Kay's View: EPL and the Fall Of the New World Order

There is a theory called the New World Order, where in a nutshell, a group of very wealthy individuals will take over the world and be in control of all that happens on this planet. There will be no middle class, just elites and slaves.

Just for the sake of comparison, let’s make our world the English Premier League.

There are a select group of very rich clubs, or the elites, that have locked the top places in the Premier League for many years. These clubs are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea.

These four teams have the largest revenue both from fans, TV, sponsors, and advertising deals. With more money comes more “power."

From 2000–2010 only four other teams apart from these “big four” have taken the top four spots. These teams are Leeds United and Newcastle United (twice each), Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.

These “big four” are the teams that neutrals know about the most because of their constant exposure. The Premier League gives rights to its games for channels all over the world, literally. It is broadcasted to 202 countries.

Second tire teams within the league, teams like Aston Villa, Everton, Manchester City, and Tottenham, also have quite a lot of exposure, but nothing compared to the “big four."

They are mostly floaters that might hinder the top four teams from claiming glory at seasons’ end.

The bottom three teams of the league, or the slaves, that are going to be relegated at the end of the season probably get as much exposure as the second tire teams stated above. There is a possibility that the squads battling relegation may be more known to the neutrals.

I say this because the sides facing relegation are always the teams that act like punching bags for the "elite teams." Most times you can tell which sides will be the ones relegated after just five games.

Although they might not get the same amount of exposure in terms of watching them play on TV, they constantly get talked about on TV and radio more often than the teams lying in the middle of the table.

Seriously, can you think of at least five teams whose position lie in the middle of the table? If you did that, try figuring out in what position they are in too!

Hence the direct comparisons to the New World Order; the Elites dominating (big four), middle-class obliterated (mid-table of the EPL getting no exposure), and the slaves being abused (relegation fighters).

However, in the past couple of years the face of the EPL has changed. Gone are the days of the elites and slaves.

The gap between the top and the bottom has become slightly less. A reason for this is because more and more teams are adopting attack as their plan A instead of defense.

The five new sides that have been promoted in the past two years have broken the trend of old. They come to fight with some attractive, sometimes silly attacking football.

Burnley, Hull City, West Bromwich Albion, Newcastle, and Blackpool all started their Premier League campaign just as they finished their Championship campaign.

Of course Burnley and Hull City paid for this and later in the season adopted the defensive way of play; however their try was valiant.

Blackpool and West Bromwich Albion have had some thrashings this season. Both teams conceded four goals to Chelsea while Blackpool gave up another six goals to Arsenal. Nevertheless, they still play the same. At the moment Blackpool is in ninth place in the table while West Bromwich Albion is in sixth place.

Even the mid-table teams are getting some sort of recognition, if not always for the right reasons. Stoke City for example, was constantly in the news last year because of their very aggressive play. Arsene Wenger frequently called them out, just to show the world how football is not meant to be played.

On the other hand, it was only last year that a little English club from London that went by the name of Fulham, took Europe by surprise and was in the final of the Europa League.

So the era of the New World Order seems to be over, and for this reason we are watching one of the most exciting EPL’s in recent years.

There are so many unpredictable twists and turns going on this year, that it reminds me of those famous words spoke by Sir Alex Ferguson after his 1999 Champions League triumph,

“Football, bloody hell!”

Indeed.