Dein plays down Glazer TV deal fears

Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein does not expect Malcolm Glazer to make breaking up the Premier League’s collective TV deal an early priority once the American takes hands-on control at Manchester United.

Glazer has already been warned by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore that it would be beyond him to persuade enough rival teams to back any such plan, should it be on his agenda.

If they were allowed to negotiate their own contracts, there would almost certainly be scope for United to improve upon the estimated annual £50m (€72.5m) they currently reap in media revenues.

Glazer, who has bought up 76% of United shares, would need the support of 13 other clubs on the issue.

It is one which former United chief executive Peter Kenyon once put to a vote at a Premier League meeting, only to suffer a humiliating 19-1 defeat.

Asked whether he thought Glazer would be allowed to break up the collective bargaining agreement, Dein said: “I doubt that very much.”

Speaking on Sky Sports News, Dein added: “I think that one of the strengths of the Premier League is that everyone’s kept together. It’s a bonding exercise.

“You need everybody else to fulfil it. We had this before, everyone talking about whether you’re going to have a European Super League. You’ve got the Champions League, which in its way is a Super League in itself.”

Dein admitted that one way of collapsing the way deals are currently negotiated would be by a club taking their case to the European courts.

“If the European Commission decided that each club could sell their rights then we’d have different circumstances.

“Personally I don’t think that’ll happen for a while.”

Dein is wary of predicting how the Glazer era will pan out at Old Trafford, having not met the American.

However he added: “He’s not a philanthropist. He wants to see the team and his shareholding be successful.”

Turning to his own club’s summer plans, Dein confirmed that manager Arsene Wenger would receive the board’s financial support in his team-building efforts.

“We’ve always had limits, but we still managed to buy Jose Antonio Reyes, and we will be in the market this year and hopefully we will be strengthening the squad.”

Dein insists that Reyes, who has been linked with Real Madrid, has no intention of departing after just 18 months in London.

“He’s fine, absolutely fine and he won’t be leaving,” said Dein.

And the same message applies to Patrick Vieira, with Dein hoping to avoid a repeat of previous summers when the Frenchman has appeared on the brink of joining Real Madrid, causing deep concern at Highbury before opting to stay with the Gunners.

Vieira now seems unlikely to move and Dein is waiting to see whether there will be such an abundance of interest in the Arsenal skipper as in previous summers.

“I hope not,” he added, “because that’s what you call expenditure of negative energy and we don’t need that.”