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EPL’s B teams should play in lower leagues: Man City CEO Soriano

Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano believes English Premier League B teams could form part of a revamp for the "not sustainable" English Football League (EFL).

The British government is pressuring the EPL to come up with a rescue package for EFL clubs struggling for survival amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has deprived them of match-day income.

The EPL is in talks with the EFL over a bailout and it is understood they are looking for assurances over how the money is spent, with clubs in the second-tier Championship spending 107 per cent of revenue on wages in the 2018/19 season.

"One of the challenges is the EFL (is) a business that is not sustainable enough," Soriano said at LeadersWeek.direct.

The former Barcelona vice-president suggested following the Spanish model of having B teams in the lower leagues to aid the development of players and halt the number of young English players moving to Germany for more first-team opportunities.

He said: "We have a development gap of boys that are 17 or 18, they don't find the right place to develop and for example, they are taken from us by the German teams who try to sell them back to us for a price which is 10 times what they paid.

"This is mad, right? This is something we needed to solve and now maybe the crisis will give us the opportunity and will nudge us to get together and solve these issues." - AFP

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