Gartside calls for two-tier Premiership

6:00am Thursday 2nd October 2008

 

By Marc Iles ?

 

PHIL Gartside has called for a two-tier salary-capped Premier League to help prevent relegated clubs going bust.

 

The Wanderers chairman is urging league chiefs to take action before English-owned clubs begin to bankrupt themselves trying to stay afloat in the billionaire?s playground.

 

In an exclusive interview with The Bolton News, Gartside suggests reducing the size of the current top flight to 18 clubs and inserting a ?second division? of 18 clubs, also to be encompassed under the Premier League banner.

 

The upshot, he claims, would be a more attractive product to television companies, and a smaller financial drop between the first two levels of the English game.

 

?I think you have got to look at the structure of the league and whether we have a Premier League One and a Premier League Two,? he said.

 

To read more of the Wanderers chairman's thoughts on the financial state of the game read Thursday's edition of The Bolton News.

Edited October 2, 200817 yr by Horwich

Gartside calls for two-tier Premiership

6:00am Thursday 2nd October 2008

 

By Marc Iles ?

 

PHIL Gartside has called for a two-tier salary-capped Premier League to help prevent relegated clubs going bust.

 

The Wanderers chairman is urging league chiefs to take action before English-owned clubs begin to bankrupt themselves trying to stay afloat in the billionaire?s playground.

 

In an exclusive interview with The Bolton News, Gartside suggests reducing the size of the current top flight to 18 clubs and inserting a ?second division? of 18 clubs, also to be encompassed under the Premier League banner.

 

The upshot, he claims, would be a more attractive product to television companies, and a smaller financial drop between the first two levels of the English game.

 

?I think you have got to look at the structure of the league and whether we have a Premier League One and a Premier League Two,? he said.

 

To read more of the Wanderers chairman's thoughts on the financial state of the game read Thursday's edition of The Bolton News.

 

go on where does he say we will be relegated ?

 

what he is saying is that as more clubs get taken over by billionaires it means it is impossible for other clubs to compete. if we get taken over we will be able to compete. personally o would rather struggle than have someone russian pussy or some foreigh dictator who has made his money ripping of his own people running the club.

 

unusual for you to put a negative spin on something coming out of the club.

Alot of people calling for the same thing for years, less games for each side, possible winter break in January, better for the national side, etc etc

 

Would make our existance more competative and less boom'n'bust, i'd be in favour

what a load of bollox, really what he is saying is renaming the championship the premier league first division, what difference is that going to make.

what a load of bollox, really what he is saying is renaming the championship the premier league first division, what difference is that going to make.

 

I agree, two leagues of 18 is just like renaming the championship. It would have to be two leagues smaller than 18 in each to make it work imo

If this happened it would be the end of the football league and every club outside the top 36 teams in this new Premier League 1 and Premier League 2. I suspect they will also consider getting rid of relegation from the two leagues and promotion into it. Will turn into an English football super league.

Indeed, its nonsense. If there was a will to do that then they could do it right now - simply divert a more substantial fraction of the Prem money into the Championship. I'd be all for football distributing its tv windfall, but ultimately why on earth would the "middling-but-not-owned-by-billionaires" clubs such as Villa, Boro etc vote for that?

As I said in a previous post (which I cant be arsed finding now) its far more likely they'll end up reducing Prem numbers and voting in teams based on geography.

"middling-but-not-owned-by-billionaires" clubs such as Villa

 

Villa are owned by a billionaire.

 

It won't be long before at least 10 clubs are owned by billionaires, something does need to be done to ensure that clubs without that still have something to play for.

 

Clubs like us are consigned to pay crap football just to survive, and for me that isn't sport and it is what's leading to attendances plummetting. The alternative is to build a squad on low wages and be happy flitting between prem and champ, and as soon as a player does well, he's off to a bigger club and the club never moves forward.

Villa are owned by a billionaire.

 

A wise one who hasn't chucked all his money at the club.

I think he's watching O'Neill build the club steadily.

Rather than being rash and throwing ?millions into it from the off.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if O'Neill has been given the remit to make Villa the 5th best team in the league - or should we say the best team outside of the top 4. And then once proven with a good basis, be given more money to strengthen.

A Bolton chairman suggesting the top division should be reduced to 18 clubs is laughable,when there is a good chance we'll drop out of it.And will find it harder to get back and stay in it than if there were 20 clubs.

 

Like a turkey voting for Christmas.

 

It beggars belief that a Bolton chairman would come out with that.

Villa are owned by a billionaire.

according to wiki he's worth 1.5 billion dollars, but I was talking in pounds :p

Good article on him here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...t-American.html

Villa are owned by a billionaire.

 

It won't be long before at least 10 clubs are owned by billionaires, something does need to be done to ensure that clubs without that still have something to play for.

 

Clubs like us are consigned to pay crap football just to survive, and for me that isn't sport and it is what's leading to attendances plummetting. The alternative is to build a squad on low wages and be happy flitting between prem and champ, and as soon as a player does well, he's off to a bigger club and the club never moves forward.

Patience, Tyler.

 

The arse will fall out of football before too much longer.

Patience, Tyler.

 

The arse will fall out of football before too much longer.

 

Lets hope its quick because i reckon we will come out of it quite well as weve been relatively careful with our finances.

A Bolton chairman suggesting the top division should be reduced to 18 clubs is laughable,when there is a good chance we'll drop out of it.And will find it harder to get back and stay in it than if there were 20 clubs.

 

Like a turkey voting for Christmas.

 

It beggars belief that a Bolton chairman would come out with that.

 

which is why he's making the suggestion, to get more money going into the 2nd tier of the the premiership

Next step will be feeder clubs.

 

Gartside is hoping for a bigger spread of (TV) money across 36 clubs here - leaving even less scraps for the rest.

 

The only way that all the old 3rd Division, 4th and (most of the) Conference will survive as full-time clubs is for them to become official feeder clubs of those teams in the Premier League(s).

It'll not happen, purely because Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal will not want to reduce/share the amount of money they are guaranteed every year. No doubt if they do talk about restructuring, then there will again be the insane talk about allowing Rangers and Celtic in as well.

 

And as Yatesy points out, it will be the death of the bottom two divisions, with them becoming glorified reserve teams for the bogger clubs, with little or no chance of ever getting out of their divisions, which will no doubt become regionalised and called "Feeder North" and "Feeder South" - as an aside, I think the bottom two divisions should be regionalised anyway, not sure how they would work it, but something should be done for them to help them try and save money

Really there are two ways the Premiership will go. EIther a larger 2 league system which has be spoken about above. Or 1 small league of around 16 teams that are chosen to be in it - like the Rugby League Super League. In the end it will all come down to which will be the most profitable.

I wonder what a 'richest by owner' league table would look like?

 

Man City

Chelsea

Fulham

Aston Villa

Wigan

Newcastle

Arsenal

West ham

Manchester United

Liverpool

Sunderland

Middlesborough

Blackburn

Everton

Portsmouth

Bolton

Best Brom

Hull

Stoke

 

A complete guess and probably balls, but wasted a good 10 minutes of my dinner.

Edited October 2, 200817 yr by HR

My post was tongue in cheek

is it just me or by having less clubs in the top tier of English football - does this not make it harder?

It's just you

He's in dreamland if he thinks we'd get anywhere near the top 18. They'd definately make sure the likes of Leeds and Notts Forest made it into this Super League.

 

I doubt it'll happen, though i do think it's just a matter of time until the big clubs fcuk off and make their own European league.

He's in dreamland if he thinks we'd get anywhere near the top 18. They'd definately make sure the likes of Leeds and Notts Forest made it into this Super League.

 

I doubt it'll happen, though i do think it's just a matter of time until the big clubs fcuk off and make their own European league.

Is that not the point? Let the billionaire clubs have premier league one and we can be competitive in the premier league two. It is just re branding the championship though.

A Bolton chairman suggesting the top division should be reduced to 18 clubs is laughable,when there is a good chance we'll drop out of it.And will find it harder to get back and stay in it than if there were 20 clubs.

 

Like a turkey voting for Christmas.

 

It beggars belief that a Bolton chairman would come out with that.

 

 

Absolutely correct George

 

What a thick tw?t Gartside is

 

'Let's make it even harder for us to stay up and then ask the top flight to give more money to the second division'

 

Yeah right, that's gonna happen eh

 

What a gormless tw?t

hes aware we're going to get relegated one day if things move as they are doing

 

hes trying to reduce the effect by ensuring theres some cash swilling about in the second tier trough, while killing off divs 3 and 4

 

eminently sensible

For a genuinely competetive team, there are 4 trophies available if you add a Euro

 

If there are 7-10 genuinely competitive teams, well - do the math

 

The billionaires will tire of the whole shooting match and we're back to a big 4 in 5-6 years

 

Gartside isn't where he is because he's daft, and he makes a good point

 

It will only change if people stop turning their tellies on when MU/CFC/LFC/AFC are playing, and I can't see that

 

Quite honestly, only Villa offer genuine hope of a change - English backbone, see.