Premier League clubs stunned by request to raise £5m for outgoing chairman Richard Scudamore

Before joining the Premier League in 1999, Scudamore was chief executive of the Football League. Prior to that, he had worked at Thomson and Yellow Pages.

But after spotting an advert for the Football League job while working in the U.S., it was his wife who encouraged him to apply, suggesting it would match his interests in football as a keen Bristol City fan and qualified referee.

Scudamore then spent two years from 1997 in the job, before he was poached by the Premier League at a time when it earned a fraction of what it does today.   

In his 19 years working for England’s elite division, he has propelled the amount of money raised from television rights from £670m to £5.1bn.

He announced he was standing down in June on the same day new Premier League broadcasting deals were announced, including a three-year agreement with Amazon to show 20 matches a season from 2019.

That package had been designed to appeal to internet companies such as Amazon, Netflix and Facebook, signalling the Premier League’s desire for fans to be able to stream games in the future.

Scudamore’s time has not been without its challenging moments, however.

He controversially mooted the idea of a ’39th game’, with teams playing a competitive match abroad.

The proposal was widely criticised by fans, managers and even the then FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Scudamore pictured during his time as chief executive of the Football League 

But overall, Scudamore is a widely respected figure across football and received a standing ovation when he announced his intentions to step aside in June at the Premier League’s end-of-season meeting.

And while his overall salary of £2.5m may have raised eyebrows in some circles, former NBA commissioner David Stern – Scudamore’s counterpart for basketball in America – said in 2014 that Scudamore is underpaid.

‘Richard is vastly under-remunerated for the job he has done for the Premier League,’ Stern, who earned around £15m a year, said at a Sports Industry breakfast.

‘The market appreciation of the PL under his watch has been extraordinary and his salary should reflect that. It’s his business if he charitably accepts a deal far less than he’s worth.’ 

Indeed he was asked to run marketing giants IMG in 2007 but turned them down, and had already earned enough by that time to build his own holiday home in the exclusive U.S. resort of Cape Cod. 

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