Money Can't Buy the Premier League Continental Clout

The recent announcement of the new Premier League TV deal has undoubtedly set chairmen nationwide greedily looking over the books to see just how much their club could be making come 2016.

The £5.1 billion deal will be split across the 20 clubs, with the champions earning £150 million and the clubs below them incrementally less. This flat figure is then increased depending on how many times a team is featured in live games.

Last season, Liverpool topped the table despite not winning the league, earning just shy of £75 million, per Soccerlens.

In contrast, Bundesliga clubs are set to take a slice of a deal worth just £617 million, while Spain’s lack of collective bargaining has led to a grossly disproportionate skewing of the numbers toward the top teams.

Real Madrid and Barcelona both collected £118.6 million last year, with the vast majority of their games transmitted globally; their closest rivals, Valencia, brought in £37.6 million—just over half of what the lowest-earning Premier League teams did.

Fans in the Bundesliga responded with a typically well-orchestrated display of disdain. While the Premier League is already rich and looks set to become considerably richer, last week’s horror showing in European competition has cast doubts on the validity of the league’s claim to be the best in the world.

In the Champions League, Manchester City lost 2-1 to Barcelona, while Arsenal were dealt a demoralising blow in a 3-1 home defeat to little-fancied Monaco, who currently reside fourth in Ligue 1.

England’s Europa League representatives fared little better, with the only victory courtesy of Everton cruising past a relatively weak Young Boys side. Spurs and Liverpool—the latter in the competition after failing to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages—both crashed out.

This latest blow to the Premier League’s European credentials deserves further scrutiny. Of course, there is the argument that it was simply a bad week in the office. All of the losing sides still have much to play for in the league.

However, that doesn’t square with the recent poor record in the Champions League. Between 2004/05 and 2008/09, there was a Premier League side in every final, with the 2007/08 contest being an all-English affair. Since then, there have only been two Premier League finalists.

There’s no coincidence that these respective periods coincide with two distinct Premier League eras. The run of five straight finals was the culmination of collective strengthening among the top four that had been building for years.

Between Manchester United’s appearances in the 1999 final (the last before the run of five in a row) and that of 2009, the top four had mainly consisted of the same four teams—Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and United.

This had a two-fold effect on the English teams in Europe. First of all, they were aware that their status as Champions League qualifiers was under relatively little threat. The exploits of Everton, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton and others—teams which struggled to scrape together meagre transfer funds—demonstrates the gulf in financial clout at the time.

This allowed the big clubs to throw more at the competition, safe in the knowledge that the potential sacrifice of league form was a chance well worth taking.

The top four has been altered primarily by the introduction of Manchester City to the mix, with Tottenham also repeatedly threatening. Those at the top can no longer afford to rest on their laurels.

Secondly, the complete domination of the league by the four teams allowed them to effectively pool talents and build squads of increasing quality. In those days, if a premier star was coming to the Premier League, realistically he would be choosing from one of four destinations.

Fast forward to the present, and the landscape is vastly different. Even bottom-of-the-table Leicester, who look to be making a rapid return to the Championship and aren’t in fantastic financial shape, have been able to spend £17 million on a pair of strikers this season—a far cry from clubs relying on free transfers and loans just a few years ago.

This increased competitiveness has played a major role in hobbling the Premier League’s effectiveness on the European stage. In the years since 2009, the Champions League has been dominated by Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, all of whom find themselves in a financially and competitively advantageous position in their respective leagues, similar to the Premier League’s top four of yesteryear.

However, whether this is a truly bad thing or not is a different matter. While the cachet of the league may have been weakened, using European cups as a barometer of strength doesn’t take into account the strength of around two-thirds of the league.

If European success comes at the cost of giving smaller teams a fighting chance in England, it’s a price worth paying.