Following the failure to secure the World Cup, England faces another potential blow from an international football body. Uefa is considering a Scottish-devised plan to redistribute television money from European Championship and World Cup qualifiers towards smaller countries and away from the ‘big five’ of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. However, the proposal does have some positive aspects from an English perspective and the devil is really in the detail.
Following the failure to secure the World Cup, England faces another potential blow from an international football body. Uefa is considering a Scottish-devised plan to redistribute television money from European Championship and World Cup qualifiers towards smaller countries and away from the ‘big five’ of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. However, the proposal does have some positive aspects from an English perspective and the devil is really in the detail.
At the moment the Football Association earns £183m a year from television rights and sponsorship. Uefa plans to follow a model such as that used by the Premier League, where broadcast rights are sold collectively and then distributed among member clubs. The move could shrink the earning power of Europe’s biggest football nations as it would see all monies generated from television and commercial deals shared between the 53 member associations.
As the Uefa executive committee met in Prague to discuss the plan, it is understood that the particular sticking point from the point of view of the ‘top five’ is the scheme’s sponsorship element. The FA’s commercial partnerships are worth £50m a year, and it is unlikely any collective deal could raise that amount for English football. Nonetheless, despite clear opposition also from Germany on the sponsorship issue, Uefa is not backing down on that aspect of its plans.
The FA is understood to be sympathetic to Uefa’s view that the plan – which was devised by the Scottish head of Uefa events, David Taylor – will increase the overall value of television properties. There would also be economies of scale: currently Uefa member associations engage sports-rights consultancies to assist in striking their commercial and broadcasting deals on an individual basis. Taylor’s proposal would lead to a single point of sale, significantly reducing the continent-wide overheads.