Revealed: Leeds stand to lose £76m in devastating potential blow
Leeds United stand to lose £76million in a potentially devastating blow if Rick Parry gets his way and parachute payments are abolished, Football Insider can reveal.
EFL chairman Parry told MPs on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee today that the system is "an evil which needs to eradicated".
The knock-on effect for Championship leaders Leeds, who are hot favourites for automatic promoted, would be potentially huge given that the current system provides a vast safety net for clubs who go up to the Premier League.
Figures from the Premier League show promoted clubs are guaranteed around £100m from TV money next season even if they finish bottom of the 2020-21 league.
This is supplemented by a first-year parachute payment of £41.8m and and a second-year top-up £34.2m in the event of instant relegation.
Clubs who stay in the Premier League for at least one season before relegation receive a third-year payment of £15.2m.
The sums cover the period between 2019 to 2022 and are linked to the Premier League's domestic TV rights deal that came into effect at the start of the current campaign.
Leeds and their fellow Championship high flyers West Brom will be alarmed by Parry's seismic comments to MPS.
“Parachute payments are an evil that needs to be eradicated," he said, as quoted by the Times. "We have six clubs in the Championship receiving parachute payments giving them an average of £40 million per club, the other 18 clubs get £4.5 million each so they are then struggling to try to keep up.
“There is strong opposition to them in the EFL, that’s almost a given, apart from the clubs receiving them,” he said.
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