Revealed: EFL seeks £1bn five-year transfer from Premier League

The English Football League wants top flight clubs to hand over more than £1bn during the next five years in order to end the long-running impasse over a financial redistribution deal.

Sky News has learnt that Premier League clubs were told yesterday that their lower-league counterparts were demanding £207m-a-year from them as negotiations over football's New Deal reach another critical juncture.

Under a proposal tabled during the summer, the Premier League offered more than £1.5bn over ten years to the EFL in addition to funding already provided by the top flight.

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Further talks are understood to have taken place last week between directors of the two leagues, with David Kogan, the Independent Football Regulator's chair, also in attendance.

Those discussions reportedly coalesced around a potential ten-year payment worth an average annual sum of £180m, but the EFL is understood to be seeking £207m each year over five seasons - totalling £1.035bn.

Any revised offer from the Premier League would need to be put to a vote of its clubs, with time running out before the IFR publishes its inaugural State of the Game report in mid-October.

The Premier League, EFL and IFR all declined to comment.

News of the EFL's demand comes amid reports that Manchester City's long-running disciplinary case involving 115 alleged breaches of the Premier League's financial rules is about to conclude, with the League said to be "confident" of victory.

In a statement issued after Thursday's shareholder meeting, the Premier League had said its clubs had "continued discussions regarding a new strategic partnership with the EFL".

"Since a fair and generous proposal was formally offered to the EFL last month, discussions have continued between the leagues' Executives, and it was presented to EFL clubs last week.

"The Premier League remains committed to concluding a football-led solution as soon as possible so additional money can flow to EFL clubs this season."

In addition to the annual payments from the Premier League, it is proposing a new 'lifeboat fund' for lower league clubs which find themselves in financial distress.

The package also features a reduction in the parachute payments made to clubs relegated from the Premier League, as well as a pot of money ring-fenced for infrastructure investment at the EFL's 72 members.

The new funding would be in addition to the £1.6bn invested by the Premier League in the wider English game.

The Football Governance Act, which gave the IFR its far-reaching powers to block club takeovers and bar directors, allows the watchdog to make rules relating to the cost of using its so-called backstop powers to force a settlement on the two sides.

Mr Kogan has said that the use of its backstop powers would reflect "an utter failure" by English football's power-brokers.

"Going forward, it's to everyone's benefit for football to try to reach this understanding," he told an industry conference earlier this year.

"But if the leagues can't find a new deal, those powers will be enacted, and we will be looking at things such as the current mechanism for parachute payments."

(c) Sky News 2026: Revealed: EFL seeks £1bn five-year transfer from Premier League