David Conn in the Guardian:
So, the Premier League will be flush with the £1.7bn harvested from Sky and Setanta, but some of the Premiership's own clubs and many in football are already questioning whether the bulk of that fortune should go to the few already rich clubs at the top. After concluding the deal, the Premier League has finally confirmed what it had previously denied, that the grass roots are to receive an increased slice, an agreement the Premiership made in return for government support during the battle with the European Commission over TV arrangements.
Since 2001, after the Office of Fair Trading first challenged the legality of collective selling by the Premier League clubs, the Premiership has sliced 5% of its TV deals to the Football Foundation, principally to improve neglected football facilities nationwide. The money, £105m, was matched by the FA and public funding.
The new agreement, extracted by the sports minister Richard Caborn in what was said to be a fierce meeting with the Premier League's chief executive Richard Scudamore last autumn, is that 6% of the next TV deal up to £1.1bn will be distributed to grass-roots projects, 7.5% of the £300m above that, then 10% of any money over £1.4bn.
With highlights and other secondary packages still to be arranged, that already amounts to £118.5m, steered away from the top players whose agents are eyeing the next payday from the 2007-2010 contract, and directed instead to the windswept wastelands on which everybody else has to play the game.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport modestly acknowledged its part in securing the increase, saying: "We are very pleased the new deal will mean more money for grass-roots football."
Before the current deal which began in 2004, two Labour MPs, James Purnell and Andy Burnham, both now rising ministers, called for the Premiership to increase its distribution to 10%. "This time," one government source said, "we weren't prepared to back them in Brussels but get no more in return."