Be Careful What You Wish For (16 page)

It’s worth mentioning at this point that the Football League was comprised of seventy-two clubs with very different backgrounds and outlooks, which made its structure antiquated and unwieldy, unlike the Premier League, which only had twenty members, and a common agenda: money. The Football League meetings were dull and listless and more about discussing small-minded business, and on the whole attended by each club’s CEO, unlike the Premier League meetings, where the owners tended to be in attendance. In my experience, a lot of the CEOs of Football League clubs were either ex-footballers or people who had somehow drifted into football but who would never occupy such positions of prominence in any other industry. So I had long since stopped attending these fruitless meetings. I had, however, found solidarity with a few of my fellow chairmen, notably Theo Paphitis of Millwall, Geoffrey Richmond of Bradford, and Charles Koppel of Wimbledon, with whom Palace shared a ground. These men were all to become my firm friends.

Back to the deal. In commercial terms, for the Football League clubs it meant there was £105 million of additional revenue per year. The bulk of the cash – some 80 per cent – went to Division One clubs, which would receive £3.5 million per season for three
years
, quadrupling what had been available previously. The money was paid out in various tranches and clubs obviously factored them into their cash flows and expenditure. The clubs in the lower divisions, unsurprisingly, although in my opinion unrealistically given the main interest from the broadcaster was Division One clubs, greatly resented the way the money was allocated.

Keith Harris and David Burns, the new Football League chairman and CEO respectively, picked up the deal from the likes of Sheepshanks with a view to completing it.

What had not been done was the long-form agreement, and it had not been signed off at Granada and Carlton’s end. More importantly for everyone concerned, ITV Digital was essentially a new business, which meant that there was no indication that they could pay the £315 million contract they were committed to.

There were no bank guarantees in place for this money.

What there was supposed to be were parent company guarantees from Carlton and Granada, who were very financially well established, but these guarantees didn’t exist. In layman terms, it was like selling a complete stranger your car and allowing them to drive off with it, leaving you with an IOU drawn up on the back of a fag packet. You wouldn’t do it. The only difference here was you had supposedly competent and credible representation – i.e. the Football League Board – assuring you your money was fine.

Between Harris and Burns, the deal descended into a farce, and to make matters worse on the few occasions they were asked if everything was in order, they assured everyone that it was.

Given the Football League hierarchy had lauded this deal and applauded themselves for doing it, and assured their clubs that the money was guaranteed, the clubs of course spent it accordingly, thus being exposed to the foibles of a start-up business that could fail, and fail it did.

Harris and Burns were guilty of shocking naivety in not understanding the importance of tying up the guarantees, but more pertinently were culpable in not volunteering critical information, as clubs simply assumed that if their paid and elected heads assured them that a deal was good, it was.

In the second year of this deal, late in 2001, all manner of rumours began to circulate about the health of ITV Digital, from a contract renegotiation to impending collapse. As a result, people like Theo Paphitis, Geoffrey Richmond, Charles Koppel and myself were asking some serious pointed questions. In a meeting, out of the blue and almost as an aside, David Burns announced that the parent company guarantees hadn’t been signed and very quickly the horrific potential of this information dawned on the clubs.

If ITV Digital failed and went into administration, the clubs wouldn’t receive the balance of their monies, which most had budgeted for and spent accordingly. As these ramifications were digested, the temperature amongst the chairmen of Football League clubs, especially those in Division One who stood to lose the most, became red-hot.

Outside the meeting room, it became a furious media circus, with me, Theo, and others such as Karren Brady, railing against ITV Digital quite publicly.

It was soon clear that Burns and Harris had allowed this mess to escalate and attempted to cover it up while – I assume – they tried to resolve it. They may have inherited it, but they allowed it to continue. Their decision now was to try and force ITV Digital by public pressure to honour their obligations and pay this money, which stood at £180 million. They also sought to get political intervention. But the government was never going to get involved, so this was an absurd tactic.

We had to negotiate a deal, we would have to deal down, but our ‘leaders’ did not do this and in any case ITV Digital didn’t have the money. Their business model was failing.

The Football League meetings were now definitely worth going to. Rather than mundane crap this was potential financial Armageddon and the bloodletting was starting.

Burns continued to ludicrously assure the clubs they would get this money. In one of the meetings I stood up and accused him in no uncertain terms of failing to do his job. But also, given that he was a lawyer, there was only one place this was going to end up, and that was in a courtroom, and the clubs would have to bear the cost of the action, with no certainty of any beneficial outcome.

At this time discussions began about the formation of a Phoenix League, a breakaway league similar to the Premiership, with some Division One clubs and a few outside resigning from the Football League and doing our own broadcasting deal.

It was discussed in a private meeting in London between certain clubs including Wolves, Wimbledon, Birmingham, Bradford, Palace, Portsmouth, Man City and Notts Forest, and plans were laid for a potential breakaway.

Unfortunately the media got wind of it, and again others and myself were caught up in the controversy. At the next Football League meeting all hell broke loose. We were roundly condemned for getting together and having such meetings. I felt not the slightest iota of remorse or regret. The clubs that moaned the loudest in Division One moaned because they hadn’t been included. I kept on having conversations with my colleagues, and eventually the media, about breakaway leagues.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise when ITV Digital eventually went into administration.

So much for taking on Murdoch.

The regulators had wanted to prevent the pay-TV market from being dominated by Murdoch but ironically made him even more powerful. He mounted a ruthless campaign to undermine the competition, which only ended when the ruined ITV Digital staggered, exhaling its last few dying breaths, up the steps of the High Court.

With ITV Digital teetering on the brink of disaster, what was there for the clubs to do? The Football League Board’s response to the crisis was to organise a humiliating march of the entire seventy-two Football League chairmen down Chelsea Bridge Road to the broadcaster’s head office, holding placards lambasting ITV Digital’s executives, camera crews in tow.

When I say ‘the entire Football League chairmen’, I mean all bar three: myself, Theo Paphitis of Millwall and Charles Koppel of Wimbledon. None of us went on this demeaning, ludicrous and pitiful march.

I was phoned by the media and asked if I was marching and I informed them I was. ‘I am marching into San Lorenzo’s for lunch with Charles and Theo.’

By now there was anarchy amongst the ranks of the football clubs and I was leading the charge.

The problem in football was that people agreed with you in private but didn’t stand up in public and be counted. When I was asked about the Phoenix League and who supported it, I named the clubs and the papers printed them. Then straight away Mark Arthur, chief executive from Forest, was on the phone whining to me about mentioning them.

In another instance, I believed we needed to change the personnel at the top of the Football League as clearly David Burns was not effective in negotiating with ITV Digital. In fact, I believe he
antagonised
them, and I put it to my fellow clubs in a private meeting that he should go. My proposal was roundly supported but when I stood up in the main meeting and called for David Burns to resign I was greeted with silence from behind me, except from people like Charles and Theo.

I pursued this theme and took it up with Keith Harris in a meeting held at Birmingham’s ground. I told him Burns had to go and he agreed. I also told Harris that he should go too, given he was supposed to control Burns; this sparked a furious response for him.

Finally, it ended up where I forecasted it would: in court.

The League board tried to negotiate a deal with ITV Digital, but could not get one. So they sued and got absolutely nothing.

Well, when I say nothing, that’s not strictly true: they got a massive legal bill.

But it does not end there. The next thing Heckle and Keckle – AKA Harris and Burns – did was to go and sign a four-year deal with BSkyB for £90 million, without the mandate from the clubs.

This meant a loss of millions for the clubs when they probably could have negotiated a deal with ITV Digital for some money, or got together with the Premier League, negotiated a bit more collectively and got proper money.

Not surprisingly, this new deal sparked a furious reaction. I labelled Burns and Harris morons, which was the headline on the back page of the
Sun
, and Theo said that he wouldn’t allow them to run a kebab shop. But the deal was done, and each Division One club was now £5 million worse off.

Eventually, both Harris and Burns had no choice but to step down. They had been on the receiving end of much vitriol from many sources, especially from Theo Paphitis, but on his departure from the industry Harris chose to single me out for criticism. I
was
not overly concerned. I am sure the fact that Seymour Pierce, the investment bank Harris was chairman of that had Theo as a client, had nothing to do with me being singled out by him.

Ironically, the chief executive of ITV Digital was Brian Barwick, who was later appointed CEO of the FA. Only in football would someone who had presided over the potential demise of so many clubs be appointed to head up the game’s governing body.

All Division One clubs now had a £5 million hole in their cash flows, and there were going to be casualties. Within months of the ITV Digital balloon bursting, five or six clubs went into administration and it was thought that there would be many more.

Palace could have been one of them, but they were fortunate enough to have a benefactor – me – who would pour money into their coffers.

I was now firmly entrenched in the football world and the media was plugged into me. I had been strident in my views, and I didn’t care how people took the things that I said. Football was a business and should be run like one.

Yes, of course it was a public business, and what you said and did was in the public domain. But so what? That was a good thing in my opinion because after the Harris and Burns debacle the Football League was dramatically restructured and the boys’ club mentality was changed. Commercial initiatives were introduced and people with sound business sense now headed up reform committees.

Football was all about money, and the second tier of English football, the Football League, had been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century.

8

TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS AND BLUEPRINTS

AFTER A LONG
, eventful and sometimes excruciating first season at Palace, I thought to myself it was time for a nice little break … not likely! 121, the buyer of The PocketPhone Shop, decided to launch a big fat claim against me for the princely sum of £6.5 million of the money they had paid for PPS. Outrageous! The new CEO had changed pivotal aspects of the way the company ran, creating a negative impact on the company’s financial position, which reverberated in one direction … Mine. Contemplating the end of my first year at Palace, reflecting on the nigh on £20 million I had spent, and now there was the added prospect of a bloody big court case, I decided that for the foreseeable future, the streets of London were not paved with gold. I upped sticks and moved to Spain, not with a spotted handkerchief and a cat, but with six supercars, a brand-new boat and one right-hand man to a rather nice eight-bedroomed house in Marbella.

Once safely ensconced in my ‘Marbella Palace’, I decided it needed doing up, hoping that at least one Palace I owned at this time would be fitting of my new status in life, whatever that was. Funnily enough, I scrutinised every peseta (pre-euro days, accuracy
an
’ all that), unlike the millions I spent on footballers without batting an eyelid. So home was now España, which became the base for many a decision.

No sooner had I applied my suntan lotion, put my black socks and sandals on – not! – and nearly sunk my boat, than football was back on top of my to-do list, the small matter of having no manager, no captain of the good ship Cash Drain Crystal Palace FC.

Managerial vacancies are well publicised and when one is up for grabs it’s a bit like a line-up from the film
The Usual Suspects
. ‘So come on down, Joe Kinnear, Mark McGhee, Peter Taylor, George Graham and Dave Bassett.’

Me being me, I immediately passed comment about the merits of Graham and Bassett. In my vast experience of just one year, I labelled them dinosaurs.

It prompted a call from Bassett. I had history with him, after parting company with Steve Coppell, and Bassett had gone into the press calling me some ‘Billy Whizz’ – whatever that meant! – for coming into football and sacking Coppell.

I wrote to Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett (perhaps Mike Bassett could have been better … ) at the dizzy heights of Barnsley, where he was plying his trade as manager, saying I thought he would be better served minding his own business, and wished him ‘success in his pursuit of accurate information’. I got my own letter sent back with ‘Bollocks – H’ written on the back.