EPL CEO Richard Scudamore yesterday said that the league's "success has created financial problems as well as opportunity for its 20 clubs, and the spending excesses of the past must be reined in," according to Roger Blitz of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Scudamore, appearing before a committee of MPs examining soccer's financial problems, "defended the scale of the league’s growth, which is generating broadcasting revenues" at a rate of about US$1.6B a year. MPs have been "gathering evidence from football experts and administrators about the impoverishment of clubs at lower levels, levels of debt across the game and the alleged overweaning influence of the Premier League in the Football Association, the governing body." Scudamore said that the league's rulebook "never envisaged that one of its clubs could go into administration, a fate that befell Portsmouth last year, and that its rules had to be tightened over who should be allowed to own" an EPL club. Scudamore: "Of course, the worst thing and the best thing about the Premier League is how successful it has been. ... That success means more want to be part of us. ... That’s the reality of English football. But we are not advocating that people overstretch themselves (to the extent that) it puts them at risk.” Scudamore said that the league "would prefer owners to put equity rather than debt into clubs, and that new Premier League rules on debt were tighter than those being introduced by UEFA." He "rejected the idea that the FA, as the governing body, should have a greater say in how the Premier League was run." He insisted that the "league’s rules on club ownership, particularly in identifying owners, were robust, and stronger than those of the Football League" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 4/6).
