The case
What we're asking for
Four asks. They are meant to be read together: the first sets the size and the mechanism, the second removes the distortion inside the current settlement, the third extends it below the trapdoor, and the fourth makes all of it checkable.
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Ask two
Reform parachute payments
Phase them down, redistribute the difference, and bring them inside whatever settlement the Independent Football Regulator arrives at.
Taper further and faster, redistribute what is released across the divisions that do not receive them, and keep them inside the regulator's scope.
Why. A club receiving 55% of a Premier League equal share is competing in the Championship against clubs receiving a fraction of that. The gap distorts the division parachutes are supposed to protect. The full argument, with the numbers, is here.
What the Premier League says
That without parachute payments, promoted clubs could not invest to compete, and relegation would be financially catastrophic in a way that makes the whole system more fragile.
Our answer. The cliff edge is real and we do not dismiss it. But the answer to a cliff edge is a gentler slope for everyone, not a rope for three clubs. Parachute payments are now within the backstop's scope if it is triggered; the question is what replaces them.
Source: SportsPro
Football regulator to review parachute payments; State of the Game report timing. SportsPro, 2026-01-20.
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Ask three
Money that reaches below Step 1
Bring the National League System, Steps 1 to 6, into the distribution formula instead of leaving it dependent on grant applications, and extend the regulator's remit to cover them.
Write the 996 clubs of the National League System into the formula. A small, automatic, per-club payment, paid on the same day every year, that a treasurer can budget around. And extend the Independent Football Regulator's remit to cover non-league football, so the clubs being paid are inside the system that decides what they are paid.
Why. The 2026 proposal means the money stops before it reaches the grassroots. Below it sit 996 clubs across 48 divisions, and three different things happen to them.
An EFL club receives a share. Solidarity payments are a percentage of a third-year parachute payment, so they move with the value of the broadcast deal and nobody has to agree them again. The 72 National League clubs at Steps 1 and 2 receive an amount: £23.6m, negotiated separately, fixed for four years, due to run out in 2028. It is not a percentage of anything, so it does not move when the deal moves, and somebody has to agree a new one. The 924 clubs at Steps 3 to 6 receive neither, only a fund they have to apply to, from which most receive nothing in a given year.
That is the ask in one line: a share rather than an amount. A grant you might win is not the same thing as income you can plan, and an amount that expires is not the same thing as a formula that does not.
Source: The Football Association
The FA releases National League System club allocations for Steps 1-6 in 2026-27 season. The Football Association, 2026-05-14.
Source: Football Foundation
Premier League announces increased funding for non-league and women's clubs. Football Foundation, 2022-03-28.
Source: Wikipedia
Premier League parachute and solidarity payments. Wikipedia.
Source: Premier League
Wider football support: the Premier League's investment package for the National League and its 72 clubs. Premier League.
And why the remit has to move with it. The regulator cannot close this gap as things stand. It has power over five competitions and no more: regulation 2 of the Football Governance Act 2025 (Specified Competitions) Regulations 2025 names the Premier League, the Championship, League One and League Two, and the Premier Division of the National League. That is 116 clubs. The remit reaches the top division of Step 1 and stops, so the backstop power over distributions cannot be exercised on behalf of the clubs below it. They are not arguing from a weak position inside the system; they are outside it. A distribution they are written into, and a regulator that can enforce it, are two halves of the same ask.
Source: legislation.gov.uk
The Football Governance Act 2025 (Specified Competitions) Regulations 2025. legislation.gov.uk, 2025-11-06.
What the Premier League says
That non-league clubs are supported through the Football Foundation and the Stadium Fund, that a capital grant for a stand is worth more than a few thousand pounds of revenue, and that spreading money thinly across a thousand clubs achieves little.
Our answer. Capital grants matter and we would keep every penny of them. But a club does not fold because it could not build a stand. It folds because it could not pay the electricity bill in February. Those are different problems needing different instruments. And a few thousand pounds is not nothing at Step 5: it is the insurance, or the referee fees, or the minibus.
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Ask four
Show us the money
Every club, at every level, able to see where the money came from and where it went, published annually in a machine-readable format.
One annual publication, machine-readable, showing every distribution from the top of the game to the bottom: what was paid, to whom, under which rule, in which season.
Why. We built this site's dataset by hand, strand by strand, from announcements published years apart. We could not draw a single consolidated picture of one season, because nobody publishes one. Our own flow diagram carries figures from five different periods and says so on its face. That is not a research failure. It is the problem.
What the Premier League says
That both leagues publish annual accounts and the information is already available to anyone who wants it.
Our answer. Accounts are not a distribution table. If the information really is available, publishing it in one file once a year costs nothing and settles the argument permanently.
What one percentage point would do
This is a model, not a figure anyone has published. We are showing it because "a fixed share" is meaningless until somebody puts a number on it, and because we would rather be argued with about arithmetic we have shown than be vague.
What the one per cent is taken from. Money football generates collectively and hands out — not money a club earns for itself. A club's own shirt sponsor, its gate and its UEFA prize money are all outside it. In 2025/26 the Premier League distributed £3,100,000,000 to its own twenty clubs, £226,000,000 in parachute payments, £141,000,000 in solidarity payments to EFL clubs and £5,000,000 to National League clubs. That is £3,472,000,000, and those are the Regulator's figures, not ours.
The working. One per cent of £3,472,000,000 is £34,720,000. Distribute it across the 996 clubs of Steps 1 to 6, weighted so that higher steps — which carry higher costs and stricter ground grading — receive more per club: Step 1 at eight units, Step 2 at four, Step 3 at two, Step 4 at one and a half, Steps 5 and 6 at one. That is 1,484 units in total, so a unit is worth about £23,396.
Our model The weightings are ours and are a starting point for argument, not a settled position. The base is the Regulator's published figure, read from its own report; the club counts are The FA's total split by our estimate. The 2025/26 distributions are the Regulator's forecasts as at March 2026, in a draft open to consultation until 8 December 2026.
| Step | Per club, per season |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | £187,200 |
| Step 2 | £93,600 |
| Step 3 | £46,800 |
| Step 4 | £35,100 |
| Step 5 | £23,400 |
| Step 6 | £23,400 |
For scale: one per cent is less than a sixth of what parachute payments cost in the same season — £34,720,000 against £226,000,000 — and a little over a quarter of one per cent of the value of the current cycle. A Step 4 club receiving £35,100 a year, guaranteed, is a club that can replace a roof without a crisis meeting.
State of the Game report (draft), section 4.2: financial cliff-edges and distributions. Independent Football Regulator, 2026-10-13. Premier League revenue: TV rights, sponsorship and IMG Productions. SportsPro, 2024-11-22. The FA releases National League System club allocations for Steps 1-6 in 2026-27 season. The Football Association, 2026-05-14. Premier League parachute and solidarity payments. Wikipedia.Source: Independent Football Regulator
Source: SportsPro
Source: The Football Association
Source: Wikipedia
Argue with us
If the weightings are wrong, tell us why and we will publish the correction. Every figure on this site names the source it came from.