Lord Markham (Con)

Is it fair that Federer, Djokovic and Murray earned so much in their time? Did Wimbledon not need all the players to take part for it to be so valuable? Is it fair that Verstappen has won the championship four or five times in a row and is earning far more than everyone else? That is about sporting competitiveness—or competitiveness in anything. It is not the role of a regulator to start to redistribute income; I believe fervently that we will then get the law of unintended consequences. My noble friend Lady Brady talked about parachute payments. This weekend was a perfect example of why the Premier League is the most popular league in the world. Crystal Palace held Man City to a draw. Can you believe that Crystal Palace—fourth from the bottom, right on the edge of being relegated—would have invested that much in players if they knew that, if they got relegated, they would lose all that money and face almost financial ruin in the Championship without it? I do not think so. I think a regulator would have said, “Oh, Palace, it’s not very sustainable having all that money when you could go down”. That would fundamentally alter the competitiveness of those games. That is the value of the Premier League. People will tune in, because they know that it will not be a walkover between Palace and City in this example; they know that it will be a competitive game. Countries all over the world are prepared to pay more money than anyone else to see these games because they are competitive. Take the Bundesliga or the Italian or Spanish leagues: there are two or three top clubs and then a lot of also-rans, so it is not competitive in the same way. That is the danger we face here. By allowing regulators to redistribute income, on the basis that it is not fair that the top clubs are getting more, you will alter the whole competitiveness of the structure. Again, we say that it is not fair, but is it fair that the Championship is the sixth wealthiest in the world, while the Premier League is the wealthiest? Why is that? First, it gets a lot of payments down from the Premier League as part of voluntary arrangements. Secondly, it is because of how the whole of football has been set up for clubs to be promoted: money is being invested to give them a chance. We have all said many times that this is our number one industry worldwide—there is no doubt whatever about that. We then have the second tier, which is number six worldwide. There is nothing else like that, and I believe we are at risk of putting that whole system under threat if we meddle in these ways.