Palace chairman demands Burns to be sacked

By Paul Holmes
July 6 2002

Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan has slammed the new TV deal with SKY and demanded that Football League chief executive David Burns be sacked.

Palace, like most clubs in the division, will see their income heavily reduced as a result of the ITV collapse and replacement deal with SKY.

Under the ITV contract 1st Division teams netted a guaranteed £1.6m each season. Under the SKY deal the same teams will get just a basic sum of £364,000.

Jordan like many other chairman is cleary upset at the deal and the fact that the Football League rejected a reduced offer from Carlton and Granada, before the collapse of ITV Digital, that was higher than the accpeted SKY offer.

Many chairman are also upset that SKY have paid the same for the rights that they did way back in 1995.

Speaking to the Palace clubsite Jordan did not hold back on his thoughts. "I am totally stunned and disgusted at the way this has been handled by the League.

"I am shocked by the small amount of money we have got and staggered that the news was put in the public domain before the clubs were told.

"I only found out about it when I turned on the television and immediately had another First Division chairman ringing me up in disbelief as well.

"This is just typical of the incompetents who run the Football League and I hold David Burns and the whole executive responsible."

"I can only assume that the morons who run the League think they can use this as proof of losses incurred when they take ITV Digital to court.

"The sooner Burns and the rest of them are removed from office, the better.

"They should simply be sacked."