It’s getting to be a bit much now. On Friday, Newcastle bought striker Alexander Isak for £60 million. On Saturday, Manchester United presented a bench worth 300 million pounds, and are now said to have submitted a bid for winger Antony worth 85 million pounds. Nottingham Forest today signed full-back Renan Lodi, the team’s 18th signing of the summer, and have now spent £130m since their promotion to the Premier League in May. The rest of Europe? They look on in despair. No one can compete with the money of the English teams, who live on a separate planet. And this is detrimental to top football as a whole. Water in money This was precisely what was to be avoided. When the Superliga was launched last year, many feared that a handful of rich teams would destroy the balance of power in European football. Many have since observed that the Premier League has done this anyway. This has become even more obvious this summer, when English teams have broken their own transfer record, including with purchases such as Erling Braut Haaland, Darwin Núñez and Casemiro. The league is richer and more popular than ever. The Premier League has become a super league in sheep’s clothing. Casemiro is a new addition to the Premier League. Photo: HANNAH MCKAY / Reuters It is now creating an inflation in the market that no one else can live with. Among the 10 teams that have spent the most money this summer, according to the website Transfermarkt, eight of them are from England. Chelsea reigns supreme. Behind them is Forest. The only teams outside of England are Bayern Munich, who are huge, and Barcelona, who are drowning in debt but have sold assets and future TV rights to bolster their squad now. Major institutions such as Real Madrid and Juventus are outside the top 10. Real Madrid have actually sold for more than they have bought. In many countries, the league champions can only dream of raking in as much money as Forest. The widening gap Why has it become so? Because so many people all over the world, including here in Norway, are willing to pay so much to follow this circus. The Premier League has become the show the whole globe loves. The Nordic TV deal with NENT, which started this summer, gave the league a solid price increase. Last year, the Premier League secured a deal with NBC for the US worth twice as much as the previous one. For the first time, the league’s overseas television rights are worth more than those for the UK. Where does this money go? To the 20 clubs, who spend them on players. The winners of the league get £178 million. Those who finish last raise more than £100 million. In La Liga and Serie A, the small teams get around £40 million. So you don’t need to win the Premier League to get rich. It is worth participating. Nottingham Forest are enjoying Premier League life. Photo: DAVID KLEIN / Reuters Including all revenues, the Premier League earned a total of £4.7 billion in 2020/21, according to Deloitte. La Liga and Bundesliga were at around 2.5 billion each, and Serie A at 2.1. – The Premier League is today further ahead of the rest than ever before, writes Deloitte. And this was before the aforementioned TV agreements came into place. The gap will become even wider. Rich wolves This has led to teams like Forest investing heavily now. They know that for every year they play in the Premier League, £100m is coming into their account. If the new purchases help secure the space, they will pay for themselves. What about the rest of Europe? They just have to give up. They earn so much less that even the best teams there struggle to keep up with clubs like Forest. The last season we have figures for is 2020/21. There, Wolves were in 17th place in the world in terms of income. This is a team that came 13th in the Premier League in the same season. Wolves earned more than AC Milan, who recently won Serie A. Only three teams in Spain earned more than Wolves. Two teams in Italy earned more than Wolves. One team in France earned more than Wolves. If you take out the rest of England, eight football teams in the world earned more than Wolves. Wolves have a good financial everyday life. Photo: MOLLY DARLINGTON / Reuters This has enabled Wolves to pick stars from big clubs in other countries. This summer they signed Brazilian Matheus Nunes from Sporting, a team in the Champions League, for £38 million. They have also bought winger Gonçalo Guedes from venerable Valencia. Price tag: £27 million. At the same time, the rest of Europe is bringing in the players the Premier League does not want. In 2021, Inter won the league with Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sánchez and Ashley Young. Now Roma gear up for the title fight with Tammy Abraham, Chris Smalling and Nemanja Matić. All these names United and Chelsea were happy to get rid of. The one big Cycle is unfortunate. The fewer stars Serie A has, the less the TV rights are worth and the less money goes back to the teams. It was not so long ago that Italy could offer big stars and teams that fought for the Champions League. Since then, we have paid more and more to watch the Premier League, while the teams there have used that money to bring in stars from countries such as Italy. Now Serie A is not even shown on Norwegian TV. And when the finances are out of balance, the results follow. Since Milan won the Champions League in 2007, Italian teams have reached the final three times. In the last five years, England have had six finalists. It all reinforces a trend where the balance of power in Europe is becoming more unbalanced. The Eastern European countries have long since been put in the shadows. Countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands find it increasingly difficult. We have long talked about the “big five” leagues in Europe: Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Now England has the big one, and then the rest will follow. For the other leagues, this is a tragedy. For the Premier League, it’s absolutely fantastic.
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