Carburton Street, London -- It all boils down to money and how it should be divided up between the various parties. The Premier League, which runs the UK's top 20 football teams, and the Football League are in dispute with the Professional Footballer's Association over how much the latter should paid to look after the welfare of football players.
The PFA wants £35m a season but the two leagues have offered no more than £60m over three years. At the nub of the dispute is whether the PFA is entitled to a share of the money from the broadcasting rights that the leagues have signed with the television companies. The PFA is insisting on 5% of the leagues' TV contracts but the league maintains that the notion of a share in percentage terms has never been agreed.
It is unclear whether the PFA has any legal right to negotiate on behalf of the players. Both the Premier League and the Football League have maintained that they will seek a court injunction to prevent a strike. They claim that the clubs, and not the league, are the legal employers of the players, and that the matter does not therefore actually constitute a trade dispute.
What is clear, however, is that the lucrative contracts that exist between the television broadcasters and the leagues have injected vast amounts of money into the game of football. It is through these deals that top-flight footballers have been able to negotiate for themselves multi-million pound pay rises that would otherwise have been unimaginable. But now those lower down the pecking order, through their affiliation with the PFA, want a slice of the action also. The PFA wants an extra share of the spoils to help educate the majority of teenagers who fail to make it past the youth leagues and other players that have fallen on hard times.
It's admirable that the PFA should want to support its members in this way, but the people that should be paying for that support are those footballers that did make it past the youth leagues and that haven't fallen on hard times. So, rather than taking it up with the Leagues, the PFA ought to be asking its members for a contribution based on a percentage of their salary instead of the flat £75 per year that they currently contribute. The likes of David Beckham and Michael Owen can certainly afford it.
How do you see things, Fools? Have your say in our poll.
Should the PFA be supporting the less successful and disadvantaged footballer and, if so, who should be funding it?
A - The PFA does a fine job and should get more from the Leagues
B - The PFA does a fine job, but it should look to players for more money
C - Forget the PFA, no one helped me after my failed career in tiddlywinks
D - I'm praying for a strike - we might get some decent telly for a change
E - I'm not sure
Vote here.
The author is known to be a supporter of Chelsea.
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