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The pursuit of promotion to the Premier League, and the risks associated with relegation, are the focus of Episode 16 of High Press.
Host Alison Bender is accompanied by Phil Hay, Matt Lawton and Mike Keegan to discuss the Championship Playoffs, topflight ambitions and parachute payments.
Relegation fodder
Bender starts off the episode by mentioning that this could be the first season ever where all three newly promoted teams get relegated and the three teams relegated last season all return immediately to the Premier League.
Hay responds, “I suppose in the broader sense, it begs the question of whether the gap is now so big, the advantage of getting relegated when it comes to getting promoted again, that staying in the Premier League is becoming more and more impossible.”
Keegan criticises Sheffield United saying they ‘haven’t really had a go at it’, but talks up the excitement of the relegation battle each season in the Premier League.
He adds, “No one seems to say this, but Vincent Kompany spent huge amounts at Burnley this summer. I don’t think anyone at Burnley expected them to be where they are now.”
Are playoffs fair?
Turning to this season’s relegation tussle, Bender brings up Everton’s points deduction and Nottingham Forest’s potential penalty. Keegan believes they are two very different sets of circumstances, expressing greater sympathy for Everton than Forest.
Bender suggests the Playoffs are better than an automatic promotion, but Lawton is having none of it.
“Oh I disagree. No, I’m gonna be grumpy. I don’t agree with the Playoffs. You’ve got a 46-game competition, and if there’s three teams up, it should be the top three teams…
“It doesn’t seem fair. And again, it’s all about money. It’s bonkers, that game is the £130 million game. Look, I watch it, because that’s the way it is and that’s what that game is. But I just think it goes against what’s fair.”
Parachute payments
Hay notes how clubs seem to have accepted the Playoff system, even if it can sometimes seem unjust.
“EFL clubs seem to have settled into the pattern that that is how it is. If you don’t finish top two, then the jeopardy is there.”
With the conversation directed towards parachute payments, Hay says clubs who have been in the Championship for a long time are ‘very opposed’ to parachute payments.
Premier League ambition can be dangerous
While these executives see it as the best way to maintain a degree of parity, Hay argues the parity ‘just isn’t there’, using Southampton, Leicester and Leeds as examples with their financial power in the Championship.
Keegan weighs up wanting teams to have a ‘good go of it’ in the Premier League with teams (using Reading as an example) overstretching themselves to try and reach the riches of the topflight.
Championship is a loss making league
Lawton goes further down the pyramid, sharing concerns about Salford and Wrexham.
“The trouble is, we’ve seen how badly that situation can be mismanaged.” Bender replies, “We love the football pyramid, and that’s what makes it so unique I think, and we want this to stay. But the distribution, as Matt said, could be a lot better.”
With so many teams having not recovered after being relegated from the Premier League, Keegan has mixed feelings on teams struggling financially.
“Going back, my team Oldham are the only ones to be in the Premier League, and now we’re in the National League. We never recovered. But, I do struggle to have sympathy for a lot of the Championship clubs.
“We’re in a position now, where we’re saying clubs in the Premier League need to be giving more of their money to clubs in the Championship, who want to come and use that money to take their place… There is an element of ‘get your house in order.’”
Should they scrap promotion and relegation?
The panel agree that it would never work to abolish promotion and relegation in English football.
What changes, if any, would you make to the parachute payments and the Playoffs?
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