Football faces a trial by TV rights

First a court case and then the lure of even bigger money will test the unity of clubs, says Dan Gledhill

English football's summer holiday is becoming more like a weekend break. The new season kicks off in less than six weeks' time with memories of Manchester United's triumphs and England's failures still vivid. But at least the players are able to spend July delighting the tabloids with lurid tales of Mediterranean excess. For the chairmen who pay their wages, carousing on the Costa del Sol is not an option.

In the next month, three judges will come to a verdict which could transform the finances of top English football clubs, enabling them to compete with the Continent's most financially muscular sides. It could also mark an end to the almost feudal practice which has allowed the less successful to survive on the scraps thrown from the tables of the richer clubs.

It has fallen to the little-known Restrictive Practices Court (RPC) to decide whether to uphold a complaint from the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's exclusive contract to show live Premier League games. Rupert Murdoch's Pay-TV group agreed the pounds 670m contract with the Premier League, negotiating on behalf of the clubs, to show about 60 live games a season. John Bridgeman, OFT's fearless director-general, has condemned a deal depriving viewers of the chance to watch 85 per cent of Premiership games live.

The Premier League, backed needless to say by BSkyB, is contesting the case. In public at least, England's 20 top clubs are united behind the party line, even those like Manchester United and Arsenal - which would generate far more revenue if they were able to negotiate television rights individually.

Bob Murray, chairman of newly promoted Sunderland, says: "Every club is united on the need to share. Even Manchester United, who have been very magnanimous about it."

Mr Murray runs a club whose average attendance last year was bettered only by Manchester United and Liverpool, making Sunderland just the sort of side who would benefit by negotiating a lucrative individual contract.

But the apparent altruism of the top clubs, this seeming willingness to sacrifice extra revenue for the sake of their poorer brethren, is being tested as never before. Manchester United, for example, receives about 7 per cent of the BSkyB pot, when its share of aggregate attendances would justify three times as much.

Only a fortnight ago came the revelation that Barcelona had negotiated a five-year deal granting Spanish cable company Via Digital the right to show its games for a staggering pounds 254m. The stock market values Manchester United at pounds 505m, a figure which would be reduced to chicken feed if the European Champions' League winners were permitted to follow Barcelona's example and negotiate its own television contract rather than having to share the Premier League pot. A carve-up of Italy's Serie A promises to release a similar avalanche of revenue for the likes of AC Milan and Juventus.

One media pundit says: "Other big European clubs are doing their own deals in order to generate more money, and top English clubs will have to do the same in order to compete."

A director of another quoted club says: "There is no doubt that the top six clubs could get more money if they negotiated on their own. The problem is that you still have to find someone to play against, and smaller sides would refuse to play if they did not get their share. We would be thrown out of the Premier League."

Mr Bridgeman does not seem to share this concern with the fate of the smaller clubs. Only last week an OFT spokesman remained confident that its view would prevail with the three judges who make up the RPC. Others predict a compromise.

One former director of a Premier League club says: "The evidence suggests that BSkyB's deal will be upheld until 2001. Then certain rights will be negotiated collectively and some exclusively."

He suggests that 60 or so Premier League games will be sold collectively, enabling the top clubs to top up their income by thrashing out pay-per- view agreements for other fixtures. That could mean live games every night of the week to avoid clashes, an overkill of football coverage maybe. But it will also provide English clubs with the ammunition to compete with the superpowers of Continental football.

These developments will not be lost on the media moguls desperate to increase their slice of the game's revenue. Mr Murdoch's aborted bid for Manchester United was motivated in part by the threat of Mr Bridgeman's investigation. If BSkyB lost control of its Premier League rights, Murdoch reasoned that the best alternative was to command the division's strongest club. That bid let loose a series of approaches by other media groups for clubs, with Carlton linked with Arsenal, and Granada with Leeds. Then, in April, the Monopolies & Mergers Commission stepped in - BSkyB was stopped in its tracks and so the rest of the media sector backed off.

Despite its great length, the 256-page report by the Competition Commission - the renamed MMC - into BSkyB's bid left the issue of football club ownership clouded, a problem which Trade Secretary Stephen Byers is expected to address in a statement next month - July's other seminal verdict. Early indications suggest that the DTI, fearful of the company's existing strength, will tell BSkyB to keep off the grass. Manchester United may be kept off limits to media groups, but other potential deals are expected to be given the green light.

"I am certain there will be another spate of takeover bids," says the former club director.

One group likely to be on the lookout is Enic, the leisure group started by billionaire Joe Lewis. Enic already owns controlling stakes in four European football clubs as well as a minority holding in Glasgow Rangers. There is also likely to be interest from European media giants like CanalPlus of France.

When Premier League footballers return tanned and out-of-shape from their Mediterranean jaunts, they may find their clubs' boardrooms similarly reconstituted.