Premier League clubs don’t give a s**t about little clubs… I’m frightened to death about the future, says EFL legend

PETERBOROUGH chief Barry Fry has slammed the Premier League for “not giving a s**t” about the little clubs.

League One Posh pocketed a £4million sell-on fee from Ivan Toney’s £40m move from Brentford to Saudi club Al-Ahli last week.

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Barry Fry claims the Prem does ‘not giving a s**t’ about the little clubs[/caption]

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Peterborough chief Fry is ‘frightened to death’ about the future of EFL clubs[/caption]

But Fry, 79, Posh’s outspoken director of football, says EFL teams have just experienced the worst transfer window he has ever known.

Premier League clubs splashed out a staggering £2billion in the summer, with Chelsea the biggest spenders at a whopping £208m.

And that is £1bn more than Italy’s Serie A clubs, the next-highest spenders in Europe’s major leagues.

But what irritates Fry the most is the way the top-flight outfits are holding back on a new funding deal for the 72 EFL clubs.

Fry, one of the best transfer operators in the lower divisions, hit out: “I am frightened to death about the future of EFL clubs.

“I’m a lover of football and unless Financial Fair Play gets sorted out, clubs are going to go under in the lower leagues.

“Premier League clubs don’t give a s**t about anybody but themselves — they forget where they’ve come from half of them.”

West Ham’s vice-chairman Karren Brady argued in her SunSport column last week that the “lower leagues are earning and generating more cash than ever before”.

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She pointed out that Championship clubs enjoyed £300m in player sales business, with Sky paying out £935m to EFL football across five years.

Brady also noted that under chief executive Richard Masters, the Premier League were adding £1.6bn over three years to “help the game flourish right down to park  leagues”.

But Fry, who managed Birmingham City when Brady was managing director of the Blues, believes the EFL are getting a raw deal from the top-flight clubs.

He added: “We have, going through the EFL right down the pyramid, the best system in the world, and it’s going to be destroyed by the Premier League.

“We do not have a distribution which is fair or getting the Government to put a regulator in there to determine what  they do.

“I feel that there is no way the Premier League will allow the Government to dictate to them and they are leaving it as late as possible to come up with a deal.

“But it doesn’t help the clubs in the EFL, who are under enormous pressure, as this is the worst window ever in dealing with transfers for the lower leagues.

“Look at the money being spent? F*** all! It’s frightening and we needed it sorted out, like yesterday!

‘Like a pack of cards’

“It’s like a pack of cards. Once one or two clubs go to the wall, a load of them will fold.”

And Fry believes the business climate is not helping club owners to cope with all the financial pressures of running a football team either.

He said: “It is very, very difficult for owners because all these people are  struggling in their own businesses now.

“They haven’t got the spare cash to help out their football clubs.

“We have the greatest pyramid system, ever, ever in the whole world, and we should be bending over backwards to keep it and help every club up and down the country.

“That’s because every club is so, so important to their community and they should be treasured.”