Football League told £400m parachute-payment deal is a final offer

• Relegated clubs would get £48m spread over four years
• Leagues One and Two worried chasm would drop a division
Jimmy Bullard
Hull City would be one of the first beneficiaries of any new parachute payment deal. Photograph: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

The Premier League will warn Football League clubs, who today asked for more time to consider a new £400m package of parachute and solidarity payments, that it is a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

Following a meeting of all 72 Football League clubs in Leicester, at which the new chairman, Greg Clarke, spent four hours answering questions on a package of proposals that includes plans to give relegated Premier League clubs £48m over four seasons instead of £23.4m over two, they asked him to go back for more detail and clarification.

"Our clubs have had a full and frank discussion of the Premier League's parachute payment and solidarity proposals," a Football League spokesman said. "Football League clubs did not approve the proposals as they stand and have mandated the board and executive to seek clarification of a number of issues."

To provide a softer landing for relegated Premier League clubs, it has been proposed that the payments be structured as £16m for each of the first two years following relegation and £8m in each of years three and four. But with time running out to get a deal in place, the Premier League will not allow Football League clubs to pick and choose which elements of the package they wish to accept and will demand a yes or no answer by the end of next month. However, both sides remain confident an agreement can be reached.

The proposals to increase significantly the so-called solidarity payments were welcomed by the overwhelming majority of Championship clubs, who would be the main beneficiaries, but they met with reservations from League One and League Two clubs. Some feared the move might help to bridge the gap between the Premier League and Championship but would cause a similar chasm to open up lower down the league.

"I wouldn't say there was a split, I would say there was a difference of opinion," Clarke told BBC Five Live. "It may distort competition and we need to understand that more. Some of the regulation changes may have an economic impact and the clubs want clarity on that and we have got to engineer a consensus and try and move ahead."

There were concerns raised by some clubs that the Football League might be ceding control of its rulebook to the Premier League by agreeing to unify rules on ownership, financial transparency and facilities for Championship clubs. However, both leagues will stress to clubs that they will continue to administer their own rules.

Championship clubs that do not receive parachute payments will get an average of £2.2m per season, almost three times the current average of £830,000. The payments are phased according to where finish. In League One each would get £325,000 per season and those in League Two £250,000. One potential compromise would be to allow clubs in Leagues One and Two to spend that money however they wished, rather than requiring them to invest amounts in community and youth-development projects.

Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, has been able to propose the increased payments, which have yet to be voted on by his 20 member clubs but are expected to be approved, due to the huge boost to overseas TV income for the forthcoming deal. The Premier League has raised more than £1.2bn from its overseas deals for the period 2010 to 2013, taking the overall total from its rights deals to more than £3.3bn over the period.

The carefully calibrated offer has the dual effect of satisfying clubs such as Bolton Wanderers, who have long wanted added insurance against going down, and the Championship clubs struggling with the investment required to reach the top flight. If accepted, it would apply to relegated clubs from this season and would also mean that payments to Middlesbrough – relegated in 2009 and not promoted this time – would be adjusted on a pro-rata basis. In addition any payments unclaimed because a club have been promoted back to the Premier League will be added to the solidarity pot.

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