EPL has sold its soul to television: Ferguson

London: Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson believes English football has sold its soul to the devil of ‘Television.’ And here we thought that cricket was the only game that was being driven to the gallows by TV. The Manchester United manager used his first in-depth BBC interview for almost a decade to talk about the negative influence of television the fixture list — in a way that he just doesn’t seem to like at all. “When you shake hands with the devil you have to pay the price,” he said. “Television is God at the moment. It shows itself quite clearly because when you see the fixture lists come out now, they can pick and choose whenever they want the top teams on television. “You get some ridiculous situations when you’re playing on Wednesday night in Europe and then at lunchtime the following Saturday. You ask any manager if they would pick that themselves and there’d be no chance.” [caption id=“attachment_93384” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t happy with the way television has influenced the game. Getty Images”] [/caption] The 69-year-old Scot also feels that the clubs are not even getting the kind of money they deserve from TV. He said the EPL sold their product to 200 countries and “when you think of that I don’t think we get enough money”. “Sir Alex’s comments always have to be taken seriously – he is a very wise and experienced football man,” Brian Barwick, a former FA chief executive and controller of sport at ITV, told the BBC. “But on this one, I do think Manchester United have almost had a lion’s share of TV revenue over a period of time and it has helped build a fantastic stadium in Old Trafford and helped build Sir Alex’s teams with star players.” And of course, Sir Alex is talking about short change. The English Premier League’s television rights deal was last renewed in February 2009 when Sky reportedly paid in excess of £1.6bn to show five 23-game packages from 2010-13. On the whole, EPL secured around a whopping £3.5bn from its most recent round of television deals, which run until the end of next season. About £2.1bn was generated from domestic rights sales, including about £1.8bn for live rights from BSkyB and ESPN, and £1.4bn from overseas broadcasters. But Ferguson’s still got a bone to pick and who can tell him otherwise.