English football's MASSIVE problem
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- On this week’s video brought to you by SBK, Ryan Dilks highlights a huge issue facing the future of English football... the widening gap between the Premier League and Championship.
But that's not the only gap we need to be worried about...
Could we end up in a position where we're stuck with a "Big 17" in the Premier League who constantly stay in the top flight?
And what can be done about it? Find out now
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Glad you brought up the growing gap between league one and the championship not heard many people talk about but it is becoming a serious problem.
UTC
Agree completely.
Forest are the only recent side to go up, invest properly and make it really stick.
But there's been revolvong door clubs for years. QPR, Wolves, Fulham, Norwich... West Brom.
8:00 I'm sure we all are happy to have less people to spread our wealth around to as well!
I wouldn’t say Wolves are exactly a revolving door club
It's an absolute joke, a championship club might as well sell everyone, field a Sunday league team for free for a season, save the money, then buy a brand new better team in League One for the season after next in the Championship 😂, parachute payments are a huge problem too
I've never agreed with the parachute payments.
Without parachute payments, the problem would be worse.
Clubs would be going to the wall without parachute payments. They are to ease the transition to a lower wage bill, but these clubs will in turn have an advantage over those without them
Blah blah blah I want other people's money
Lower the payments then, not hard.
Ipswich going from L1 to Prem is an anomaly. Most clubs who get promotion, go back down the next season. It either requireds big bucks (like my club, Birmingham), or a extremely well run club/infrastructure/savvy recruitment
Ipswich have spent over 100m since promotion and even then they’re still struggling. It’s impossible for a championship team to compete unless they bet their entire future
My club Forest spent more and had 2 years of relegation scraps, alot was said about the amount of players brought and money spent but we are starting to see that spending coming to fruition now, its also good to note that our spending pales insignificance to chelsea's spending yet we are currently above them
@@machump7776 the thing about Ipswich’s 100m spend, is that their model is to buy young English talent with potential - which will probably work out well financially, but I think they needed to buy more players in their prime to stay up
@@markwallis4866 and you bet your future. Very nearly didn't pay off but it did and now you reap the rewards. Most aren't so lucky
@@machump7776 Give them time - most teams in their first time in Europe end up fighting relegation, even a club like West Ham with a really strong matchday revenue. Forest could be in for a very harsh year if they do well this season, and if they sign a bunch of players to compete on all fronts, they may even flirt with bankruptcy again...
8:07 "I wonder why?" - it's easier to understand if you don't limit your analysis to England. The Premier League clubs want the money to compete with Bayern, and the clubs in El Toxico. Real and Barca each take over double what the fourth place team gets in La Liga from their domestic money. In comparison, the top team in the PL gets about 1.45 times what the bottom club does, but that means that they need big increases to try and keep up with the bigger clubs in Europe. It's a double edged sword, that spread is what keeps the mid-table teams in the PL relatively dangerous, but if they broadened the spread to something like 3.5 (like the Bundesliga or La Liga) then while the big 6 become more competitive in Europe, and the gap between the PL and Championship may reduce, the quality of the PL will likely reduce.
The rot starts in La Liga, but the biggest danger is actually the Champion's League which threatens to break just about everything. When clubs qualify, they get a sum of cash well above their domestic rivals, which helps them qualify over and over again (barring a disaster). It feels like every top division is becoming more of a closed shop with a few privileged teams at the top, and the PL is trying as hard as it can to retain that internal competitive balance. If you want to help the Championship, the solution has to start with the Champion's League, and maybe with La Liga too (ever wondered why the Toxico clubs are pushing so hard for the Superleague? They want to keep their dominance by getting more and more cash...)
As a Peterborough fan, I'm well aware of the Championship League One gap. 😂
Premiership is the promised land but as an Ipswich supporter I don’t enjoy anything about it . Amazing achievement for us to go up but all you are is cannon fodder for the established teams … it worries me what may happen to my club if we go down .
I am a Forest supporter, but I was really pulling for your team today against MU. I am still hoping that you will be safe.
If you can just survive this season, it will be a massive achievement, after a double promotion. You will be so much stronger and better for it.
Great video Ryan! I think you’re spot on with everything you’ve just highlighted. I think one thing you forgot to mention though is that attendances are much lower particularly in L1 & L2 because not enough people are going out and supporting their local teams and instead choose to follow a big six club further enhancing their greed. Whatever happened to being proud of where you came from and supporting your local?! We’re even starting to see it in the EFL now with the likes of Birmingham City under Tom Brady as well as Wrexham thanks to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney taking all the media coverage and making the racecourse ground a tourist attraction. Football’s lost its identity in this county thanks to all of these glory fans jumping the bandwagon and following teams just for their success rather than local pride
The best thing that could happen to Birmingham was us getting relegated. 17 players left and we signed 17. Thanks to our new owners the club is making more profit than almost every championship club except the ones with parachute payments.The lack of ffp has been great for us and hopefully we get promoted and invest in the summer and compete next season for promotion to the premier league.
Thanks again for taking Dykes 😅😂😂😘
There is ffp in league 1 but most clubs spending is very little so most likely never breach it, also consider that the EFL ffp rules are vastly different from the Premier league, every team in the EPL has passed this for this season but don't be surprised if Ipswich get hit next year if they do stay up just like Forest did
@@markwallis4866there is no FFP in league 1 mate
As a derby fan I scared about going back down because we don't have money behind us
I’m
yea, and even though we have clowse, we still don't have enough
As a Pompey fan, I just hope Wrexham, Birmingham and Huddersfield go up. We might get another weak season again in league one if we go down this year
Leicester, Leeds, Southampton, Sheffield United, Ipswich, Burnley the new middle 6 🔥🔥🔥
Burnley will be financially ruined if they don't go up this year. They are owned by financial investors from America and we know how that will end up.
Sunderland?
Oh I thought u meant the top 6
As an Oxford fan we have serious money behind us but we can not spend it because of the rules on what you can spend. I think we got promoted a season vefore we were actually ready. As a small vlub we will never be sble to compete with the top ten in the championship but if we can get points from everyone else we will remain a decent mid table side.
I certainly do not want to go to the Premier league. Who wants to see their side hammered every game?
I just hope we can survive this year.
Birmingham and Wrexham can spend the money to strengthen now before they get to the championship giving them an advantage over the bottom ten championship teams who have small budgets.
The divide was worsened due to parachute payments. That’s what enabled teams to keep their squads together more easily.
As a Huddersfield fan, I think my club fits neatly into your analysis. We had a brief spell in the top division because we were well run and ahead of the curve tactically with a foreign manager bringing in the relatively new high pressing game. We didn’t stay long enough to build up the financial resilience needed to become a member of the club and now we’re emerging from a period where bad running relegated us from the second tier and we find ourselves back in the third tier for the first time since 2012. And the standard of teams in this division has noticeably dropped, leaving the path clear for the relegated teams and the teams with foreign backers (Town are both) to waltz to the top of the table. And being in this division is allowing us to reset the squad and if we get promoted we will be better equipped to compete in the Championship, because our American owner was severely restricted in what he could spend last year, this year he can almost spend what he wants.
This trend towards the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer can be traced further back than the formation of the premier league. You could argue it began with the abolition of the maximum wage, was boosted by the Bosman ruling, was further boosted when clubs were allowed to keep their own gate receipts and was allowed to skyrocket under satellite TV.
The spending rules make it near impossible for champ teams to spend enough to build teams that can compete once they are promoted. I hate the idea of a regulator, it is a game.
The creation of the premier league spelt the death of fair English football. The money wins every time. How can a team worth £20M fair against a team worth £500M?
Its a neccesary death english team never fosters top talents in comparison to other European leagues !!!! Now cuz of TV deals and commercial presence in asia PL teams grew so popular despite always being in a backfoot in terms of quality entertaining football or developing young generational talents with fair and techinal abilities and such players still prefers to move to spain or Italy even germany over UK !!!
The money handed out should go down the pyramid like a staircase not with huge drop offs between leagues. If the premier league is unwilling to agree on this we need to advocate for it being scrapped and coming under the control of the EFL. With this we can also scrap the highly controversial anti-competitive parachute payments. As clubs wont suddenly see their revenue collapse upon relegation.
That’s was the whole reason they created the premiership in the first place. The Television networks knew that a 40 team top flight in all the European countries was watering down the quality of the game.
As a Claret I echo your view regarding the gap. I’ve accepted (and predicted) we will likely win the Championship (or come second) every 2 seasons and get relegated from the Premier League every 2 seasons.
Some longer term premier league teams don't even have 2 full premier league line ups of quality, as a palace fan I would say that about us as well
needs more coverage
good job
I’m a Saints fan. The most shocking game to me this season wasn’t any of the ones in the Premier League where we’ve been regularly teabagged, it was when despite being on course to be the worst Premier League team in history, we effortlessly walked through 12th place in the Championship Swansea 3-0. That match for me highlighted the gulf more than any of the games we’ve been regularly thumped in the Premier League.
As a fellow Saints fan I couldn’t agree more
Very true. You saw the same a few weeks ago with the hottest team in the championship. QPR played Leicester who have been awful lately and were beaten 6-2.
absolutely spot on Ryan!
I know it seems like there's a huge gap between the premier league and championship because the teams that have come up have gone straight back down recently but are individual reasons for each of those. It's worth remembering that the championship is in fact the 6th/7th best league in the world. There have been many seasons recently where the top 3 or 4 teams in the championship are actually better than the bottom 3 or 4 in the premier league so there's usually an overlap. The complete opposite to a gap. However, PSR will make it more difficult for smaller teams to compete going forward so a gap could open up. Now, the gap between the championship and league 1 is a completely different story. The gap is vast
We won the league one play off final in 2015 and if we were to go back down which is looking more likely than promotion I'm pretty confident we wouldn't even be top 5
Yeah I think it's fair to say there are certainly about 14/15 teams who simply won't get relegated without a points deduction.
The 3 newly promoted clubs are always at risk and there is currently 3 clubs who may fall into this yo-yo cycle. The clubs who may fall into this are Leeds, Burnley, Leicester, Southampton and I think Wolves and Everton could get dragged into this if they aren't careful.
I think there's a few funny ones too like Brentford, Fulham and Bournemouth who are all very good but have been Championship very recently and is a wonder if they slip back if they keep selling players.
It's hard to say, might have to revisit this video by 2030 and see 😂😂👍🏻
From America, let the market figure out who survives. Just like companies that are successful or go bust.
Bournemouth, fulham and Forest seem to be doing absolutely fine
Exceptions to the rule mate. Have s check on how many have gone straight back down even recently. Same 6 again this season just swapping places.
You failed to mention Forest Fulham and Bournemouth all stayed up after getting promoted and 3 prem clubs who was well established went down, you need a very good squad and spend wisely to stay up snd it's possiblepromotion now needs to be planned out in theory... unless like Forest where we went on a miracle run and wasn't ready and spent hugely. Parachute payments is a huge factor in this last time Forest was relegated this wasn't a thing and back to back relegation was a real threat after players sold
Forest literally had to cheat to stay up. Broke the rules to build a squad good enough to stay up and weren’t punished accordingly
@Bclayton126 we didn't cheat at all and if you still think that why aren't you saying the same about chelsea who's spent more.n bought more than we did. We only had 5 players in a squad that's not enough for any season.
@@davidmarchant9386 Because Chelsea didn't just come up from the Championship
@joewba so what's that got to do.with anything we was charged after 1 season a load of bollox. We stayed up so do one
The gap has just been highlighted in last week's Cup 3rd round results with some current in form championship sides getting absolutely battered by low placed Prem sides.
I think we all knew thus was happening to the gap between the Prem and Championship, what you've highlighted though is the similar trend starting to show between the Championship and league 1. It almost looks like Birmingham got themselves deliberately relegated last year in order to spend millions on their squad and why Wrexham for example suddenly had a squad fut for the championship while still in the National League.
It also makes me wonder why my team (QPR) with arguably some of the richest owners in the World, instead of just saving themselves from relegation season upon season, just haven't gone down gracefully and boosted the playing squad. (Of course it may mean that the owners don't want to spend their money).
Any team promoted to the prem would have to spend equivalent to what forest spent if not more which would put teams in danger of breaching ffp other prem teams are established and it would make it near on impossible to compete on an even keel.
The problem exists in the premier league as well. It really needs an independent regulator to take the power away from the premier league and give it back to football.
good content journalism Ryan
Why is there no salary cap then???
Blues Fan here league 1 teams could in the future will now only be able to spend 60% of income generated (Being discussed) to try and stop what we have done which is legal at the moment for all the salty's out there, the problem i can still forsee is that clubs coming down with big incomes like Blues with 18,300 season ticket holders etc can still sell and purchase new players with in the new limit, also seeing half the attendances that go to league 1 Games they will still find it difficult to progress.
Thanks ☮ for your excellent analysis, all you say is correct. In reality, a rather sad situation, and quite boring when it is the same clubs yo yoing between the divisions. Best wishes for 2025
You are talking shite mate about selling. Burnley the week before the season started sold 20 of their best players with premiership experience.Brought in 16 lesser players but have been out standing.
Gap is still enormous
Burnley's record over the last few years actually prove the case. They've not had the same injection of owners money that some have had so they have not gone overboard with marquee signings and sell smartly. They've taken regular relegation from the Prem as a matter of course (obviously they want to stay up but don't treat relegation as a disaster) and used parachute payments wisely to get back up again. In that respect they are one of the best financially run clubs in the country. So, they've had a big turnover of players but I would bet your latest squad isn't less outstanding, just cheaper, and when the time comes, some will sold on for profit, not loss.
And will go straight back down 26/27
Don't think the gulf is that big between league one and the championship. Wycombe, Birmingham and Wrexham could all do well enough next season, should they get promoted. The rest aren't good enough tho.
Derby stay up this season imo, and Pompey+Oxford have a good chance of staying up also. Even if they get relegated, they were never hopelessly bad.
Those three might actually prove the point about a gulf between League One and the Championship since two of those (Wycombe and Birmingham) were Championship clubs last year and thus aren't far off Championship level and Wrexham are a fluke - We're not likely to see another Wrexham story in the near future, are we? - caused by the fact that they have had massive financial investment.
In addition I'm not as confident as you that all three of Derby, Oxford and Portsmouth have a good chance of staying up, given that both Derby and Portsmouth are in the relegation battle and Oxford, who have got as far as they have in the Championship this season on the strength of their home record so far have home games against Sheff Utd, Leeds United and Sunderland - 3 of the Championship's top 4 - to play in April so they could still be dragged back into the relegation battle.
Get rid of FFP. They need better TV money. Should the Championship become EPL 2? Then level 3 The Championship, Level 4 League One. Too many games in the Champions league with the new format.
This myth that "any team " could win the league before the prem era is a load of crap. I am 56, and the only time I can remember winning the league by a "none big club" to coin a phrase ...was Nottingham Forest, Blackburn, and Leicester. What's new about elite clubs and the biggest division getting all the money and attention ......NOTHING
Why are spurs in this so called big 6. Constantly under achieving
Gap between EPL and Championship still smaller then top 3 laliga with the rest of thier league.
Massive?
Wage caps for each league. Larger distribution of TV rights money. A franchise system ala the NFL.
Eww no, just more equitable revenue distribution throughout the leagues. The massive football pyramid, unique to the English system gives the Premiership such strong foundations, without funnelling the money down, will just mean a sterile and predictable situation as mentioned in the video.
Luton doing their best to disprove this 😂
We all know why. It's because ot TV revenue. Premier League cats alot of cash flow from Sky Sports and Amazon. Meanwhile barely any games are telivised for championship teams and other leagues below. Most team a relying on streaming their own games with their own commentary teams but most people don't want to pay £20 or something stupid when they can get illegal streams online. That's why there's less revenue and a bigger gap between premier league and championship. Also premier league relegation teams get a hefty parachute bonus that means they're finally better off that all of the other teams in the championship which likely means and has been the case for most years that the relegated teams go straight back up the next year
Probably a bit exaggerated, but there is an element of truth in this at the present time. But it might change.
The prem should be expanded to 30 teams
you know what else is massive?
BIG 6???? what the hell is that?
Too much money in the sport
Spend more and finish higher is all the sport is now
Decent video, but switched off when it became clear that you have a gambling sponsor. Do better.
Yes let’s get the government involved in football…they have such a good track record thus far…they’ll probably blame the Tories for the inequities in football….Plus, don’t forget it was only two season ago that ALL of the three teams promoted to the PL stayed up and remain in the PL.
Forest are second…
And they got there by spending millions that most clubs don't have - and breaking ffp regs in doing so. In short, they did it by cheating - so the question becomes (post COVID) is it possible within the rules. If seems not.
Good answer.
@@ianlayton6949 Forest not selling Brennan Johnson to Brentford for £25m (thereby passing PSR) and instead getting £50m from Spurs later in the same transfer window = cheating. They broke sustainability rules by making a sustainable decision. Should've been automatically relegated for that instead, right?
Newcastle, Villa, Chelsea etc all sold homegrown players (like Brennan Johnson) for *inflated* fees before the PSR deadline last summer. They passed the arbitrary deadline that is placed in the middle of the transfer window for no explicable reason, though, so they didn't cheat like dirty Forest.
Skill issue
I feel like Tottenham will stay in championship.
You know what else is massive ?
Simple solution: Newley promoted teams have a one year exemption from relegation.
do you know what else is MASSIVE?
That Leicester team is nowhere near the worst the Premier League has seen, give over 😂
Nope that belongs to Derby at least for now as Southampton look like they're giving it a good go to be worse 😂
English teams are way too overrated plays soft football these days , has no top talents or individual brilliance in comparison to itallian and Spanish leagues and last but not least english fans treats immigrant fans like s**t unlike other European countries despite contributing a lot in terms of commercial revenues but must always be okey with being treated as outsiders !!! So I'll root for Spanish and Italian teams over english teams any day 😤😤😤
Capitalism meets football
Do better
Foreign players shouldn’t play in English leagues. It should only be English players, like it use to be.
Terrible idea. No Henry. No Cantona. No Salah.
@ and? Great players, but where’s your level of patriotism, unless of course you’re not English, which would make sense. The right to play professional football in your own country should be upheld above all else. When they say it’s an English team in the Champions League……. Owned by Arabs and got one English player on the team, YEAH that’s an English team isn’t it. Let them players play in their own country.