan Whelan, to run the Premier League with more savvy and empathy than Glazer and Henry. I’d trust Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens at Villa more than Glazer and Henry; they understand dreams, studious investment, striving to challenge the elite, pushing against the door that Glazer and Henry want to close.

 

I’d trust Andrea Radrizzani at Leeds to do a better job on broadcast rights than Glazer and Henry, sharing the riches around, appreciating the importance of competition. I’d trust Steve Parish at Crystal Palace to do the right thing when it counted, to think of the greater good.

 

I’d trust Delia Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones as proper stewards of the national game than Parry. They’re not into Norwich City for the possibility of profit; just the opposite, it has cost them. And how the EFL misses a smart mind and big heart like Dean Hoyle, who has stood down at Huddersfield Town. Now there’s a man with a moral compass. His sons worked in the club shop, he broke down with emotion when his beloved Town were promoted at Wembley, and was so concerned about local childhood poverty that he established breakfast clubs to feed the needy.

 

So Parry is right: English football does need a reset, but not dictated by those whose start, middle and end is the bottom line. Not Glazer and Henry. English football needs leaders who care for all, but also possess the financial expertise to make the sport a viable business. For years, it has been tottering towards the “cliff-edge” as Parry calls it, and is now teetering.

Proper leaders, those with a real big picture, would have reined in the ludicrous wages, making them more performance-related. Proper leaders would have confronted the unconscionable, extravagant, multi-layered system of paying agents.

This is not a plea to retreat down memory lane, finding sanctuary in the iron-fist Fifties leadership of Alan Hardaker, the Football League secretary who protected convoys on brave Royal Navy duty during the War, who played for Hull, who fought for his sport. It is about tapping into the intellectual property that exists in football, in the minds of Shanahan, Whelan, and the cerebral Palios couple, and working as a collective to sort English football’s myriad ills, to bring the real leadership, not the greed of a Joel Glazer. We know what you’re doing, Joel.

 

Time to refill seats

It seems partly hypocritical, partly hysterical, that even in the mad world of 2020 it is possible for the wonderful Arsène Wenger to address an audience in the West End of London last night yet all the hard-core Arsenal fans socially distanced are unable to take up the seats they have paid so handsomely for in his old home, three miles to the north.

Live events? Palladium yes, Emirates no. What’s the difference?

 

Apart from the fact that Arsenal’s abode is outdoor — healthier — and so well organised, as anybody who has been there behind closed doors will attest. Even the urinals are now spaced apart.

Somebody in government is taking the proverbial. LetFansIn.

[StanSP]

1 minute ago, davieG said:

I’d trust Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s owner, and his principled chief executive, Susan Whelan, to run the Premier League with more savvy and empathy than Glazer and Henry. I’d trust Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens at Villa more than Glazer and Henry; they understand dreams, studious investment, striving to challenge the elite, pushing against the door that Glazer and Henry want to close.

[urban.spaceman]

40 minutes ago, davieG said:

FOOTBALL | MATT DICKINSON
Premier League’s ‘big six’ want to kill chance of next Leicester City fairytale
A pandemic, with the game at its most vulnerable, has provided the opportunity to launch a hostile takeover
Matt Dickinson
Tuesday October 13 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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It is 59 years since Tottenham Hotspur won the English league title, only four years since Leicester City pulled off one of the most sensational and inspiring achievements in all of sport.

One club is invited by John W Henry to join him in carving up English football — deciding on the rules, vetoing owners if they so choose, shovelling more cash to the wealthiest — while the other is treated with contempt.

“We don’t want too many Leicester Citys,” an anonymous football executive told The Independent a little while ago. Project Big Picture is the bare-faced embodiment of that jaw-dropping quote.

Never mind the “big six” — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham — Leicester would not even qualify as one of three patsies invited to sit with the big boys while they reshape the game. Everton, Southampton and West Ham United are the lucky three offered Special Voting Rights on time served in the top flight (though they could be out-voted by a two-thirds majority, ie the “big six”, so are basically there just to get the coffees in).

Crystal Palace would be next. Leicester have to wait in line like obedient servants.

Those who think this proposal is a financial lifeline for EFL clubs that must be grabbed in desperation need to pause — it should only take a second — and understand why these demands are simply non-negotiable.

It is not only that Henry and his ilk do not want too many Leicester miracles, and want to make it as hard as possible for another as they seek to protect their cartel. Does Henry even see the point of clubs like Leicester?

There was a profile piece about the Liverpool owner yesterday, by a journalist who has dealt with him, which explained how Project Big Picture had started to form in Henry’s mind as far back as 2012, when he fully realised the wealth-sharing system of the Premier League.

This went against all his capitalist instincts. In Henry’s mind, apparently, it was hard to see the point of the likes of, say, Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City and half a dozen other clubs who came and went from the top flight, yo-yoing up and down, scrapping against the odds, taking cash even in the Championship.

For an American, the division was stacked with minor league clubs playing in the majors. And, worst of all, these schmucks got money that could be Liverpool’s by rights given their heritage and popularity in Asia.

Ian Ayre, the former Liverpool chief executive, once clumsily picked on Bolton Wanderers to articulate how these apparently piddling clubs — a founder member of the oldest league in the world, 73 years in the top division, four-times winners of the FA Cup — were such an unattractive proposition for overseas viewers that Liverpool should be able to carve off all their own rights and leave the underclass behind.

His master’s voice, Ayre will have been less surprised than anyone that Henry has now put his master plan down in writing. Liverpool, in particular, have been chipping away at the collective foundations of English football for years.

A pandemic, with the game at its most vulnerable, has provided the opportunity to launch a hostile takeover. That is bad enough but we have to endure the disingenuousness of Rick Parry claiming that the owners of Liverpool and Manchester United care for the pyramid.

There is one simple way to prove it — a rescue package without so many strings attached that it wraps the whole game in their red tape.

Henry’s background in American sport, and a land of closed leagues, is bound to inform his desire for a protected cartel but it is not just the stateside executives who want to enshrine the “big six” in perpetuity. A frequent complaint from Premier League chairmen and senior executives is the way that Ferran Soriano, the chief executive of Manchester City, makes clubs outside the “big six” feel like an inconvenience.

Playing Aston Villa or Crystal Palace is a chore when Soriano, with his grand vision, thinks City should be facing Barcelona and Real Madrid far more often. The point of the lower leagues for him is so that City can have a B-team.

For all the sweeteners being thrown at the EFL clubs, are these seriously the people who are going to be given unprecedented powers in English football? Allowed to change the game for ever?

Their agenda is clear; unequal distribution to increasingly favour the richest clubs; many more games in Europe; no pesky League Cup; games carved off from the main broadcast deal so the biggest can cash in around the world; more money-spinning pre-season tournaments. And those are only the changes they admit to, the thin end of the wedge. How many more steps to a Super League?

Of course none of this opposition is much comfort to those EFL clubs losing money. But given the wealth in the game — more than £1 billion spent by Premier League clubs in the transfer window just gone — is it any wonder that government despairs of football’s inability to muddle through the financial challenges of Covid-19 without tearing itself apart?

Perhaps Henry and Parry, the former Liverpool chief executive, have been smart enough to draw up a Plan B which has most of the good parts of the deal without the demands that would disfigure the game permanently. They have less than 48 hours to come up with an alternative before the top-flight clubs are due to gather.

It would be nice to think that Henry might be at that meeting, to look Leicester, Palace and the rest of the clubs he has treated with such disdain, in the eye — or does Parry have to do all his dirty work, the convenient fall guy?

Terrific piece that's got Liverpool fans riled up in the replies to the Dickinson's tweet. Lampard was right about those cvnts.

[twister]

18 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Terrific piece that's got Liverpool fans riled up in the replies to the Dickinson's tweet. Lampard was right about those cvnts.

This nails this on the head

 

This veto will kill those dreams forever.

[urban.spaceman]

12 minutes ago, twister said:

This nails this on the head

 

This veto will kill those dreams forever.

My favourite reply contains this:

 

"Leicester’s win is the biggest fallacy of the PL ‘any can win it’ mantra."

 

Well Liverpool ****ing failed to win if for 30 years!

[sacreblueits442]

5 hours ago, Le Renard said:

I get your point and I agree it should be all about financial prudence, but when has football been about being solvent?  We as Leicester fan's can't moan about other clubs being in debt, when it has happened to ourselves.  We go into adminstration and then pay our debtors something like a penny in the pound, then we proceed to get promoted, which p****d off a lot of clubs and fans: hence we had a change of rules in the EFL.  Look at this forum over the summer when the club didn't get its chequebook out straight away, a few were complaining that we didn't buy this and that player, watch Arsenal fan TV and they are always urging their club to splash the cash.  If I was to own a business, football would be the last choice, but If I was super rich I would buy Leicester city 'toute de suite' and splash the cash.....that's football logic!

...weird about Arsenal spending!!!

Pepe - 72m

Aubameyang  - 57m

Lacazette -47m

Partey - 45m

Ozil - 42m

Xhaka - 40m

Sanchez -38m

Mustafi -37m

  How much more do you they think it will take so they can buy the league.

[Corky]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

So if I read The Athletic article right, this Project Cluster **** means that when the EFL clubs get their 250m they hand over ALL broadcast rights to the EPL too?

 

Did anyone really think they'd give money with no strings attached?

 

They aren't giving charitable donations.

[twister]

2 minutes ago, Corky said:

Did anyone really think they'd give money with no strings attached?

 

They aren't giving charitable donations.

the strings attached are we''own your forever' and your nothing but slaves to us''' in all but name.

[Zear0]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/david-squires-on-project-big-small-print-selflessly-saving-english-football

 

As usual, David Squires nails it. 

 

The whole situation is so appallingly outrageous I have to laugh about it.  Even the proposals used the word "gift" in quotation marks regarding circumventing the FA veto, marvellous.

[Corky]

29 minutes ago, twister said:

the strings attached are we''own your forever' and your nothing but slaves to us''' in all but name.

tHeY CarE aBouT tHe PyrAMiD

[Dahnsouff]

.

Edited 13 October 2020 by Dahnsouff

[Ted Maul]

33 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/david-squires-on-project-big-small-print-selflessly-saving-english-football

 

As usual, David Squires nails it. 

 

The whole situation is so appallingly outrageous I have to laugh about it.  Even the proposals used the word "gift" in quotation marks regarding circumventing the FA veto, marvellous.

Brilliant. Even contains a nod towards my absolute pet hate of stripped back, slow tempo, wanky cover songs on seemingly every single tv advert these days.

[twister]

12 minutes ago, Corky said:

tHeY CarE aBouT tHe PyrAMiD

no they ****ing don't

[jayfox26]

Liverpool really are a vile club and this stems from the owners. The attempt to furlough staff when they are multi billion pound business was sickening and now trying to take control of English football. If their fans agree with this then they are as vile as their owners. Any decnet football fan would be completely against this regardless of whether you support Man U, Liverpool, Leicester or Lincoln. This is no deal for the efl, its clubs or anyone. The fact they have the audacity to make it look like their are doing english football a favour is an insult to the intelligence of football fans across the country. I try not to get too annoyed about football these days but this has really made me sick! 

[sheffield_fox]

Thankfully this idea appears to be dead in the water. 

 

I hope this episode ignites a serious movement to secure the balance of power in the English game well away from likes of Glazer and Henry. 

 

Clearly more income needs to be passed down through the pyramid. This would strengthen the sport for the benefit of all in England. Which clubs have the principles to get the ball rolling? 

[RoboFox]

The FSA: Project Big Picture Is a Sugar-Coated Cyanide Pill

 

Football is in crisis, many clubs desperately need financial support to help them survive, and the game’s wealth has to be shared more fairly – but the ‘Project Big Picture’ plans are not the answer and they would be an absolute disaster for our game.

The insatiable greed of a small handful of billionaire owners cannot be allowed to determine the structure of football in this country. 

Their desire to stitch things up behind closed doors, without even speaking to their fellow clubs, let alone fans, makes crystal clear the urgent need for the Government’s promised fan-led review of football governance.

We are not defending the status quo but ‘Project Big Picture’ is not the answer.

Supporters are open to new ideas to improve football’s governance but we don’t remember any fans making the argument that what football really needs, is for more money and power to be handed to the billionaire owners of our biggest clubs. That trend is already built into the system, and we need to stop it, not accelerate it further.

Within the proposals there are individual ideas which many fans would back – but in this form it is impossible to disentangle them from outcomes which would be a disaster for the game. 

Premier League impact

The Premier League would be reduced in size from 20 teams to 18 and more money would be directed towards the most successful teams, who in turn would hoover up even more of the best players, reducing competition throughout the entire league. 

League rules would be controlled by as few as six clubs who would gobble up a bigger share of the pie than they already do while abolishing the League Cup and Community Shield. 

The ruling clubs would be Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham, as determined by their length of service in the Premier League. Media reports suggest the plans are being driven by the owners at Liverpool and Manchester United. 

A vote by two-thirds of those clubs would dictate the rules for the rest, meaning half of the top-flight’s clubs would compete in a league which they had no say in running.

The named clubs would also control the “distribution rights of the sponsorship, commercial and broadcasting rights sold” and would be allowed to “alter in a material way the nature of the competition” which opens the door again to Game 39 or even madder schemes.

As six clubs can set the rules, who could stop them ending relegation from the Premier League and creating a franchise system like they have in US sports? No one. Who could stop them from rewriting the rules in a few years so that the top six keep all the media money? No one. Who could stop them cutting funding entirely to the EFL or grassroots football? No one. 

Supporters cannot let the greed of a few billionaire owners destroy our league system.

And what about the EFL?

For EFL clubs the impact could be even more drastic. While Project Big Picture dangles an alleged £250m “rescue fund” in front of clubs to cover lost revenues during the 2019-20 season they might actually be a sugar coated cyanide pill.

Apparently “money will be advanced to the EFL from increased future revenues”. Is there a guarantee that the money will even materialise? The entire package is based on projected revenues which are, in turn, based on the current media deal. Where is the guarantee that will happen? 

Under the proposals top-flight clubs retain eight games per season which they can sell directly via their own platforms, rather than broadcasting in the traditional manner. Would broadcasters pay more money for fewer games? It seems unlikely. Especially if the clubs chose to keep the rights for the games which are deemed most attractive to a global audience.

EFL clubs would also lose all League Cup revenue as that competition will be nuked, which in turn will see their own media revenues collapse, as broadcasters will not pay nearly as much for EFL rights, if the League Cup is no longer part of the package. Although maybe that wouldn’t matter as “the EFL irrevocably grants its broadcast rights to the EPL”!

Since six billionaire club owners can change the rules of the game at any time they like, and would control almost all of the revenue, there is no guarantee that they won’t pull up the drawbridge and cut funding entirely to the EFL, as it signed its own death warrant. 

The billionaire owners have created a set of rules they can change at any time. It’s a one way street and there is no way back for domestic football once that power is handed over.

The FSA

We wouldn’t reject all the ideas – a £20 away cap on top-flight tickets and subsidised travel, guaranteed away allocations, and safe standing areas are all things we back – but the reality is that the overall package is not acceptable to supporters. 

A rescue package for EFL and National League clubs is needed alongside better distribution of football’s wealth across the game to close the gap between the Premier League and the rest of the pyramid.

As an organisation we’re more than happy to consider changes to football’s structure but the place for that is the Government’s proposed fan-led review and it has to include all interested parties – fans, clubs, leagues, players, match officials, the FA, and so on. 

It is not acceptable for billionaire club owners to hatch a plan in secret and then try and use the fallout from a global pandemic to buy compliance from financially crippled clubs.

We will be making that case in the strongest possible terms to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and all the football authorities, including the FA Council which meets on Thursday.

The Premier League and Government have to step up and deliver an alternative financial package urgently for the EFL and National League. It should cover lost gate receipts and matchday income. And urgently means details in hours, not days or weeks. Days or weeks means clubs going bust. Days or weeks means EFL clubs being tempted by the sugar-coated cyanide pill offered up by billionaire owners who do not understand or care about our football culture. 

It’s now or never.

[yorkie1999]

All it takes is for the other 14 clubs to allow 1 club to win every single game they play. Guaranteed 78 points plus maybe 10 off the big 6, 88 points gets a club other than the big 6 second in the league and a  champions league spot.

[Master Fox]

We got them shook again. 

 

 

[HighPeakFox]

These people know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I'd not even call them capitalists as a way to criticise them, they're way, way worse than that. I won't write the language that I want to, but the type of people that want this sort of thing represent the worst of everything.

[Leicester_Loyal]

29 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

Liverpool really are a vile club and this stems from the owners. The attempt to furlough staff when they are multi billion pound business was sickening and now trying to take control of English football. If their fans agree with this then they are as vile as their owners. Any decnet football fan would be completely against this regardless of whether you support Man U, Liverpool, Leicester or Lincoln. This is no deal for the efl, its clubs or anyone. The fact they have the audacity to make it look like their are doing english football a favour is an insult to the intelligence of football fans across the country. I try not to get too annoyed about football these days but this has really made me sick! 

Worst club in England, no wonder they've been hated for decades

 

Why don't teams playing in Europe have the option of opting out of the league cup, or being forced out of it? That'll cut out potentially a few games a season.

[st albans fox]

and anyone wondering why they need nine clubs rather than six ??   they need six votes to carry anything through. what if one of the big six decides to take a principled stand - it is possible ?  that would stuff them. so add in three lightweights and would be tough not to be able to buy one of them off at anyone time with an off the record agreement. 

 

having the three lightweights also makes it seem like it isn't a big six carve up - that's what they hoped for anyway …..

[urban.spaceman]

On 11/10/2020 at 13:18, urban.spaceman said:

Who wants to start the petition to expel Man Utd and Liverpool from the league for suggesting this?

Someone's done it!

 

https://www.change.org/p/football-fans-and-all-decent-people-the-perfect-picture-premier-league-plan

 

Project Perfect Picture is a fan-driven response to the greed of Liverpool FC and Manchester United FC's dangerous Project Big Picture trap. The greed evident from the owners of these two, "should know better" clubs shines a light on the real problem that our beautiful game faces...corporate greed.

Project Perfect Picture proposes the biggest single shake-up of the English professional game in a generation if it comes to pass.  

So what would the Project Perfect Picture entail? Here are the key points::

- The Premier League would be reduced from 20 to 18 clubs, with Liverpool FC and Manchester United leaving the Premier League to form a 'two-team' Super League. 
- The Community Shield would have all proceeds given to fan-selected charities chosen through a voting and fundraising platform.
- Current one-club one-vote principle would continue, as would rule that 14 clubs out of the 18 need to agree on policy.
- Power would be equally shared across all teams.
- All clubs would be required to vote for major change.
- An agreed fair payment and support package to the EFL, and increased payment to the Football Association.
- 25 percent of Premier League annual revenue (up from four percent) would go to the EFL clubs.

[sdb]

This is the most grotesque idea I've heard in ages. Embarassing. I think it would kill my one and only love/hobby.

[AndyK]

7 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

and anyone wondering why they need nine clubs rather than six ??   they need six votes to carry anything through. what if one of the big six decides to take a principled stand - it is possible ?  that would stuff them. so add in three lightweights and would be tough not to be able to buy one of them off at anyone time with an off the record agreement. 

 

having the three lightweights also makes it seem like it isn't a big six carve up - that's what they hoped for anyway …..

 

Half the league is presumably why they chose 9. Not like the other 9 matter to Henry.

 

A principled stand is a fair example, and could be replaced by "that club there where we don't like what they're doing".

[Guest SO1]

23 minutes ago, AndyK said:

 

Half the league is presumably why they chose 9. Not like the other 9 matter to Henry.

 

A principled stand is a fair example, and could be replaced by "that club there where we don't like what they're doing".

Nothing matters to John Henry but profit on investment. And for people like him "charity" is an investment.

Edited 13 October 2020 by SO1