Originally Posted by
IBK
I agree that this is a logical end point of what we are seeing in the EPL. If every club is owned by a billionaire there will be a certain levelling up. I think the problem is that even the billionaires will not be equal. If you are a Petro State buying good PR then any business case goes out of the window, and spending is essentially limitless. But our owner is a billionaire who is more interested in asset building than success, so some billionaires will not be prepared to match those prepared to spend the most. The result? If you are state owned or Abramovich then you will be top tier, because you don't care about the bottom line at all, and everyone else will be an also ran. Similar in a way to where we are now. The question in the long term is whether non top tier clubs will retain support - because part of being a supporter is the dream of success. With a growing divide, the league becomes totally uncompetetive and I can see a long slow death for the game as we know it now.
Funny how in the most capitalist country on earth the draft top sport tries to ensure that competition is kept alive, but in the EPL we are now beyond this. I see two long term results of this kind of unrestricted investment - (1) the top tier sides break off into a new incarnation of the ESL which at least preserves the illusion of competition (even though its a closed shop), or (2) we enter into a kind of WWF situation where football is regarded as pure entertainmet rather than true sporting endeavor.