Premiership Football - A Road To Riches Or Ruins?

The Premier Divison can make or
break your side sometimes

The Premier Division, is the richest, most attractive and powerful football division in the world. This season sees the 19th season of the division. In this article I will talk about, is the division really a road to riches or is it a road to ruins of your club. Since its creation 45 teams have participated in the division.

 Over the years, money has been ploughed into the top flight of English football but this has lead to problems for many clubs, but great things for others. Bradford City, Coventry City, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd, Swindon Town, Oldham Athletic and Leeds United are just a few clubs to have suffered problems since their drop from the elite division. In reality, if you get to the Premier Division you need to stay there. Promotion to the the top flight is potentially worth around £150 million to the club. The play-off final in The Championship has become the biggest game in the game potentially, with £90 million at stake to be won, for the winner of the match, its dubbed the 'million pound a minute' match.

Wolves fans celebrate another season of
Premiership football

So what if, your club manages to stay up in your first season of promotion, that's great, fantastic news, you have established yourself as a potential solid Premiership side, you will then have more money to spend for the following season, more players will be attracted to you, as they see you as a much more stable club to go to, now that you managed to show what you can do. Take Stoke City for example, they have been a successful and consistent Premier Division team for many seasons, finishing safely in mid-table, they don't spend a lot, but get results, that's what matters, it works for them. They are,  a solid Premiership team who look in no danger of going down soon.

'The best trip weve ever been on'
Blackpool fans are going back to Burnley

But what happens if the 'best trip you've ever been on' suddenly becomes 'the worst trip you have ever been on'. Parachute payments were brought in by the football league to ensure that clubs did not suffer financial hardship after relegation from the top flight. These payments are not really enough to regenerate a promotion push, but they are there to help with the gaps in revenues, for example, TV money, lower gates, player wages etc. Not many teams can say they bounce back quickly from relegation from the top flight, only a select few teams come to mind, Birmingham, West Brom are two. By a quick bounce back I am talking one or two seasons.

Charlie Adam was a cruical player for Blackpool last season

The major problem after being relegated is keeping your key players, Blackpool have had this problem, losing several players, including Charlie Adam. Then you have to replace these players, with lesser standard players or anyone you can afford. With this comes the breakdown sometimes of the team, so effectively you are starting with a fresh slate, which is a shame. But if your side can stay up, there is a bigger chance they will stay together, but also staying up can mean losing your key players to larger teams. Its a horrible place to be in, being a 'smaller' Premier League side, the financial powerhouses of, Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc, can bully clubs into selling players and offering lucrative wages to their man. The club is of course forced to sell.


Sadly, some teams will never come back to the top flight for the foreseeable future after their glory years evaporated, teams such as, Oldham, Swindon, Barnsley, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd, Hull Ciy, Blackpool, will all face long waits before their moment of glory will come back to them, if ever. It can take years, or decades for clubs to find their way to top flight football, Swansea are a team who have waited over two decades to get back to the top division in English football.