Graham Kelly: Digital debacle puts League's unity under strain

The surfeit of televised football was really brought home to me last Sunday when, as a staunch Lancastrian, I was forced to make the choice between Gérard Houllier's continued return to the Anfield dug-out for Liverpool's title challenge against Chelsea and Blackpool's second visit to the Millennium Stadium for the LDV Trophy final against Cambridge United. Both matches kicked off at 2.0pm and were transmitted by ITV.

The LDV game was shown on ITV Sport, the "flagship" of the Digital organisation, which was attempting to restructure and renegotiate its payments to the Football League prior to going into administration last Wednesday, whereas the Premiership match came courtesy of the per-per-view option which I took as part of my £35.98 monthly subscription back in August, thus ensuring I was able to continue watching Nationwide League matches after they moved from Sky.

Does the collapse of ITV Digital mean that televised football is a busted flush? Not necessarily. Obviously, not enough people shared my enthusiasm for live Nationwide First Division matches and Second and Third Division recorded highlights plus the occasional live European Champions' League match that was not on terrestrial ITV.

ITV paid at the top of the market in 2000 when they did not have a realistic business plan for competing with Sky and this is mainly what has led to their crisis. Their network head of sport, Brian Barwick, enthused the 2001 Football League AGM with his customary zeal, but when delegates went back to their clubs and found they could not receive a proper signal, this should surely have sounded the loudest of warning bells.

The devoted viewer hardly has enough hours to plan his football on television, let alone watch it all, so it's little surprise that the Nationwide League clubs can boast better attendances at the gate than television audiences. Football League officials talked about setting up their own channel in the event of ITV Digital closing, but they must now be too busy fire-fighting the biggest crisis in the League's history to attempt such an ambitious move.

The Football League chairman, Keith Harris, legitimately complained that ITV Digital were guilty of "corporate thuggery" before their move into administration resulted in rises in share prices for Carlton and Granada, but his position is less credible if he really expects football watchers to desert their soap programmes in solidarity with football. Has he forgotten that not even The Premiership could dislodge the nation's Saturday night peak-time favourites? Will Liverpool fans be asked to join the boycott over Granada's nine per cent stake in the club?

Plaintive demands from club chairmen for government intervention were always going to fall on deaf ears. Rightly so, when Consignia was shedding jobs and Vauxhall had just closed a plant that was never more economically viable.

Both sides, as is so often the case in such matters, claim to have strong legal arguments. The League maintains that the contract was awarded to ITV Digital on the strength of backing guarantees from Carlton and Granada, but the two media giants seem to be saying there are "contractual technicalities", which reminds me of the time I had problems with my double glazing.

The clubs cannot afford to wait for the outcome of a protracted court battle, while the League leadership are worried whether the always fragile unity of their membership, already under challenge from the fall-out of the mooted "Phoenix League" breakaway earlier this season, will withstand the strain, as they try to salvage something from the débâcle.

Anyone can state the obvious, that football should stop overpaying its players and the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive, Gordon Taylor, could then give up his flying doctor impersonation, rushing from one ailing club to another. One writer, whom I respect, suggested that it was time for the little clubs to go the way of ration books and the threepenny bit. Exeter City could merge with Plymouth Argyle to form the Devon Devils and, in no time at all, the newly merged club would be zooming up the Premiership.

Now, I've been to both those clubs this season and I've also come across the upwardly mobile Tiverton fans at Corley Services on their Doc Martens travels. Even if Argyle have had to put their stadium redevelopment plans on hold because the media moguls are panicking and the Grecians remain on the PFA visiting list, I happen to believe my respected colleague is wrong and we should keep fighting for local identities and communities.

Anyway, the First Division clubs, whose budgets account for 80 per cent of the possible ITV loss, meet tomorrow in emergency session. Who will bet me that an offer from Sky won't be on the table before the crocodile tears for the little clubs have stopped falling?

grahamkelly@btinternet.com