Andrea Radrizzani said that the League Championship's model should be reconsidered.GETTY IMAGES
League Championship side Leeds United Owner Andrea Radrizzani called for a Premier League Two, saying that the Championship "does not make enough TV money for the division to be sustainable, which condemns its clubs to repeated crisis and takeovers," according to David Conn of the London GUARDIAN. The Championship is "blighted," he said, by English Football League money "being too little and shared with clubs in Leagues One and Two," and the "huge gap" with clubs relegated from the Premier League benefiting from multimillion-pound parachute payments. Radrizzani, who took over Leeds in Jan. '17 and claims to have received and turned down takeover offers for the club, said that fellow chairs, who he did not identify, "agree a reconstruction is needed." He said at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London, "I think the model of the Championship should be reconsidered, because the turnover of owners is not really a healthy system. It is not sustainable to stay in the Championship." Deloitte's analysis of Championship clubs' accounts for '16-17 found 19 out of 24 "made losses." Radrizzani also argued "a big, popular club like Leeds suffers in the Championship." He said, "We should concede that a club like Leeds that is watched by 500,00 to 600,000 people live on Sky is getting from the league only £2M ($2.65M) to £2.5M ($3.3M) [TV income] and are actually penalized, because we are more than 20 times on TV. Maybe we should reconsider the system because it doesn't work" (GUARDIAN, 10/10). The BBC's Richard Conway reported Radrizzani said that he is yet to discuss the idea of a "Premier League 2" with other owners of Championship clubs, but "believes there is a consensus for change." He said, "I think the other chairmen would love to open a conversation. The time is getting ready to consider what to do to move forward so we don't have a crisis every two years when a club go bankrupt or changes ownership every other year." Radrizzani said that he has received multiple takeover approaches for the club, but values it at "double what I invested in it." He added that he was not interested in selling and wants Leeds to become one of the "top-eight brands in the Premier League" (BBC, 10/10). The London TELEGRAPH reported in a statement, an EFL spokesperson said that the Championship "remains one of the most competitive and unpredictable divisions in world football," with attendances and revenues that "beat many top divisions across Europe." The representative also pointed out that the clubs promoted to the Premier League in '16-17 "all stayed up last season, while those relegated did not bounce back" (TELEGRAPH, 10/11).
