Wealth distribution is showing what a league should be.
In some ways in spite of itself the competitiveness of the Premier League this season is putting just about every single top league around the world to shame. Leicester City comfortably sit top after 17 games. It’s a situation literally impossible in other leagues, and it’s because of money. It’s a direct result of the distribution of huge (£5+ billion) TV revenue to Premier League clubs, flooding all clubs with enough cash to compete.
Teams are now flooded with enough money to compete against the billionaire owners clubs caught napping. Can it last?
At the end of last season each club received an equal domestic TV payment of £21 million., plus an overseas TV equal share of £27 million. Overall you get guaranteed over £60 million even for finishing last. Last season Barcelona raked in £116 million from TV revenue, while struggling Eibar took a pathetic £10 million.
This not only dwarfs all other unbalanced European leagues but is not rigged towards a couple of clubs to bag all the money for themselves, who also have their own TV rights deals. The recent distribution deal in Spain’s La Liga (worth only £500m) had a clause that protected Real Madrid and Barcelona from losing any money from it. It is farcically fixed. And La Liga suffers hugely from this corruption.
The Premier League this season is not mad, strange, unbelievable, or crazy. It is what happens when you evenly distribute resources, it’s how a league should be.
All this is amusingly ironic, as the Premier League has led the world in welcoming billionaire owners to buy its league title. But this huge new TV deal distribution is showing us loud and clear the Premier League does not need all this dirty money from bored billionaires, unbalancing the league. The money is all there, from the fans paying the tickets, from the sponsors paying the league, and from the fans TV subscriptions around the world.
Yes most Premier League clubs today have rich owners, but the reason the league is competitive now is because a semblance of balance has been brought to the table (excuse the pun) through the new TV money system.
It’s even more reason to put complete a ban the types of operations we’ve seen at Chelsea and Man City in the last few years. And a ban on foreign vulture capitalist investors taking over clubs like seen at Man Utd. Why do we allow it? The league no longer needs these damaging influences. The new TV deal has shown the future of football is in the sharing of money, not hoarding.
Look past the tiresome, lazy arguments about “quality”, and how English clubs aren’t performing in the Champions League, it’s irrelevant. That competition is rigged heavily in favour of just a few select elite clubs. Big clubs around Europe who have far less intense leagues, and winter breaks, and more resources, of course will prosper more in today’s Champions League. The fact English clubs are struggling is proof of how difficult it is to play every weeks at “small clubs” like Crystal Palace, Leicester, Everton, Stoke, Bournemouth, West Ham. No other league in Europe are the big clubs facing such intense tests as from these teams every week.
Spanish, French, German or Italian teams feeding on the unequal leftovers of £500 million have little chance of competing for long with Premier League clubs sharing equally over £5 billion. Those leagues have a long way to go, and the 1 or 2 teams at the top are a poor indication of the strength of the leagues.
This season is a preview or sample of what the league could be every season. Fans of clubs all over the league are looking at Leicester and thinking they could do the same, this type of thinking didn’t happen for the last 20 years. The evidence now in broad daylight and restrictions now have to be put on the spending of clubs with infinite resources immediately to keep it this way.
