Charlton co-owner wants Premier League clubs blocking new funding deal to front up

Charlton Athletic co-owner Charlie Methven has told the Premier League clubs blocking a new funding deal between the Premier League and EFL to go public to explain their behaviour.

Methven, a shareholder in the Addicks, told talkSPORT earlier this week that South London rivals Crystal Palace and West Ham United were both causing the proposed £900million package to not go through.

It is thought that League One clubs, the level that Charlton compete at, would receive around £1.75m as part of a new deal – with their existing solidarity payment at £780,000 a season.

Championship clubs currently receive £5.2m in solidarity money along with a share of the Premier League TV money of £3.2m, not including an average of a £700,000 facilities fee for televised matches.

“There is no real debate here of any serious kind by serious people about whether there is financial inequality and whether it needs to be addressed – with the exception of a very small amount of club owners,” Methven, who was part of a consortium which bought Charlton off Thomas Sandgaard in July, told the South London Press.

“The Government, the Premier League executives, the owners of the big Premier League clubs and, indeed, some of the smallest Premier League clubs, the entirety of the Football League and the FA agrees that there is too much inequality – that there needs to be a redistribution and it needs to be done more or less in this way.

“We are talking about 90 or 95 per cent of the industry agrees and a tiny number of clubs are holding the whole thing up through a blocking mechanism in the Premier League voting rights which says that any change of this kind is not about 11-9 in terms of a majority – that you need 13-7.

“You need 13 clubs to vote for something for it to happen. What that effectively means is eight Premier League clubs can hold up the entire industry – and the Government. That is what is happening right now.”

Crystal Palace have had 10 successive seasons in the top flight after winning the Championship play-offs in 2013.

Eagles chairman Steve Parish spearheaded a 2010 consortium which brought the club out of administration and also acquired their Selhurst Park stadium.

Palace have been asked for comment on Methven’s claims but did not respond at time of going to press.

“The crucial thing to understand here is that this is not the Premier League which is holding this thing up,” said Methven.

“The Premier League, as much as it exists, is defined by the chairman and chief executive. They, like the rest of us, are doing their nut that these small number of rebel clubs are holding up the rest of the industry.

“The Government, the Football League clubs and the FA can jump up and down all they like at Richard Masters, the chief executive of the Premier League, but he himself has done everything he can to get this deal to work.

“Really they are knocking on the door of the wrong people. The doors they need to knock on are the nine Premier League clubs who are currently preventing the whole of the rest of the industry reaching a deal and letting everybody move on.

“They are wasting the time of the Government, their fellow football clubs – who they are putting at risk – and their fellow Premier League clubs, who they are dragging their reputations through the mire.

“To my mind the whole thing is unconscionable, it really is.

“If you have got a really strong, logical argument why you feel, as a club, there shouldn’t be a deal then come out and make it publicly.

“Try and win the argument publicly and not smoke-filled rooms and grubby meetings. Come out and say: ‘We believe there is a better, different way to do this – we’re going to fight for that’. See if you can persuade other people in the industry that your way is the better way.

“At the moment there are joke statements being put out saying there is a willingness to do this, and all this kind of stuff, is just taking everyone for fools.”