West Bromwich Albion campaigners have vowed to fight on to protect beleaguered EFL teams after their club was sold to American health technology entrepreneur Shilen Patel following months of protest against the previous owner Guochuan Lai.
Action For Albion founder Ali Jones, who thanked i for its “pivotal” role in bringing the club’s plight to national attention, has welcomed Patel buying Lai’s 87.8 per cent stake for around £60m.
i has covered the growing number of clubs, including Reading and Sheffield Wednesday, who fans fear could be driven out of business amid financial difficulty.
Action For Albion have been working with the EFL around various issues and intend to continue dialogue about the wider problems engulfing clubs.
“What we want to do is continue to fight for the sustainability of the pyramid,” Jones told i from outside the club’s Hawthorns stadium.
“You’re only as strong as your base. I think the Premier League has forgotten that it’s not just about the 20 clubs that are in the Premier League now.
“It’s about time the Premier League realises they need to rely on the EFL for their growth and profitability moving forward. Two teams last year made a profit in the Championship. That’s completely unsustainable. It’s the fifth biggest league in the world and it needs to be treated accordingly.
“The disparity between the parachute payments and the rest has to be addressed. You can’t have a situation where the top three are so much better than everybody else in the league like it is this season.”
Clubs relegated from the Premier League receive tens of millions of pounds in payments, handing them a huge advantage. Currently, the three teams relegated from the top flight last season – Leicester City, Leeds United and Southampton – lead the Championship.
“It makes it uncompetitive and then unwatchable, because you know the result before you start and that can’t be good for anybody, can it?” Jones added.
West Brom fans now plan to form an official elected supporters’ trust to ensure their views are shared with and considered by the new owners. Patel is set to become the club’s new chairman. Despite the ongoing turmoil, fans have turned out in record numbers to support the club which, under manager Carlos Corberan, have climbed to fifth in the table.
“One thing we’ve got is the communication with the football club which the fans have never had before and that’s a positive and we’ll continue with that,” Jones explained.
“It’s all new for everybody. I’m sure we will meet the family in time but we just want to welcome them to the Albion.”
Jones believes West Brom “were close” to the brink and that “it would’ve been an absolute travesty”.
He added: “We wanted to do something that protected the legacy our parents and grandparents gave us, to then pass on to our kids and grandkids.
“That’s something we’re very proud of, that we’ve continued that to happen at West Bromwich Albion, a founding member of the football league.”
Action For Albion first started after Jones watched the club lose to Millwall at home, around the same time news stories emerged of huge loans being taken out to run the club, and was alarmed by “the feeling of apathy towards the football club” under Lai’s stewardship that “was palpable everywhere”.
“I didn’t really care about what was happening and I’m a bit of an obsessive. If I wasn’t bothered I was thinking what on earth are others thinking,” he said.
Jones set up a WhatsApp group the following Monday morning that became the seed for a protest movement.
“By the afternoon we had 220 people. Fast forward to March 11, 2023, we had 5,000 people marching down the Birmingham Road.
“Two and half weeks later I’m sitting in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office at No 10. Which is about as surreal as you can possibly get.”
He added: “Today is a hugely proud day and I think it shows maybe a blueprint to how to try to facilitate change at a football club. We were very sure we wanted to be legal, above board, considered, planned, strategic, in everything we did. And use the political arena to force change.
“Ian Skidmore, the club’s director of communications, who I’ve learnt a lot from, uses a phrase, ‘You’ve got to be in the ring to fight the bull,’ and I took that on and thought it was the right thing to do. You can only try to facilitate change when you’re negotiating and having dialogue with the club.
“We’re very proud of where we’ve got to. I know I can look at myself in the mirror and when my club needed to have a bit of help and have people stand up and be counted I’ve done that.”
Jones also paid tribute to i‘s reporting. “i‘s role in putting out our issues in the national media was pivotal at a time when we needed it. That’s massively helped in making the impact that we did.
“You highlighted the issues going on, because there are too many of them in football at the moment.”
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