Fans often herald the Premier League as the best league in the world because it has the best players, the biggest clubs or they even cite the financial haul it has for clubs. But is that really what makes a league the best, I guess that depends on why you watch football, for passion and entertainment or for the stardom.
Year after year in the Premier League the same set of six clubs are almost always guaranteed a top spot and you can go into their fixtures knowing the general outcome, discounting shock results, and, come on, where is the excitement in that!
Look to the EFL Championship, which I believe is a much better league, in the past five years the final top six spots have been taken up by over 20 different teams. Yes, there are relegated heavy weights entering the division each year to spice up the promotion race however, in the four previous seasons there have only been two clubs who consistently returned straight after relegation, they are Fulham and Burnley. This shows that aside from financial giants the league consistently generates different promotion-chasers each year.
Look at clubs such as Derby, who reached the play-off final in the 2018/19 season, they have since gone on to get relegated to League One over the next three years. The fact that the Midlands club, who were on the verge of topflight certification, now find themselves struggling against less respected opposition such as Cheltenham and Crewe Alexandra show that the division is ever-changing and as competitive as you can get.
Isn’t that what you watch football for? For the entertainment, the shock and the fact that anything can happen. Or do you watch to see a team worth nearly a billion thrash their opponents, whose squad is worth around ten percent of that, as they look set to achieve their fourth title in four years.
Some may argue that the Premier League is more entertaining because there are games like Tottenham versus Chelsea which are tactical thrillers, but when you look over a whole season, it is just so predictable. Only two teams outside the so-called ‘Big Six’ teams have achieved a coveted top four finish over the last eight years, one of these was the sensational Leicester City in their miracle title-winning year and the other was a Newcastle side who spent £185 million on players, buying their way to the top.
A case study that shows that the Championship is more competitive and therefore entertaining as a football league is Nottingham Forest. On the 21st September 2021, the Reds sat 24th, rock bottom of the league with one point from seven games. Steve Cooper took over and managed to lead the side to a fourth place and a play-off final victory, securing promotion. That journey from near League One to gaining promotion is something that you would never see in the Premier League as financial dominance of clubs make it impossible and that isn’t how football, a game supposedly for the working people, should be.
Many championship fans would die to see their team reach the Premier League but after a season in the topflight a large proportion of those fans will probably tell you that they preferred watching their team in the EFL because its more entertaining. Money has created an unbreakable level of dominance that it makes the league less interesting but in the Championship teams such as Ipswich can compete at the top after spending just £3m.
So, can you, as a true fan, support the idea that the Premier League is the best? Can you really claim it is entertaining all season long and that it is still a key sporting league rather than a business to drive revenue. I know my answer, but I hope you now realise that it isn’t really the best FOOTBALL league in the world.
