A DECADE AGO last month the bombshell dropped and European football was reordered overnight.
February 2015 brought the announcement that Sky and BT had committed more than £5 billion to secure the UK and Irish rights to the Premier League for the next three seasons, an unfathomable 71% increase on the previous deal.
Suddenly Bournemouth were making more money than AC Milan and the Premier League had become the European Super League without needing to change its name.
Ten years on, it’s worth asking: what this money has actually achieved?
Outside of England, it has proved destructive.
An Irish football fan listening to anyone in Europe complain about the damage that can be done by English football’s shadow is a little like the Passion of the Christ meme with Mel Gibson, but it is nonetheless true: the inequality demarcated by the English channel has transformed European football.
The European Super League was driven by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus as a means of ending the financial disparity in England, while lower-rank clubs have had to amalgamate to survive. Multi-club ownership has grown by 400% in the decade since the Premier League struck gold, which has left many historic clubs in Europe in a state of formal vassalage to England. (Nine of England’s 20 current Premier League clubs sit at the apex of a multi-club model.)
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As for within England: it has not led the Premier League to monopolise European competitions, as might have been expected: since this windfall kicked in the 2016/17 season, English clubs have won just six of the 19 editions of Uefa’s three major club competitions.
In terms of infrastructure, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Fulham have expanded their grounds, though Fulham’s extension came with a massive hike in ticket prices. Spurs and Everton have built new stadia, but both came at the expense of investment in the playing squad. A handful of other clubs have plans for renovations or new builds, but as Man United’s pitch for the “Wembley of the North” shows, not all want to have to pay for everything themselves.
What has happened is what happens anywhere money suddenly starts to flow to private enterprise: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. More money than ever before is going to managers, coaches, players, agents and, above all, shareholders, while fans pay more for their tickets and their satellite TV subscriptions.
Fan protests over tickets and the running of their clubs have meanwhile become a weekly chorus: the game has never been wealthier, and its supporters have never been unhappier.
Of course, all of this has been justified to now by the quality of the entertainment. And, certainly, a few years ago the Premier League could claim to be delivering some of the highest-level football ever played: some of the jousts between Guardiola’s City and Klopp’s Liverpool were an equal for anything that went before.
These games were a classic contrast of styles, but as the years have gone on, money has given City’s challengers the opportunity to be whatever they wanted to be, and they all chose to be . . . more like City. Klopp can be said to have been Guardiola’s last ideological reproach, but even his final years at Liverpool saw him sign Thiago Alcantara and try to play the Guardiola way.
Look at Guardiola’s main challengers now: they are all disciples. Mikel Arteta and Enzo Maresca are former assistants while Arne Slot is a true believer: his Liverpool side are playing with less adventure with every passing week.
The English game has curdled into a collision of one form of control against another. Has any English title duel ever been as besmirched as the exercise in nullity that was Man City 0-0 Arsenal last season?
It may have been intriguing, but it wasn’t enthralling.
This is happening because the coaches of the top teams have so much money at their disposal that they can afford to tailor their squad to their desires. And, generally, the more control coaches can exert over their teams, the more cautious their approach will become, and thus the more dull the spectacle.
This is not a luxury afforded to many coaches outside of England, where they must make do with less money along with the knowledge their careful squad-building is always liable to being torn asunder by the apex predator in England.
The longer this goes on, however, the more it is showing that the Premier League is about star coaches, but not star players.
This was most obviously seen during the most recent international break, given England’s captain along with their biggest star no longer actually play in England. Soon Trent Alexander-Arnold, another singular individual talent, will join Jude Bellingham in Madrid, believing it will be a better platform for his talents.
Kylian Mbappe never gave thought of going to England over Madrid, and if English clubs are producing talents like Lamine Yamal, they are not allowing them to play like him.
Ultimately the game is about players, and for now at least, they are far more likely to shine in Spain.
It’s taken an awful lot of money for the Premier League to look so cheap.
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Ten years after the Premier League became richer than God - what has the money actually achieved?
A DECADE AGO last month the bombshell dropped and European football was reordered overnight.
February 2015 brought the announcement that Sky and BT had committed more than £5 billion to secure the UK and Irish rights to the Premier League for the next three seasons, an unfathomable 71% increase on the previous deal.
Suddenly Bournemouth were making more money than AC Milan and the Premier League had become the European Super League without needing to change its name.
Ten years on, it’s worth asking: what this money has actually achieved?
Outside of England, it has proved destructive.
An Irish football fan listening to anyone in Europe complain about the damage that can be done by English football’s shadow is a little like the Passion of the Christ meme with Mel Gibson, but it is nonetheless true: the inequality demarcated by the English channel has transformed European football.
The European Super League was driven by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus as a means of ending the financial disparity in England, while lower-rank clubs have had to amalgamate to survive. Multi-club ownership has grown by 400% in the decade since the Premier League struck gold, which has left many historic clubs in Europe in a state of formal vassalage to England. (Nine of England’s 20 current Premier League clubs sit at the apex of a multi-club model.)
As for within England: it has not led the Premier League to monopolise European competitions, as might have been expected: since this windfall kicked in the 2016/17 season, English clubs have won just six of the 19 editions of Uefa’s three major club competitions.
In terms of infrastructure, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Fulham have expanded their grounds, though Fulham’s extension came with a massive hike in ticket prices. Spurs and Everton have built new stadia, but both came at the expense of investment in the playing squad. A handful of other clubs have plans for renovations or new builds, but as Man United’s pitch for the “Wembley of the North” shows, not all want to have to pay for everything themselves.
What has happened is what happens anywhere money suddenly starts to flow to private enterprise: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. More money than ever before is going to managers, coaches, players, agents and, above all, shareholders, while fans pay more for their tickets and their satellite TV subscriptions.
Fan protests over tickets and the running of their clubs have meanwhile become a weekly chorus: the game has never been wealthier, and its supporters have never been unhappier.
Of course, all of this has been justified to now by the quality of the entertainment. And, certainly, a few years ago the Premier League could claim to be delivering some of the highest-level football ever played: some of the jousts between Guardiola’s City and Klopp’s Liverpool were an equal for anything that went before.
These games were a classic contrast of styles, but as the years have gone on, money has given City’s challengers the opportunity to be whatever they wanted to be, and they all chose to be . . . more like City. Klopp can be said to have been Guardiola’s last ideological reproach, but even his final years at Liverpool saw him sign Thiago Alcantara and try to play the Guardiola way.
Look at Guardiola’s main challengers now: they are all disciples. Mikel Arteta and Enzo Maresca are former assistants while Arne Slot is a true believer: his Liverpool side are playing with less adventure with every passing week.
The English game has curdled into a collision of one form of control against another. Has any English title duel ever been as besmirched as the exercise in nullity that was Man City 0-0 Arsenal last season?
It may have been intriguing, but it wasn’t enthralling.
This is happening because the coaches of the top teams have so much money at their disposal that they can afford to tailor their squad to their desires. And, generally, the more control coaches can exert over their teams, the more cautious their approach will become, and thus the more dull the spectacle.
This is not a luxury afforded to many coaches outside of England, where they must make do with less money along with the knowledge their careful squad-building is always liable to being torn asunder by the apex predator in England.
The longer this goes on, however, the more it is showing that the Premier League is about star coaches, but not star players.
This was most obviously seen during the most recent international break, given England’s captain along with their biggest star no longer actually play in England. Soon Trent Alexander-Arnold, another singular individual talent, will join Jude Bellingham in Madrid, believing it will be a better platform for his talents.
Kylian Mbappe never gave thought of going to England over Madrid, and if English clubs are producing talents like Lamine Yamal, they are not allowing them to play like him.
Ultimately the game is about players, and for now at least, they are far more likely to shine in Spain.
It’s taken an awful lot of money for the Premier League to look so cheap.
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