Government fears Premier League’s ‘Project Big Picture’ is a ‘power grab’ and stresses ‘now is not the time’ for fans to return to sport

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden fears ‘Project Big Picture’ is nothing more than a “power grab” by the Premier League’s elite clubs after expressing his scepticism that the proposed revamp of the English football pyramid is not for the good of the game.

A plan being driven by Liverpool and Manchester United, which has the support of English Football League chairman Rick Parry and a significant number of EFL clubs, was revealed on Sunday that could revolutionise the English league pyramid at professional level.

The proposals, which have been labelled ‘Project Big Picture’ and have been under discussion for a number of years that precedes the coronavirus pandemic, would see 25 per cent of the Premier League’s revenue distributed to the EFL along with an advance of £250m in a rescue package to ease the current financial crisis. A pledge has already been made that the sum would be paid as soon as the proposals are agreed.

They would also see the Premier League reduced from 20 to 18 clubs, with the top two from the Championship replacing the bottom two in the top flight and the 16th-placed side joining the Championship teams in third, fourth and fifth in a new play-off format. The Championship, League One and League two would all remain at their current sizes, but the reduction of two top-flight clubs would see the current format of 92 clubs across the Premier League and EFL reduced to 90.

However, the biggest concerns have been targeted at the plans to give a significant level of power to the Premier League’s elite, namely Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, who would assume capability to vote in new regulations or veto certain club takeovers. Special privileges would also be afforded to Everton, who have been an ever-present in the Premier League,, as well as West Ham United and Southampton.

The Carabao Cup and Community Shield would also be scrapped along with relegation parachute payments, but the ability for the six biggest Premier League clubs to assume so much control over the rest of the football pyramid has triggered alarm bells for Dowden, the minister for culture, media and sport.

Asked on Sky News if the move was to protect smaller clubs or trigger a major power grab, Dowden said: "I fear it's the latter and I'm quite sceptical about this."

He added: "If we keep having these backroom deals going on, we'll have to look at the underlying governance of football. We promised in the manifesto a fan-led review, and I must say the events that I've seen in the last few weeks have made this seem more urgent again.

"Unless the clubs and the Premier League and the EFL can get together urgently in order to support the game through this difficult period of time it does raise genuine questions about the governance of the sport.

"I'm sure many fans ... will be thinking to themselves why can't this sport get its act together at the Premier League and the EFL level in order to help."

The Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) has also voiced its opposition to the plans, while the Premier League issued a statement on Sunday condemning the proposals and Parry’s on-the-record support for the revolution.

Dowden was also asked about the return of supporters to live sporting events, with a petition for the return of football fans last week clearing the 100,000 signature threshold required for Parliament to consider it for debate. Plans were in place for supporters to return to sporting events from 1 October following a number of successful pilot events, but they were scrapped when the number of coronavirus cases and deaths started to rise again.

“That was the plan and that’s something we ideally wanted to happen and had been working towards,” Dowden added. “We’d gone through this phased reopening of football.

“For example, very early on, football was one of the first sports to return behind closed doors, we facilitated that with games free-to-view on the BBC and others.

“The next stage was due to be on 1 October to enjoy fans back in socially-distanced circumstances.

“We worked very closely with the clubs to mitigate the risks surrounding that.

“Ultimately, though, against this backdrop of rapidly rising infections, I think people will appreciate now is not the time to do that, to add to the risk of infection spreading by making further easements.”

Football, rugby union and Formula One all took place in other countries at the weekend with fans in attendance in a limited capacity, but Dowden stressed that “now is not the time” for the UK to follow suit as it struggles to get a handle on a second wave of Covid-19 cases.

“There are risks associated with that and, at the time, we were making no easements at all from 1 October,” he added. “Indeed, we were looking to impose further restrictions.

“Now is not the time to do it. I can assure you that I’m working intensively to see when we can do this as soon as it’s safe to do so, once we get the disease under control.”