Has the Premier League killed English football?

Many of those who follow British football are of the opinion that the Premier League system, introduced in the 1992-1993 season, is killing football in England, and that smaller teams have more difficulty making it these days. The eternal sceptic that I am, I decided to look at the numbers.

England vs. other countries

Obviously, it would be great if they could come up with a working plan to at least halve the distance between the Big Four and other Premier League teams. But is the fact that this gap exists any different from what is going on in other countries?

Since 1992, there have been five different Premiership champions. During that time, Spain, Italy and Germany have also had five different champions. France has had seven, but Lyon has won the title for the last seven years in a row. There have been four different champions in Portugal (with Porto having taken 11 titles in the past 16 years), three different champions in Holland (PSV having won 9), and three in Greece (with Olympiacos having won 11 times in the past 16 years). In Scotland, meanwhile, either Celtic or Rangers have taken the title for the past 23 years!

Clearly, the Premier League isn’t in this respect different from other major footballing countries in Europe.

Then and now: Champions

If you turn your attention to looking at the English champions in the 16 seasons before the Premiership, i.e. between 1976/77 and 1991/92, the total number of different champions is six. Compared to Premier League’s five, this is again not a big difference.

Having said that, though, at least in the mid-90s there was talk that someone from outside of the Big Four could take the title — today, any such notion seems like a pipe dream.

Then and now: Small teams

Rather than looking at big teams, I have been told that what Premier League really is doing is it’s destroying any hope for smaller teams to succeed. Is this true?

To get some idea, I looked at the way teams are promoted to and relegated from England’s top division now and in the past.

If I count right, so far in the Premier League’s history 46 newly promoted teams have played in the League during the 16 years of its existence. Of these, 23 — or a staggering 50% — were relegated at the end of the season.

In the old league, during the 16 seasons between 1976/77 and 1991/92, altogether 48 newly promoted teams fought for their place in the top division. Of these, only 9 (19%) were relegated at the end of the year!

This does, indeed, look quite sad. And I think that this is where the problem lies — more so than the gap between the “really big” and the “big”, the gap between the “big” and the “not so big” has widened. These days, it is really difficult to break it into the top division — you have only a 50-50 chance of staying up for another season once promoted.

Of course, all this is something of a moot point in the case of my favourite team, Doncaster Rovers, who currently reside inside the Championship relegation zone. Sigh.