PHIL Gartside has called for a two-tier salary-capped Premier League to help prevent relegated clubs going bust.

The Wanderers chairman is urging league chiefs to take action before English-owned clubs begin to bankrupt themselves trying to stay afloat in the billionaire’s playground.

Gartside has suggested reducing the size of the current top flight to 18 clubs and inserting a ‘second division’ of 18 clubs, also to be encompassed under the Premier League banner.

The upshot, he claims, would be a more attractive product to television companies, and a smaller financial drop between the first two levels of the English game.

“I think you have got to look at the structure of the league and whether we have a Premier League One and a Premier League Two,” he said.

“It is not so much about the income, but more about making it more attractive to the television companies to spend money on a second tier of the Premier League.

“I wouldn’t reduce it by many but the attraction would be you would have two divisions of 18 teams.

“We would be in the top half. We have been there for the last eight years and as far as I’m concerned, we qualify for it.

“But in some way, we have to protect teams from that income swing.”

Future foreign investment will push up transfer fees and wage bills to such a degree that Gartside believes smaller clubs could bankrupt themselves trying to compete at the top level.

And he says fan-owned clubs such as his own, along with Middlesbrough, Wigan and Spurs have the most to fear if money from abroad continues to pour into the top clubs.

“I feel sorry for Steve Gibson (Middlesbrough), Dave Whelan (Wigan), Eddie Davies (Wanderers) and to some extent Daniel Levy (Spurs) because they are owners who actually have their clubs at heart,” he said. “No matter what you say about them, they are fans as well.

“I think they deserve some protection now. Eddie Davies’ commitment to Bolton is a huge amount of money, anything from £50m-100m – that is the kind of number we are talking about.

“Dave Whelan and Steve Gibson have built grounds, they have covered the debts, bought players, supported managers and now they need some protection because the huge amount of money they have put in is now becoming insignificant compared to the billions that are flooding in. It’s a billionaire’s game now – not a millionaire’s game.”

Gartside argues foreign investment will not significantly alter the landscape of the Premier League because backers have tended to focus on clubs with existing high turnovers.

Nevertheless, while the big clubs get richer, the chairman worries the cost of actually staying in the top flight could put some clubs out of business altogether.

“Currently the parachute payment is half of the annual standard payout,” he explained. “This year that number would have been in the region of £8m-10m. The income swing we would suffer from being in the Championship would be £31m, so the payment does not cover the downside any more.

“When we first got in the Premier League, the income swing was probably about £4m and the parachute payment was £2m. You could cope with it.

“The issue nowadays is the gap is too large. Teams who go out of the Premier League go bust. Not everyone, because some plan for it, but certainly some will, and it is becoming more and more difficult to plan for.”

Gartside has also changed his mind on the issue of salary-capping. Wage bills in the Premier League crashed through the £1billion barrier last season and are now more than double the equivalent in Germany, France or Italy.

Foreign investment, he claims, will drive wages even higher and leave more clubs having to take financial gambles to stay in touch.

“I was never in favour of salary caps, but now I think it is inevitable,” he said. “That applies to every club.

“It would have to be based on some formula, based on facilities, but we can’t carry on doing this. We’ll all go bust.”