Palace chief attacks TV deal

Jordan's Palace face an income cut of around £1m

Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan has demanded the sacking of Football League bosses over their negotiation of the new TV deal with Sky.

The £95m, four-year agreement will see Second and Third Division clubs receive annual sums similar to those they were promised under the collapsed ITV Digital contract.

League agrees £95m deal

But First Division clubs like Palace will see their TV income slashed.

Under the ITV Digital deal, they were guaranteed £1.6m each season.

This is just typical of the incompetents who run the Football League

Simon Jordan
Crystal Palace chairman

Now the league's top clubs will get just a basic £364,000 a year, with a further £60,000 for each live game they feature in.

That revenue cut prompted Jordan to launch a fierce attack on League chief executive David Burns, who led the committee that agreed the deal.

The Palace chairman said: "I am totally stunned and disgusted at the way this has been handled by the League.

"I am shocked by the small amount of money we have got and staggered that the news was put in the public domain before the clubs were told.

"I only found out about it when I turned on the television and immediately had another First Division chairman ringing me up in disbelief as well.

"This is just typical of the incompetents who run the Football League and I hold David Burns and the whole executive responsible."

Sky will screen 60 league games a season

And he added: "I can only assume that the morons who run the League think they can use this as proof of losses incurred when they take ITV Digital to court.

"The sooner Burns and the rest of them are removed from office, the better.

"They should simply be sacked."

Jordan's attack came as Norwich City chief executive Neil Doncaster warned the new deal did not mean that cash-strapped clubs were out of the woods yet.

He told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "Clubs will be getting a quarter or even just a fifth of the television revenue they received last year.

"That is going to hurt a lot of clubs and a lot of communities nationwide."

However, the League insist they are quite happy with the deal.

Burns said: "It strengthens football and puts financial stability back into clubs."

League hails TV deal

On an annual basis, the new £95m deal is broadly in line with the previous Sky agreement, which ended in May 2001 and was worth £125m over five years.

But is nowhere near as lucrative as the £315m, three-year contract ITV Digital signed, the cost of which ultimately became one of the main reasons for the collapse of the channel.