There seems to be a huge disparity, from a financial standpoint, between different levels of football clubs. The higher the club is in the pyramid, the better the position of financial wellbeing you'll be in. It's this pyramid setting that is making lower league clubs fuming at it.
In Instanbul last year, Man City were lifting the Champions League. While that was happening, Reading was being relegated to the third-tier of English Football and struggling to survive. This is a result of the inability to pay players and taxes, resulting in getting multiple points being deducted.
This difference highlights the difference between the 20 team Premier League tier and the other 72 teams. This all comes under the umbrella of English Football. This disparity is so high that football finance expert, Kieran Maguire, has said that British football currently has a “peasants vs. Marie Antoinette” relationship. A hated figure symbolizing wealth and conspicuous consumption, Marie Antoinette is famed as the last queen of France before the revolution.
The Premier League is a multi bllion-dollar business which accumulates through TV deals. On the other side, all efforts by EFL clubs to catch up are going in vain. The difference can be seen in the TV deals. From the Premier League's perspective, their deal is worth £6.7 billion ($8.5 billion) whereas the EFL’s TV deal with domestic package is worth £935 million ($1.19 billion).
The Premier League's TV money is divided among the 20 teams. 50% is divided among the teams; 25% is merit based on final league position and the other 25% distributed as a facilities fee for televised matches.
With this type of money, Premier League clubs can buy the best from across the globe. As such, they are able to acquire the services of promising prospects from lower league clubs. Doing this means that they don't have to pay high transfer fees. This prohibits those teams from obtaining high fees later on when they get more noticeable and thus getting a high revenue.
The Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and British MP, Caroline Dinenage, said the actions of Premier League clubs “threatens the financial sustainability of clubs in communities up and down the country,” accusing the top-tier teams of “parking the bus.”
The EFL believes that the best and only solution is to filter the money down to the lower levels of football. This would have zero effects on the Premier League success stories. According to Maguire, this shows the lack of negotiating power of the EFL has amid the Premier League voting structure. The UK government has attempted to get an independent regulator to grant powers that will oversee men’s soccer in England’s top five tiers.
The regulator will be able to block breakaway leagues like such as the European Super League; strengthen the tests for owners and directors of clubs and have powers to backstop the financial distributions between the Premier League, the EFL and National League with the new body able to ensure a settlement is reached.
This is whole 'class' system in football is ridiculous. Every division should be treated equally and paid as such. An independent regulator is definately needed to create a balance among the different divisions. Officials need to wake up to the fact that we are no longer in the Middle Ages era. Everyone and in this case, club, is equal. Prestige should be count as nought for this case and scenario.
Source Material
Morse, B. 2024. ‘Peasants vs. Marie Antoinette’: What the Premier League does with its billions of dollars is riling 72 other soccer clubs. CNN.