03/03/2025 9comments  |  Jump to last

Premier League CEO Richard Masters has been talking to the Financial Times about the role he has played as "keeper of the peace" between 20 highly competitive clubs.

“The flipside of the popularity of the Premier League . . . is that it’s heavily scrutinised and everyone has a view,” Masters says, carefully. “You just have to accept it.”
 
“I don’t enjoy it,” he admits of the criticism, before adding a painful-sounding coda: “You just have to let it pass through you and move on.”
 
Accused of being a patsy for "Richard's Masters" – the so-called Red Cartel of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, the Premier League's top man was subjected to extensive condemnation for his role in prosecuting the PSR cases conducted against Everton, which saw the Premier League and Masters himself labeled as "Corrupt" in organized fan protests.
 
The spotlight now is on the case of 115 charges being pursued against Manchester City that has taken over 2 years to come under an independent commission, with charges dating back to 2010, with a verdict expected in the coming weeks.
 
If the club is found to have breached the rules, the independent panel will not decide on sanctions: that will be a separate process and the club — and the Premier League itself — will have the right to appeal.
 
“There is no happy alternative to enforcing the rules. The Premier League will survive the impact of all of this and come through it.” 

» Read the full article at Financial Times

Reader Comments (9)

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Michael Kenrick
1 Posted 03/03/2025 at 14:33:55
The interview is a bit of a soft one when it comes to challenging the ethos of PSR and the blatantly unfair squeezing of clubs with smaller budgets.

No bullets to dodge.

Brian Harrison
2 Posted 03/03/2025 at 15:23:56
I think the original idea of PSR was to try and create a level playing field, but it has largely had little or no effect as the top teams through their revenue streams and Champions league football will always have the biggest budget to spend. I think the idea that what you spend on your business can be capped is a complete nonsense when you compare it to any other business model. Could you imagine if Next and M&S could cap what their rivals spent.

Since the beginning of football the richest clubs at the time have had the most success, and apart from Leicester's once in a hundred year event that is still the case now.

I think if they are going to introduce a meaningful cap, and I don't personally think they work is to cap player salaries. This is the biggest drain on football clubs and agents are demanding more and more for some very average players. Take our club who have spent the last 3 years fighting relegation yet our wage bill is over 90% of our total income. I remember listening to a guy from Deloittes suggesting that any wage bill over 75% is unsustainable.

Danny O'Neill
3 Posted 03/03/2025 at 15:32:26
Like FFP Brian, it sounded like a good idea, but favours the few.

I would scrap it personally.

It was mentioned over the weekend that a club, and I can't remember which one, might have been Wolves, are spending 96% of their turnover on wages.

I think in most lines of business, the target on salary outlay is more around the 30% mark. Top flight football is the beast that keeps eating itself.

Jay Harris
4 Posted 03/03/2025 at 15:39:52
So true Danny.
Mike Gaynes
5 Posted 03/03/2025 at 16:22:01
Danny #3, agreed, and the problem is what Brian describes in #2, the inability of anyone to figure out how to consistently "level" competition. Or whether they even want to.

Only three teams were genuine contenders in the PL this year. Only three ever win La Liga. Maybe 4 in Serie A. Ligue 1 is aptly named, because one club dominates. Likewise the Bundesliga.

It is occasionally possible for a minnow to knock off the whales -- Leicester, Leverkusen, Lille -- but it always turns out to be a one-off.

I think it's an unsolvable problem, simply because clubs are individually owned and can navigate around any rules designed to even out the financial imbalances. The idea of clowns like Masters telling Saudi Arabia or the UAE what they can and cannot do strikes me as pretty silly.

In the US sports leagues, teams are franchises, salary caps are imposed, players are unionized and the financial rules are often unbelievably complicated -- but nobody wins 11 titles in a row like Bayern, because they can't just buy up all the best.

And no foreign government entity would ever be allowed to own the Chicago Cubs or Kansas City Chiefs or Phoenix Suns, because they're franchises.

Tony Abrahams
6 Posted 03/03/2025 at 17:31:31
Dress it up anyway you want but this has only been put in place to stop club’s trying to compete and better themselves, is my own opinion.

It’s the same whenever you watch a game at premier league level because everyone is pushing to gain every single advantage that they can gain, backed up by the sycophants in the television studio.

Liam Mogan
7 Posted 03/03/2025 at 18:15:56
There was a lot of noise from a number of journalists (Martin Samuel was one) about FFP/PSR, when it was first mooted (by Platini if I remember rightly) as being about stopping competition and protecting the 'big' clubs. See links below from over a decade ago.

Wasn't to do with creating a level playing field nor was it to do with protecting the financial stability of clubs.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2261817/amp/Arsenal-Manchester-United-financial-fair-play-plot-ruin-Premier-League--Martin-Samuel.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2329745/Martin-Samuel-meets-Michel-Platini--read-FULL-transcript-interview-UEFA-president.html

Ian Bennett
8 Posted 03/03/2025 at 18:29:35
Ffp was a good idea to stop oil states just buying the league. However it's fallen completely on its arse when clubs can circumvent the rules by associate related parties from inflated sponsorships or where you're buying and selling the women's team, club hotels etc.

Certain clubs have been punished and certain other clubs have got away with it through weases or where the epl messed up the rules (leicester).

My guess this will be re-looked at for Manchester United. My expectation is they're deep in the shit, but the powers aren't going to allow thst to happen for long.

Like us they need a lot of new players, have a lot of players leaving on frees and are left with a lot of players on big wages that no one else wants.

Unless they win the europa league, They're out of Europe next season, and have players like onana, zirkzee, Hojland and anthony where they'll get a fraction of the spend back on.

Peter Halsall
9 Posted 03/03/2025 at 20:43:14
This is important but overlooked.

A few weeks ago The Times carried an article by chief sports journalist Martin Samuel. The title was

‘Only luck stopped the league ruining Everton and Forest’

I can’t share the article as there is a paywall, but the gist is that City’s case now includes a ruling that the Premier League’s financial rules for sponsorship from 2021 to 2024 were ‘Void ab inito’, that means void from the start. The rules must be treated as though they never existed. Everton have a straightforward case to reclaim legal costs, and I would imagine for money lost due to their artificially low placing after the points deduction etc etc.

It concludes that Masters was very lucky to avoid the biggest legal action in football history from Everton and Forest.

I did mail a copy of the article to this website but it seems to have been overLooked unless I’ve missed it!

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