Birmingham owner Wagner breaks ranks over Premier League redistributions
Birmingham City owner Tom Wagner has broken ranks with his EFL rivals over their attempts to extract more money from the Premier League.
The thorny issue is among the top priorities for the incoming Independent Football Regulator after years of talks between the Premier League and the EFL ended in deadlock.
Top flight teams currently share around 14 per cent of the Premier League’s central revenues with the divisions below them but the EFL has called for this to increase to 25 per cent.
“I think that the top clubs of English football have to be protected at all costs,” Wagner said at The Summit, part of Leaders Week London 2025.
“We can’t take too much from the top clubs because if you end up in a situation where there are not dominant teams at the top – and by dominant, I mean dominant internationally; the very best players and the very best product – the interest will wane. And particularly in the US market, which is going to drive the increase In value or capital flows into English football.
“I love the pyramid. We’ve experienced a lot of it. It’s all great. It makes for a super interesting story. But those top clubs, the ones that are highly successful and really have significant brand value, we’ve got to protect them to ensure that they draw the interest.”
Birmingham can be in Prem top 10 – Wagner
Wagner’s comments are likely to cause consternation among the EFL and many of its clubs, the majority of whom – even in the Championship – cannot compete with Birmingham City’s revenue and spending power.
He insisted, however, that the EFL should focus on helping its clubs “in a way that grows the pie, as opposed to redistributes the pie”, citing greater marketing efforts as an example.
“We’d love to have to have more revenue, and we’d love to see the pyramid strengthened, but what we don’t want to see is for whatever percentage we land on result in a less competitive top of the pyramid,” Wagner added.
“From an international perspective, it’s not for me to say what the right percentage is, but I think what we want is for the top of the pyramid to still have that enormous brand value, be highly competitive internationally, and I think that that will draw more attention to English football generally.
“Our hope and sincere belief is that it will lead to growth in the overall amount of revenues that filter through the pyramid in its entirety.”
Wagner said the Premier League’s strength is its clutch of elite teams, which he believes could grow from the current Big Six to 10 dominant sides – including Birmingham City.
“It doesn’t have two or three dominant teams, like many other leagues do. It has many teams that are highly competitive,” the American said.
“And there’s six, which I would argue is now eight, really fantastic organisations. I think there’s space for 10, and we’d hope we can position ourselves to be there.”