FA Premier League - Has it worked ?

[RailwayRowdy]

The 1992/3 season saw the advent of the infant FA Premier League.

 

Brainchild of the benal Graham Kelly, it was seen as a new dawn for English football. But as it helped or hindered the game in general ?

 

Football in this country was at an all time low after those appalling scenes at Hillsborough in ‘89. It could only get better. Couldn’t it ?

 

We have now had 26 completed seasons of the PL. In that time there have been only 6 different winners, whereas in the previous 26 under the old system there were 9 different winners.

 

The FA Cup in the PL era has had only 8 different winners, whereas in the 26 years before the PL inception, a staggering 15 different sides lifted the trophy.

 

Leicester’s triumph in the league and Wigan’s in the Cup give us a small glimmer of hope, but has finance finally taken control of our national game ?

[blackdog]

Yes......................

[Brown Edge Normski]

Yes, to the detriment of clubs like Vale. The dream has gone, it went a long time ago.

[pjg1876]

Best league in the world - so we are told often enough. So often, in fact, that most people believe it. It always make me smile when I am watching a quiz programme on TV such as 'Pointless' that the contestants only think that there are about 25 clubs in the UK in total. Unless the club has been in the Premier League for most of its 26 years, people don't know them. I've even seen Stoke be a pointless answer, but then again thinking about it!

[Smugsy]

The ambition of the Premier League was for it's members to get richer and richer and consequently not care a jot about it's impact on other clubs. It's achieved it's ambition and thensome .

[philpvfc]

Huge success, it has certainly moved away from a working mans sport, it has helped the Championship as well but the lower leagues have suffered. I think Sky has been a bigger contributor to its success than anything else though.

[Trampilot]

"Central to the continued progress of the Premier League, and the wider English game, is the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), which was produced by the Premier League after consulting representatives of the Football League and the FA.

 

The EPPP is a long-term plan that promotes the development of a world-leading Academy system, with the aim of producing more, and better, Home Grown Players."

 

For the Premiership and FA. Massive success.

 

For everyone else - failure. 26 years they've had. A quarter of a century. We've all seen the quality of some of these top flight academy players and they've been largely useless. Often they reach 23 still having failed to play a single senior match. They may have wasted the most important part of their career picking up a salary and sitting on their backsides rather than actually playing football for a living. The Premiership vacuums up all the noted talent in an area leaving other clubs struggling. I honestly think some of these players would be better off playing 200 games in the lower leagues before they reach 25 and then getting picked up. They'd have a proper professional understanding of the game with real match experience.

 

I've also seen a dearth in what you could call "natural talent". Players that often played with an instinctive talent. There were loads of players around in the 80s and 90s with tricks and styles that were recognisable. Now all the youngsters seem to be coached the same way and any sort of individuality or unpredictability has been drilled out.

[For Us All]

Yes,for those who manage to get there.

[For Us All]

The PL combined revenues of £5.3billion in 2017 made up 27% of the entire cash of all the teams in Europe's top divisions.

Also in 2017,the seven PL sides in the Champions and Europa League shared £291m which was more than any other country.

[TJHValiant]

It has worked if you get there. Even the clubs that get there and go down like Bradford, Still have the legacy of decent stadium developments from the money is brought.

 

For us it makes the gap look even bigger. When we were a championship club, I remember we had a very nice ground by the standards even before the Lorne Street was developed.

 

Today of course it looks about average for even league 1 level.

[RailwayRowdy]

The PL combined revenues of £5.3billion in 2017 made up 27% of the entire cash of all the teams in Europe's top divisions.

Also in 2017,the seven PL sides in the Champions and Europa League shared £291m which was more than any other country.

 

A financial success undoubtedly. But has the standard of the league improved ?

 

In 26 seasons since the PL inception, England have had only 4 Champions League wins, while Spain have had 11 ! Even Italy lead us with their 5 wins.

 

A financial success I agree, but I’m not convinced that the obscene amounts of money paid to players is necessarily transferred to a better product on the pitch.

[For Us All]

Looking at the current table the gap between the top six and the rest is getting even wider with the seventh placed team Watford eleven points behind.