OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Life Gets Tedious Don't It?

If I hear anyone else pontificate about how exciting this season's Premiership run in is I will scream and scream until I'm sick.

Who, apart from United or Chelsea fans gives a toss which one of the World's richest clubs wins? Exciting? I don't think so. I bet anyone with a modicum of football interest could have predicted which teams would be sat at the top of table without a problem.

Keegan was right, the Premiership is boringly predictable and the only way that the monopoly at the top can be broken is via the mega-rich billionaires of the world buying into clubs and funnelling astronomical sums of money into them. Even then the more unfashionable clubs (Reading and Manchester City for example) will struggle to attract true world class managers and players as the gravitational pull of the 'big clubs' exerts its influence.

Ho hum.

So the Premiership becomes a three mini-league bore-a-thon whereas the Championship provides all the footballing excitement and truly is exciting.

But for how much longer?

As of this season the club that comes bottom of the Premiership receives a payment on a par with what the winner of the Premiership got a couple seasons ago. A cool £30 million give or take a few pence.

£30 million.

Now how will that amount of money affect the rest of the Championship? How are the likes of Swansea or Nottingham Forest or Barnsley or Pymouth Argyll expected to compete against teams that come down with a minimum of £30 million in their back pocket?

I think it will trigger another 'mini leagues within a league' as the Championship mirrors the Premiership with a top six or so of clubs that yo-yo between the Championship and the Premiership picking their hefty promotion/relegation payouts on the way up or down. Next there will be a mini league consisting of the Ipswiches, Barnsleys, Prestons and the like who float in the middle. At the bottom there will the Championship's equivalent of the WBAs and Watfords; constantly winning promotion and relegation but never able to break through to the top of the league on account of the gulf in money.

Depressing isn't it? It doesn't stop the fans dreaming though does it?

So, good luck to Stoke next season and let's all cross our fingers for Hull City who, not so long ago were fighting to stay in the Football League never mind fighting to achieve Premiership status.















Have a good un.