Fair Game proposes ‘Four Pot Solution’ to overhaul English football finances

Fair Game has published an 89-page proposal it says could end the stalemate over how money is shared across the English football pyramid, calling on the Independent Football Regulator to use its backstop powers if the Premier League and EFL cannot agree a settlement.The campaign group’s report, titled The Four Pot Solution: Redrawing Football’s Finances, argues the current model encourages excessive risk-taking, widens the gap between divisions and leaves clubs overly dependent on owner funding.Negotiations between the Premier League and the EFL have dragged on since 2021, with parachute payments and the size of any redistribution package among the biggest points of friction. The regulator has the ability to intervene as a last resort, although its leadership has repeatedly urged the leagues to reach agreement themselves.Fair Game chief executive Niall Couper said: “The Four-Pot Solution gives the game a financial system that rewards responsibility, protects communities, and stops clubs gambling with their own futures. This is the moment to fix the foundations of our national game and the Regulator now has both the power and the obligation to act.”At the centre of the plan is a reshaped distribution framework that splits central revenues into four separate “pots” with restrictions on how the money can be used. The ‘Lights-On Pot’ would cover essential operating costs. The ‘Don’t-Be-a-Numpty Pot’ would reward clubs meeting sustainability and governance benchmarks, including wage control, fan engagement and reduced reliance on owner cash.A ‘Future Pot’ would be ring-fenced for long-term investment and barred from being used on wages, targeting areas such as facilities and infrastructure. A ‘Safety-Net Pot’ would operate as an escrow-style mechanism intended to ensure clubs can cover liabilities and withstand shocks if funding is withdrawn.Fair Game’s proposals also call for rebalancing how broadcast revenue is shared across the top six levels of the men’s game, including the National League, which it says should be brought into the central distribution system.The report argues this would reduce the financial cliff-edge between the Premier League and Championship, and provide more predictable funding lower down the pyramid.On parachute payments, Fair Game proposes limiting support to two years and resetting the scale to a lower, flatter level, replacing the current three-year structure for some relegated clubs. The report leans on academic work that argues parachute payments have become excessive and have increasingly been used to strengthen promotion bids rather than provide temporary revenue protection.Beyond the headline reforms, the report recommends a levy on certain Premier League-to-Premier League and overseas transfer fees to support academy and development funding lower down, and calls for UEFA competition income to be brought more clearly into domestic financial oversight to reduce inequality.The plan is likely to face resistance from top-flight clubs if it implies a material reduction in Premier League distributions at a time when wages and operating costs continue to rise. Fair Game’s model instead tries to change behaviour by attaching conditions to money, rather than imposing hard salary caps that have often triggered legal and political pushback.The Independent Football Regulator is due to publish its first ‘State of the Game’ assessment later this year, which is expected to shape how quickly it might move from convening talks to using its enforcement powers.