Gate Receipts

This is going to tie together a couple of earlier themes: What Next? and Football On The Telly - A Rant.

Inspired by a piece in JBE's blog about greed and the so-called G14 I was reminded of a question that popped up on P@soti recently: When did the home team start keeping all the gate receipts?

He goes...

Mike Sainsbury (I'm sure he won't mind being quoted):

I see your point. Problem with this, of course, is that it doesn't help the club at all. I can't remember now when/why the rules were changed and the away side no longer took a share of the gate receipts. With our larger than average away support, this is yet another example of how we get stuffed. In this case its a double whammy, because our remoteness means we don't benefit from big away attendances at HP.

Me:

This was the first step, a toe in the water to feel the temperature if you like, taken by the big clubs but led by Mancester United (natch) to keep all of the cake for themselves. The move pre-dated the formation of the PL and so was sanctioned by the Football League (hence it applied across the board in all 4 top flight divisions). Manyoo just couldn't see why they should share their huge gate reciepts with the likes of little Swindon (or whoever was the smallest Div 1 club at the time) when they got naff all back in return when they went there. Once the gate money was stitched up and the big clubs had trampled all over the Football League they decided to go for the TV money. The FL wouldn't agree, the top clubs resigned, formed the PL and affiliated themselves to the FA. The rest I'm sure you know.

Well you'll know it if you read the Football On The Telly bit in this blog anyway or if you have half a brain yourself. If you've not seen either of the pieces referred to here now go and read them. JBE's blog can be found among the links on mine or under "The Rev" amongst the links on P@soti.