COLCHESTER United chairman Robbie Cowling admits the way revenue is distributed for the streaming of live games has put 'a very new aspect' on the income available to clubs this season.

With supporters currently unable to attend EFL matches due to the Covid-19 pandemic, clubs are streaming footage of their games on the iFollow online subscription service.

Cowling has revealed that the U's will receive less than £8,000 in the equivalent of gate receipts for their home match against Bolton Wanderers last weekend, having sold just over 450 iFollow passes for the game.

That is in comparison to the approximate £14,600 the Trotters will receive in revenue from 1,752 iFollow passes, for the League Two game.

Money from the iFollow streaming sees home clubs keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website, along with the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team.

And with the size of the U's fanbase smaller than the likes of Bolton and Bradford City, it effectively favours the bigger clubs in the division - and makes for an uneven level of distribution.

In a statement on the U's website, Cowling said: "The way it works currently is that the home team keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website and they also get the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team.

"For example: for Saturday’s game against Bolton, we sold 452 iFollow passes, (so we keep all of the revenue from those), and Bolton sold 2252 iFollow passes, (of which we get the revenue from the first 500).

"This has put a very new aspect on the revenue that is available to clubs this season.

"Bolton made more money in gate receipts from our home fixture than we did because they had the revenue from 1,752 iFollow passes whereas we had the revenue from 952 iFollow passes.

"In normal times, we would have expected about £54,000 in home gate receipts from this fixture but we will receive just shy of £8,000, whereas Bolton would have expected about £600 for the 5% commission we pay them but will have received about £14,000 more than that.

"We sold just over 300 streams for the away game against Bradford, so we earnt £0.00 for that away game and I expect that to be the case for every away game this season.

"So based on twenty three away games, Bolton look set to receive about £345,000 from the streaming of their away games this season whilst we can look forward to approximately £0.00.

"Perhaps these facts might help some of you that think we should still be in the Championship understand what we are up against."