Whelan slams Liverpool TV shake-up

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has slammed Liverpool’s proposed changes to the current Premier League television deal as ‘diabolical’.

The Latics owner poured scorn on the American-owned Anfield club’s top brass after it emerged Liverpool are prepared to lead a challenge for Premier League clubs to sell overseas television rights individually.

Managing director Ian Ayre has sparked widespread criticism by raising the issue a year after Fenway Sports Group saved Liverpool from near administration with their buyout of previous owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Ayre pointed to Barcelona and Real Madrid as examples of clubs who can negotiate their personal TV deals outside their own country, something which Premier League outfits are prevented from doing by league rules, which determine that all teams should receive an equal share of the money raised by overseas rights.

Whelan’s club Wigan would be one of those most disadvantaged by a move away from the current rules.

“I have just read his (Ayre’s) comments and I find them diabolical – I just can’t believe what he has been saying,” Whelan told Goal.com.

“They are thinking ‘how can we get more money?’ You won’t get more money by killing the heart and soul of the Premier League and killing the heart and soul of football in England.”

“We invented the game and we have still got the finest league in the whole world and some of the finest supporters in the whole world and they want to rip the whole thing up.”

Premier League clubs currently receive an equal portion of the current 3.2-billion-pound contract, which expires in 2013, but Ayre believes the time has come to replicate the Spanish structure, which allows Barcelona and Real Madrid to arrange their own deals for higher income.

Whelan added: “The worst thing for English football is for teams like Liverpool – the top four let’s say – who want to get rid of virtually half the Premier League. We will finish up like the Spanish league with just two teams in it, no competition, no anything, no heart and soul in the league.”

“What we have is the finest league in the whole world and what Liverpool are calling for would absolutely wreck it. The likes of Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Wolves, Sunderland and Newcastle couldn’t compete.”

“If they ever take away the fairness of the Premier League it will ruin the Premier League as a competition. Would Liverpool play Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal every week? It can’t be so. It is absolutely scandalous.”

“Luckily the thoughts of the American owners don’t go across the Premier League. They still have to go through the Premier League and hopefully common sense will prevail here. We need to keep what we have got here and that is the finest league in the world.”