Parachute payments – an arrangement under which clubs relegated from the Premier League (PL), for example, continue to share some of the PL’s substantive broadcasting revenues for a few years – have been the source of a long-running disagreement between the PL and the English Football League (EFL). Resolving this dispute will likely be one of the tasks of the forthcoming Independent Football Regulator (IFR).

The IFR is meant to act as an arbitrator, with the final stage (if it comes to it) being a pendulum arbitration process. In this process, the arbitrator can only accept one or the other (or none) of the proposals submitted by the parties but cannot come up with its own compromise solution. This should give both sides an incentive to come up with reasonable suggestions. However, it works well only if the criteria that the arbitrator will use are clear and well understood. We question whether this is the case here given that the IFR’s objectives have been defined in rather vague terms. The IFR will very likely need to clarify these objectives and thus take on a role that goes beyond purely being an arbitrator. See our thoughts here.