But would this problem cease to exist without clubs propped up by foreign investment? No, not really.
Would a more level playing field help? Yes, yes it really would. Would a salary cap hurt? A limit on transfer fees? Actual penalties for not playing HG players, in the form of docked points and relegation. Would the issue cease to exist, probably not. The PL and Sky have changed football in this country irreversibly.
The thing with oil clubs is that they can let smaller clubs compete with the big ones and somewhat helps in not turning the game into a complete oligopoly and I'd argue that's even worse than the current situation..
Aside from not making a lick of sense, it's not even true. Oil clubs can let smaller clubs compete? Oh how generous of them. And how can the smaller clubs, your Chelsea's, your Man City's 10/15 years ago...how did they change their fortunes around so they could compete? I'll let you answer that one.
As for the state of the game... pretty sure most of us can agree that the EPL (and football in general) hasn't been this exciting in a while with 4-6 teams battling it out for the title. Other leagues might not be keeping up but there's reasons for that outside of exorbitant transfer fees. No comment on the lower leagues since I don't follow them.
Most of us? If you mean here then I mean ok but not really that representative of anything. If Neogaf is your metric for football fans I'd question that.
More and more people in this country are growing disillusioned with top flight football. It may be attracting more and more tourists but it's getting to a point where it's losing what made it so good in the first place. The strength of depth of the league system is another thing which makes English football so strong, and that is being strung up to die by money.
If you seriously think that the artificial growth of a select number of clubs has been great for english football that's super.
But it's created an unsustainable football climate. And no, it probably won't hurt some fans on here. Nothing wrong with that. They'll buy the shirts, stream the games and enjoy it. That's great. Maybe choose a new team in a decade or so if something does change. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, international viewers in a part of PL football now.
It's just that it puts a majority of english football clubs in a severe financial position and threatens the future of them. Hope you can see why that might be an issue.
And that's the last I'll say on that one. Apologies for clogging the thread.
Oh and Happy Birthday Bla.
