Andy Lyons meets Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry, who discusses his club's perspective on the current state of English League football and their role on the international stage as a member of the controversial G-14 group of elite European clubs

Some clubs claim that they have a duty to their shareholders to be in Europe. Is there less of this pressure at Liverpool through not being a publicly quoted company?
We don’t have that institutional investor pressure but the club has to pay for itself. We consciously incurred heavy losses for a couple of years of around £14 million when we were investing in the squad but you can’t go on doing that. The dilemma, and 90 per cent of clubs would say it’s a nice dilemma to have, is that you invest in a squad capable of getting into the Champions League, but if you don’t get in, you’re suddenly £20 million adrift and facing huge problems. We weren’t in Europe in 1999-2000 and that was a really difficult year for us. In ab­solute terms the gap between those in the Champions League and the Premier League is bigger than that between the rest of the Premier League and the Football League. I’m not saying we’re unhappy to be in that position but it’s a big gap to bridge.

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The case for and against the idea of bringing video replays into football to aid referees' decisions and cut down on mistakes

Yes ~
Spurs v Leicester this season. Leicester have just pulled a goal back with ten minutes to go and, suitably reinvigorated, they tear into the home side straight from the restart. Robbie Savage clatters into Les Ferdinand, Ferdinand eyeballs Savage and a predictable mid­field melee erupts.

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Partick Thistle fan Chris Fyfe sets out his side's promotion plan to the Premier League, rivalry with Airdrie and the club's 'tablecloth' kit

Have Thistle’s derby rivals changed over the years?
Our main rivals tend to fluctuate between Airdrie, Clydebank, Clyde and Killie depending on our res­pective fortunes. At the moment Killie’s prolonged SPL run takes them out of sight. The rivalry with the other Glasgow club, Clyde, came to a head when they lodged at Firhill for five years, due to their locals preferring to watch dog racing.

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What are the realistic ambitions for those outside the top half of the Premiership? Mark Hodkinson sums up his club's situation

The death knell, the clock striking midnight, the end of the world as we know it – this kind of rhetoric has shadowed my support of Rochdale FC since I first dunked a plastic fork in a tray of pie and peas at Spot­land back in the 1970s. But for all the talk and creeping fog of pundit fatalism, we’re still here. And being here is OK, especially with a completely rebuilt ground and a team that mounts a routine but flawed promotion challenge on an annual basis. We might even, lordy lordy, escape the bottom division one day soon. We’ve been here 27 seasons now, a long time in hell.

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What are the realistic ambitions for those outside the top half of the Premiership? Rob Fitzgerald sums up Tranmere's situation

The growing gap between the Premiership and Nat­ionwide League makes Tranmere fans acutely aware of the limitations of what their club can achieve. We are unlikely see a return of the optimism experienced at Prenton Park during John King’s second spell in charge, when we went from the bottom of the Fourth Division to the top of the (new) First in five years.

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