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In English football, a gulf has arisen between the finances of clubs from the Premier League and the Football League since the First Division clubs broke away to form the Premier League in 1992. Some have argued that this disparity is wider than in other European leagues where the top flight is combined with at least one division below in a league, such as Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga. However, England has five tiers of single national divisions, compared to only two in Spain and Italy and three in Germany. ==Finance== Since the Premier League began at the start of the 1992–93 season, its member teams have received larger amounts of money in TV rights than their Football League colleagues. Prior to the formation of the Premier League, television revenues from top flight matches were shared between the 92 Football League clubs across four unified national professional divisions. The breakaway of 22 clubs to form the Premier League resulted in top flight revenues being shared exclusively between Premier League clubs.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Football goes to market )〕 The Premier League agreed to maintain the promotion and relegation of three clubs with the Football League, but the Football League was now in a far weaker position – without its best clubs and without the clout to negotiate high revenue TV deals. This problem was exacerbated in 2002 when ITV Digital, the holder of the TV rights for the Football League, went into administration. Many League clubs had invested in ground improvements and the player transfer market with anticipated television funds that never materialized, causing several clubs to enter receivership – most notably Bradford City, who were faced with debts of £36 million and almost lost their Football League status as a result. As a result, financial disparity has been cited as a reason for newly-promoted teams finding it increasingly harder to establish themselves in the Premier League, thus worrying more about avoiding relegation than winning the title. The three Premier League relegation places have been filled by at least one newly promoted club in all but two of the 21 seasons since its introduction, and in the 1997–98 season all three clubs (Bolton Wanderers, Barnsley and Crystal Palace) were relegated. The only exceptions, in which all three teams survived, were the 2001–02 and 2011–12 seasons. In the former season, the teams were Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers; Blackburn and Bolton were eventually relegated in 2011–12, and Fulham in 2013–14. The teams in the latter season were Queens Park Rangers, Norwich City and Swansea City; QPR was relegated the following season and Norwich in 2013–14, while Swansea is still competing in the Premier League. The Premier League distributes a small portion of its television revenue to clubs that are relegated from the league in the form of "parachute payments". Starting with the 2013–14 season, these payments are in excess of £60 million over four seasons. Though designed to help teams adjust to the loss of television revenues (the average Premier League team receives £55 million while the average Football League Championship club receives £2 million), critics maintain that the payments actually widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premier League and those that have not, leading to the common occurrence of teams returning soon after their relegation. This, however, does not take into account former Premier League mainstays which currently are in the Football League, such as the former Wimbledon (who were replaced by Milton Keynes Dons in 2004 following their relocation from South London to Milton Keynes), Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry City and Leeds United, who were founding members of the Premier League and stayed there for between nine and 12 years before going down, and have yet to return. Queens Park Rangers (also a founding Premier League club) saw a 15-year absence from the Premier League, before finally returning for the 2011–2012 season. The payments have been also criticised as causing Premier League teams to play more cautiously — playing not to lose instead of playing to win — because the threat of relegation means the loss of payments from the television rights. In fact, as of December 2006, the goals-per-game average is only 2.14, the lowest it has ever been in Premier League history and lower than any other professional league in Europe. Steve Bruce, at the time manager of Birmingham City, stated that, 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Premier League–Football League gulf」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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