League To Demonstrate Against Granada/Carlton!

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 13/06/2002

THE Football League have released a statement announcing their plans for a campaign of direct action against Carlton and Granada, the joint owners of ITV Digital.

The campaign is called 'Save our Clubs' and aims to harness the anger felt by both clubs and fans at the actions of the two companies in failing to honour the outstanding £178.5m owed to Football League clubs.

The campaign will build up to the beginning of The Football League's court action against Carlton and Granada on July 26 with the highlight being a protest by all 72 League Chairmen outside the London offices of both companies on July 10.

The protest will be followed by 12 days of protest outside the same offices by League clubs, with 6 clubs designated to protest on each day. The campaign will also feature lobbying of MP's and petitioning of supporters.

In launching the campaign Football League Chairman Keith Harris said: "We remain appalled that two corporate giants like Carlton and Granada can be allowed to cause such catastrophic damage to our national sport in the selfish pursuit of their own interests.

"We have made numerous attempts to negotiate with Carlton and Granada only to be rejected on each occasion. Our patience is now at an end and we will turn up on July 10 and wait, as a united body of chairmen, for Michael Green and Charles Allen to have the common decency to acknowledge our case."