Will shortened Premier League parachute payments hit hard?

No club wants to be relegated from the Premier League and this week we heard news that there is an even bigger reason for teams to keep away from the dreaded bottom three, as the Guardian revealed that the period for payments being made for relegated clubs will be shortened from next season. While it is always a source of annoyance for Championship clubs to have to compete against fallen Premier League clubs with their extra cash to help them restructure in the lower league, it has now been decided that from the 2016-17 season, when the new TV deal comes in, relegated Premier sides who have just come up in 2014-15 will will miss out on a year of payments if they go straight back down.

It will be a steep fall for the clubs that slip out of the
Premier League in 2015-16. Fingers crossed it won't be AFCB among them.

This could have big implications for how money is spent on transfers this season for AFCB, Norwich and Watford. We have not seen any big transfer fees paid out from the Cherries yet and while the wages are hopefully also being kept a close eye on we might not see the new Premier League clubs splashing the cash in a big way to compete with the existing Premier League teams. Hull, QPR and Burnley will still receive £64 million each split over the next four years - £24m, £19.3, £9.6m and £9.6m.

In the 2016-17 season those parachute payments are expected to rise though from what is currently being offered so will teams that get relegated be worse off? I think it will just encourage them to be more careful with what they payout in terms of wages and transfer fees and with what they pay in the Championship. Shorter contracts might also be signed to allow restructuring of wages when clubs are relegated. I wonder though should some funds also come off the top clubs as well? I can understand the need to reward successful teams but is it also another way of stopping smaller sides from climbing the ladder and upsetting the status quo of the top clubs that continue to get richer? I'm all for distributing more of the Premier League revenue but this should this not be evenly spread across all 20 clubs?

It does make me think that perhaps the leading clubs have more reason to be happy with this agreement than those that have recently joined the Premier League. There is already more than one tier within the top league and this may just make it even harder for yo-yo clubs to try and make the transition to a club that manages to stay year after year in the Premier League.

Finally, Crystal Palace have announced that their U21 side will play AFCB's Development Squad on Tuesday 4 August - time and venue to be confirmed.

Things are looking better for AFCB

Eddie Howe has got the formula right away from home against one of the top teams now and he can build from here. Up until Saturday, Wigan were the only team in the Championship that the Cherries had beaten who were higher than them in the table. With Reading's defeat the belief among the AFCB players should now be boosted. They have done it against a team who were undefeated at home and who were a Premiership club like Wigan only a season ago.

Spirits should be high at the Goldsands stadium after the latest win.

When you think about it, AFCB have beaten two of the teams who had a split of the parachute payments from the Premiership last year. I might be wrong, but I think it was something like £80m between Reading, Wigan and QPR. Meanwhile, AFCB has a top spending record of about £2.5m on one player. AFCB should not be able to do as well as they have on paper, but the game is played on the pitch and when the Cherries get their tactics right they now know they can beat the best teams in the Championship.

There is a good mood in the camp. You can see it when players score, when they huddle before and even after the match at Reading game. I am very excited about this squad because they want to achieve. Eddie Howe knows they want to be successful and he is adding more to their game all the time. The learning curve though is steep and there will be more lows along the way, but the togetherness is something that I don't see in many other teams in the Championship.

AFCB in the group huddle after the Reading win.

What's more AFCB have some good players who still have not had a taste of the Championship yet and who will be really excited to get their chance. I am taking here of players like Mohamed Coulibaly, Wes Fogden and Joe Partington. Josh McQuiod is likely to be a great addition if he has fully recovered and is able to perform like he was when he very first broke on to the scene a couple of years ago. It was good to hear that Partington and McQuoid played against a QPR eleven yesterday as they near a return.

Far from looking gloomy and at the bottom places in the league, AFCB fans are now looking upwards again and looking to see who they can catch. That change in attitude has all come about from the Reading game and the huge following AFCB brought to the match. The slogan of 'Anything is possible' was so well chosen, because AFCB fans can see that this could turn into a dream season in the Championship that will hopefully be followed by another one. 

Parachute payments - scrap them!

I was reading an article in the new Football TwentyFour7 magazine the other day about the Premier League and how it's clubs in the bottom three in the 2014/15 season would receive £60 million among themselves for failing to stay up.

While I understand that the Premier League is its own entity and can do what it sees fit with its revenue it does seem totally unfair that these clubs should get a big advantage when falling back into the Championship. It does make you wonder how Southampton, Norwich, Swansea and Reading etc ever managed to get promoted.

In comparison AFCB are unlikely to have a war chest approaching much more than £1 million or it could be nothing at all. After all, we still owe Mr Demin £5 million as a loan when we see fit to pay him back and we aim to build a new South Stand which will be a few million. I'm not even contemplating buying back the ground, as that would be at least another £5 million.

So if the Cherries do go up, remember that we will be playing with one hand tied behind our backs compared to the Premiership drop outs. In such a system you would expect a series of yo-yo clubs to have been formed.

However, while Hull City and Bolton could return to the Premiership fairly quickly, it doesn't seemed to have worked out for the likes of Blackburn Rovers, Blackpool and Birmingham. So does that mean it is fair that these teams should receive these huge payouts? I don't think so.

At AFCB we will have a difficult enough task with a fan base of 10 million against these larger supported teams. How much will we get if we do go up? A couple of hundred thousand. Compared to the Premiership we are already non-league in terms of finances.

While I want AFCB to win promotion, if we achieve our own ambitions of getting to the Championship it is fair to say that our financial clout in League One has helped us to achieve this. I feel it is a shame that football has become like this.

It seems that the size of your wallet is just as important as your endeavour and skill on the pitch that earns you promotion.