ONE year perhaps there will be a visit from the football gods and a team will fight their way out of the Premier League forest of also-rans.
Nottingham Forest did so, under Brian Clough 46 years ago, champions and then twice winners of the European Cup before they fell to the unwritten law of “your time’s up, pal”.
Even in the brief history of the Premier League, Blackburn in 1994-95 and Leicester City eight years ago were champions — then came that immutable law again and both are now residing in the Championship.
Wonders do happen. Manchester City had won only TWO titles in the First Division before, wading in a tide of oil money, they swept to the first of their seven Prem crowns.
It could, I suppose, happen to Forest Green Rovers, but I doubt it.
No, there are unofficial guarantees in the future of our league football and they are held by the presumptuously named Big Six, with one or two wealthy others knocking at the door.
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You have to believe, don’t you, and I do — that my team could be hammering at the door along with the likes of Aston Villa and another of the liquid-gold clubs, Newcastle United.
However, an elite section is not as it should be in the best possible world.
Despite our ambitions at the London Stadium, the people who run the game must at least try to bring more clubs back into the big-time picture.
Since the rebel rich blithely tried to join a European Super League and were scuppered by their supporters, the game has moved further towards the wealthier and successful clubs.
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So now the task should be to try to prevent the cliff edge that is forming, not between the top flight and the Championship, but between the top six in the PL and the rest.
Not an easy thing to do. European competition has ensured big money and world fame for the leaders.
The winner of the Champions League gets more than £120million in prize money alone.
Add that to sponsorship and commercial income and you can see why City’s turnover is £720m-plus, SEVEN TIMES that of a club at the bottom end of the table.
Being competitive is one of the reasons why the PL is the best league in the world.
And to prove just how exciting close contests can be, Arsenal, Liverpool and City are straining mightily to win the Prem.
But I wonder just how much more exciting it would be if, say, Brighton or any of the other top ten clubs were a threat.
Albion, however, looked at their bank account and sold Alexis Mac Allister, Leandro Trossard, Ben White, Yves Bissouma, Marc Cucurella and Moises Caicedo recently — a huge £291m worth of talent before any add-ons.
Last year, the Seagulls flew to a record Prem profit of £122m but I guess the fans would have preferred a place in the top four and all that brings.
No, there are unofficial guarantees in the future of our league football and they are held by the presumptuously named Big Six, with one or two wealthy others knocking at the door.
Karren Brady
But they are not the ones who have to balance the books.
All of those players have gone to the biggies, two to Arsenal, one to Liverpool, another to Spurs and two to Chelsea, a fact that says a lot about the disposition of the world’s best club league.
People everywhere choose our football for exactly the reason that no single club or clique is too dominant.
And this year there is a thrilling battle going on in the Championship. All too often the top positions there are predictable.
The transfer market signals how the football business has changed since the Prem was born in 1992.
Rarely now do the big stars remain at one club as, my older friends tell me, Nat Lofthouse at Bolton and Preston’s Tom Finney did.
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Today they would have moved and become multi-millionaires.
No blame to the modern players. But a little sad. Even Harry Kane moved.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
