Member

I do not blame the EFL; its rationale is plain enough. This restriction makes the backstop mechanism more accessible, increasing its leverage in negotiations with the Premier League. I am sure that its approach would be that any new deal offered to it, in effect, becomes, as I said previously, its insurance policy. After all, if it accepts a new, better deal and then triggers the backstop—as Rick Parry said in committee he would do in any event—it will presume that the regulator will not give it less than it has agreed, so it can result only in a new improved deal being further improved. For the Government to acquiesce in this and endorse this approach is to take sides in football’s internal politics. It is extraordinary. It is the privileging of one stakeholder at the expense of the pyramid as a whole—and it has happened with no consultation whatever.