The Premier League announced a 'solidarity package' over the weekend worth £90m over three years to the Football League clubs.

Good news? Well it seems to be if you're a follower or chairman of a Championship club.

The aim of the windfall seems to be to bridge the financial gap between the Premier League and Football League.

The trouble is, it seems to have been forgotten that while there is a gap between the Premier League and Championship, there is also a gap between the Championship and League One, and another gap between League One and League Two.

The money, which is £22.4m in the first season, will be split in the same way as television excess income - 80% to the Championship clubs, 12% to League One clubs and 8% to League Two clubs. There seems to be little explanation given for this form of distribution, other than it is a system already in place for another income stream.

So while the Championship clubs will receive around £800,000 extra on average for 2007-08, League One clubs will only get around £103,000 and League Two clubs around £69,000.

Fair? Not as far as League One and Two clubs should be concerned. The financial gap between the Championship and leagues One and Two will get even wider.

While you can argue that every little helps, and no doubt League One clubs' accounts departments will welcome an extra hundred thousand or so, it makes it that bit harder to compete with Championship clubs. Harder when it comes to attracting players as wage budgets will be comparatively even smaller. Harder in cup competitions when you play teams from the Championship. And harder if you get promoted from League One to the Championship and come up against clubs who have already had these larger windfalls in previous seasons.

What makes the distribution mechanism even more strange is that on top of the £22.4m this season, there's an additional £5.4m being provided for club youth development programmes which is being split equally among the clubs who qualify. So League One and Two clubs are allowed to have the same level of income for the youth side of the club, but not the rest?

It could be argued that for clubs in League One and Two, they'd be better off without the solidarity payments altogether. The £103,000 or £69,000 will make no difference at all when it comes to competing with the Premier League, and it just makes them a further £700,000 odd worse off compared to the Championship clubs.

by Tim Roberts