Clarets still budgeting for television money

The Clarets have almost missed out completely with only the early season game at West Brom having been selected for coverage leaving us with less money than any other club.

"The next Football League meeting is coming up soon and one issue which I believe needs taking up with them is the situation with the televising of games in the First Division," said Barry Kilby yesterday.

"We have only been televised in one live game, which was away at West Bromwich Albion in the second game of the season. We are currently bottom of the table in our division for the teams who have been on live League matches.

"In comparison, Cardiff City, no more than a mid-table side, have earned £250,000 this season after being shown live four times at home and once away and for another example, Crewe Alexandra have earned £70,000 from televised games this season, which is a £60,000 advantage over us and is the equivalent of over 15,000 extra fans coming through the gates.

"I believe there should be a minimum number of games shown for each team to equal this out, as is the situation in the Premier League."

And in an attack on Mawhinney’s Football League bunglers he added, "The League in their wisdom however, omitted the clause from the contract. How's that for déjà vu?"

What is most worrying for Burnley fans is that we are still apparently budgeting for television money before we have it in our pockets. It was thought that any such ideas had disappeared and gone to Huddersfield last summer.

That’s not the case though and Chief Executive Dave Edmundson said: "We're bottom of this league and have been featured once on television, in the West Brom game as long ago as August.

"I have recently spoken to Vic Wakeling of Sky Television about this inconsistency and it seems there is no guarantee of live television as happens in the Premiership and the distribution of televised games in the First Division is haphazard to say the least.

"We were promised a live game last November and budgeted accordingly, but it looks like we'll now be £60,000 short on our cash flow and at this current time it causes us serious hurt."

There is still a possibility that we could pick up a further £60,000 should our final fixture of the season against Sunderland be deemed a vital game. I’d rather get safe though and give the extra money a miss.

The full allocation of matches and money up to and including scheduled fixtures on 12^th April is: