Fair Game calls for fresh debate on transfer levy as Premier League shopping spree nears £500m
“Now is the time to resurrect the concept of the ‘solidarity levy’. It would transform the lower echelons of the football pyramid”
Niall Couper, CEO, Fair Game
FAIR GAME today called for the Government to put a potential 'transfer levy' back on the table. The levy is a stamp duty on transfers between Premier League clubs, and between Premier League clubs and overseas’ clubs. It would raise around £160m and, as part of a wider fairer financial flow in football, could help provide a vital life line to clubs below the top flight that continue to struggle with the fall out of the pandemic and the day-to-day challenges of the cost-of-living crisis.
The levy was also a key recommendation of the Fan-Led Review led by Conservative MP Tracey Crouch.
The long-awaited Government plans to reform football’s controls is expected to be published early next week. The introduction of an independent regulator is likely to be at the heart of the White Paper. But Fair Game fears the levy could be kicked permanently into the long grass.
As football’s transfer window closes, Premier League clubs look to have spent more than half a billion pounds on new players. And at the time of writing Chelsea are preparing a late world record bid of £105 million for Enzo Fernandez. This of course is in addition to the £2 billion the Premier League clubs spent last summer, which was more than twice Europe’s big five leagues put together.
Niall Couper, CEO of Fair Game, the campaign group pushing to create a fairer financial flow in English football, said: “Now is the time to resurrect the concept of the ‘solidarity levy’. The levy was put forward by Tracey Crouch as part of the Government’s fan-led review of football governance and sadly it seems to have slipped off the radar over the last 12 months.
“The levy is a kind of stamp duty on transfers,” added Couper. “Crucially it would only apply to transfers between Premier League clubs and Premier League clubs and overseas’ clubs.
“It would transform the lower echelons of the football pyramid, protecting the domestic transfer market for EFL clubs and lower, and giving a much needed cash injection into clubs that have been left on the brink by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.”
Couper explained: “Clubs currently pay four per cent of any deal but if the suggested 10 per cent is introduced that would redistribute around £160 million to the football league and grass roots game if we use the last five seasons as an example. That’s life changing for football in this country.”
In the 2020/21 season the Premier League gave £103m in solidarity payments to all the clubs in the Championship not in receipt of parachute payments, all the clubs in League One, League Two, the National League, the National League North, the National League South and the top two tiers of the women’s game put together – that’s 155 clubs.
