Palace supremo says clubs will be in administration

Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan expects seven or eight First Division clubs to be in administration by the end of the season.

Clubs are struggling following the collapse of ITV Digital and introduction of transfer windows, which effectively reduce the financial lifeline of transfers to Premiership clubs.

Jordan claims it is only his personal fortune which has prevented Palace going into liquidation.

“I believe that seven or eight clubs will be going into administration by the end of the season, if not before,” Jordan told The Observer.

“The only ones who will not have to will be those who can have a rights issue, like Watford, or those with genuine benefactors.

Jordan believes the only solution is to reduce players’ pay. He added: “The problem is simple – we have all been paying players too much. The average wage bill among Palaces players is £297,000 per year and I have to get that down to around £200,000 – which is still a very good salary in this division – if we are to stop losing money.

“I’ve looked into this very carefully and we have offloaded some of our highest earners and replaced them with players on lower wages.

“Bit by bit the mentality of players is changing and they are beginning to realise that they can’t ask for such enormous salaries any more.”

A salary cap has been suggested, but Jordan said it would be unworkable, and called for a restructuring of the Nationwide League.

“If you capped individual or squad wages, there would be no need for any club to lose money, but we haven’t got the leadership or structure in place to administer it.

“We need a restructuring of the league so that the First Division is run by 24 club chairmen, not all 72 in the League.

“The Premier League works because they have got 20 chairmen who all meet and agree on how to run their own division, and that is how it should be right down to Division Three.”

Watford chief executive Tim Shaw said 10 clubs have had talks with the Professional Footballers’ Association about cost-cutting measures similar to those taken his club, who last week asked players and staff to defer 12% of their wages for the next two years.