Graham Kelly: Salary caps are the price to pay for clubs' irresponsibility

Peter Kenyon received little thanks for saying he could see only a part-time future for many clubs. The Manchester United chief executive can plead he was espousing only common-sense economic principles, but his words betrayed a lack of feeling for the game's soul and offended those who are fighting to make a go of full-time professional football against the odds.

Despite rising attendances, the Football League have been debating the thorny subject of restructuring ever since Bradford City and Coventry City initiated discussions about a proposed Phoenix League involving Rangers and Celtic over a year ago. The reorganisation talks were sidelined by the ITV Digital collapse, which exacerbated the financial crisis in the game, particularly at Division One level where the television losses have hit hardest.

Keith Harris, the chairman of the League, lost his job in the wake of the ITV Digital affair. He remarked bitterly that he was leaving the asylum in the hands of the lunatics.

The First Division chairmen have been agitating for more autonomy over their own affairs (whatever that means) after commissioning an independent report from consultants KPMG.

If most of English professional football is in financial crisis, the clubs can blame only themselves (and to a limited degree the executives at Granada and Carlton, who allowed ITV Digital to go to the wall). Directors have spectacularly overpaid players, agents and themselves since the television boom of the 1990s. Arrogance and irresponsibility abounded.

When major crisis struck 20 years ago there was more than one cause. Attendances were in long-term decline, crowd violence held the game in a vice-like grip and many clubs could not have come closer to folding.

The Football League elected a new leader. The clubs chose a proper politician, Notts County chairman Jack Dunnett, a Labour MP, over the Liverpool chairman, John Smith, a football politician.

Spin hadn't been invented, or, if it had, it was alien to the backbenches Dunnett frequented. This was his acceptance speech to the media: "The management committee is a beleaguered garrison. We all know something is wrong. We are not idiots. Don't ask me the answer."

Bristol City, Charlton and Wolves were among the clubs brought to their knees. The players changed in Portakabins at The Valley. The year 1982 attached to a club's company name as they came through receivership in the 59th minute of the 11th hour became a proud suffix of survival.

Sir Norman Chester, the former warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, had been instrumental in drafting the Beveridge Report which led to the establishment of the National Health Service. He chaired a wide-ranging government inquiry into football in 1968, then became the first chairman of the Football Trust.

In 1983 the Football League invited Chester to bring his formidable intellect to bear on the problems facing the game again. To help him they gave him a committee comprising a couple of chairmen, some administrators and a leading banker. He listened to the banker, but blithely disregarded pretty much everyone else in producing the Chester Report Mark Two.

Dunnett's League management committee said, "Thank you very much. Would you like a lunch?" "I'd really prefer to have a meaningful discussion about my recommendations," replied Chester.

The League chiefs quietly stood by while the clubs savaged Chester's main conclusions, as they knew they would. For what the distinguished academic proposed was major surgery: a professional league of no more than 64 clubs with the rest being consigned to an "intermediate", semi-professional league.

This season of goodwill heralds precious little joy. The Football League board have negotiated a £30-35m relief package with the Football Association and the Premier League designed to ease the pain of the ITV Digital demise over the next two years.

However, it is already apparent that the stringent conditions attached to the grant element of the assistance are causing major headaches and probably mean the board will receive little thanks for their efforts.

Any club which exceeds its salary cap next season will be required to repay its grant. Clubs receiving assistance will also have to undertake to remain members of the League until May 2006, that is throughout the duration of the current deal with Sky. Moreover, clubs are being asked to provide auditors' confirmation that they will remain in business for the foreseeable future.

The proposed salary-capping system has polarised club opinion. The Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan, who is hosting the next meeting of clubs on 23 January, is a firm believer in the concept of divisional limits, based on his experience of rugby. Others feel it is a minefield, which the Premier League have not yet tiptoed into.

One thing is for sure: the accountants and lawyers will be working full-time on the small print of the deal in the coming months.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com