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.

I don’t know if anyone else has thought about this, or whether I miss some sort of a culturally coded message here, but to me it seems that the Trinidad &Tobago shirts in this World Cup are not really optimistic. Or, do also you think that it really looks like they would be wearing ropes around their necks?

Everyone’s favourite weird news channel Ananova reports about a 94-year old German lady who was pronounced medically dead only to spring back up a moment later and ask when Germany’s next match was going to be.

When she was told about her death, she replied “Not likely, not until I see if Germany wins the World Cup. There’s still life in these old bones yet, and I certainly couldn’t miss the football.”

The latest addition to this year’s RoboCup, the robotic equivalent of the World Cup, is a pair of robot commentators.

There is a fun description at BBC’s World Cup 2006 blog of Brazil’s final training session before their World Cup campaign begins. Writes Nigel Adderley:

“On the evidence of their final training session here at the Olympic Stadium it seems incredible they´ve won two of the last three World Cups. It was a chaotic circus which was high on flair and low on any sort of organisation.”

And I suppose that is exactly where their brilliance lies.

They say that on average around half a billion viewers will tune in for each of the World Cup 2006 matches. Well, make that half a billion plus one viewers now:

Our cat yawned through the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica, and wasn’t much more impressed by the Poland vs. Ecuador game. However, on Saturday she occasionally looked at the Swedish players in their match against Trinidad & Tobago, and then was literally glued onto the TV set for the last 30 minutes of the Argentina vs. Ivory Coast game (and so was I!).

In the picture, you can now see her enjoying the first half of Angola vs. Portugal. She hasn’t indicated which team she prefers, but this game has really caught her attention. It is half time as I am typing this, and kitty basically just sat there in front of the telly through the first 45 minutes. Now she is taking a rest on the floor.

I wonder whether it is really good for her eyes, though. Well, at least it is fun for me to have someone to watch the matches with.

Update: The second half just kicked off, and the moment the action recommenced on the field, kitty hopped back on the bookshelf and started watching.

Update: It is 25 minutes into the second half, and kitty now jumped off the shelf, stretched, and curled herself next to my bag. She has decided to leave the match and go to sleep.

Update: 35 minutes into the second half, kitty raised her head, looked at the tv for 10 seconds, yawned, glimpsed at me, and went back to sleep. I must agree, the match is not that exciting. (If it were, I wouldn’t be paying so much attention to kitty yawning!)

Final update: It wasn’t the best game ever. Kitty is still sleeping, and I think I will go and do the same.