The Premier League has never been more popular but it has never had more problems | OneFootball

There was a strange feeling around some Premier League training grounds on Monday, especially for the modern game. It was one of refreshment. The sun was out for a lot of teams, and many players haven’t had a game for two and a half weeks. It represents the longest break the Premier League has had since the summer.

Such a gap would normally bring the same sense of refreshment to the actual games, but then this is also a strange time for the Premier League as a whole. Normally so used to being the biggest show around, “the world’s best league” last weekend witnessed the FA Cup bringing some actual storylines back to a relatively drab season.

That was something else that fed into the feeling at some training grounds this week. There is a sense of a season winding down, rather than building to a crescendo.

The title race is all but over, and Liverpool’s recent drop-off has raised a slightly unfair debate over their standard as “champions” and whether this has been a good season in terms of quality. Such races are just the way it falls sometimes, and Arne Slot has obviously done a fine job with a strong team. There are still issues for the competition related to what it is in 2025, and its very political economy.

As impressively defiant as Liverpool have been in ending Manchester City’s long run, it remains a problem that so few clubs can actually win the Premier League, and the wealthiest can just streak away in the campaigns when they get it right. The phoney conflict of the relegation battle has meanwhile brought more questions about the financial gap lower down the pyramid, all at the same time as there is ongoing debate about parachute payments.

Some in the Premier League would say that is circumstantial. Ipswich Town weren’t quite ready to come up, and could no longer avail of their deal for Brighton’s recruitment analytics just at the point when signings were most important. Southampton have had their own long-term issues. The fear is that there is a trend emerging, though, and more of the same teams are coming up and then going straight back down.

Premier League executives have still been most exercised about the forthcoming independent regulator, and whether it will be “light touch”. Some would prefer no touch at all. Two of the short-listed candidates to head the regulator, Christian Purslow and Sanjay Bhandari, have been at Wembley for major matches of late, but there is still a sense the eventual appointment could be a surprise name.

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The independent football regulator could change the shape of the Premier League (PA)

While a widespread Premier League view is that the regulator won’t address any of the issues they need it to address, and could mess with ones they don’t, it may be a blessing in disguise. The reality is that it is unlikely to affect any of the issues that make the Premier League so globally popular. The executives should maybe be looking within the league for potential issues there.

The independent regulator may instead serve as a lightning rod, especially when regulatory issues arise. The body would have no influence on cases comparable to the recent Everton or Nottingham Forest points deductions, for example, but an inevitable question will be how this happens with a regulator. The Premier League was criticised for “making it up as it goes along”, for not having graded punishments ready in such cases, but there is a fair reason for that. They don’t want such sanctions to merely become wealth taxes, where teams become willing to take calculated risks on PSR.

Some club executives are pointing to how Aston Villa’s wage-to-turnover ratio was 96 per cent last season, making their current Champions League run all the more valuable. Nottingham Forest have meanwhile been the story of the season, but you won’t find too many other clubs overly effusive about that. There are still resentments about their points deduction last season. This is the thing with the modern Premier League. Even one of its better stories has this edge.

It’s also fair to say that Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis isn’t necessarily the most popular. Forest now generally form a voting bloc with Villa, Newcastle United and Manchester City in Premier League meetings, which have become increasingly fractious. One senior executive says there are now just too many competing interests. It is within this kind of vacuum that Crystal Palace, Brighton and West Ham are said to now be among the most influential voices.

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Even the feelgood story of Nottingham Forest’s rise this season is tinged with an unpleasant edge (Getty Images)

The gaps can be seen in some of the discussion around the issue hanging over the competition, the sword of Damocles that might yet change everything: the Manchester City case. The club insist on their innocence. In the meantime, there are still some clubs who want them expelled from the Premier League if they are found guilty of the most serious of the 130 charges. By contrast, a minority are talking about “the need to come together as it is damaging the competition”.

There was some consternation over the weekend when The Athletic reported that Jaber Mohammed – who had previously been named as a mystery £30m broker in the investigated Etisalat deal – was a senior aide to Abu Dhabi ruler Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. This surprised those involved in the initial 2020 Uefa hearing, since the detail about his state connections was not revealed.

For Uefa’s investigators, however, it was sufficient to know the payment wasn’t made by Etisalat. City were initially given a two-year ban, a decision overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport due to key Etisalat details being time-barred. Although the accounts for that deal had been submitted inside the May 2014 time limit, the payments had been made earlier. The judges ruled it was payments that mattered by a majority of 2-1.

There is no time-barring on the Premier League case, although it remains to be seen what they look into and how. So little information has come out. The process has been viewed as very disciplined, and it certainly isn’t rushed. An outcome has been described as “imminent” for about three months now. Some believe it could yet go into the summer. This has baffled those with knowledge of the Uefa hearing, since that finished in a day.

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An outcome in the Man City financial charges case has been “imminent” for about three months (EPA)

If the decision comes out before the end of the season, it could have significant effect on the one major storyline left in this year’s Premier League: the race for the Champions League places. Even that could be diluted, though. The Premier League is almost certain to get five places, which would make the race less exciting. It remains possible, or even likely, that all of Liverpool, Arsenal, City and Chelsea could get back in – four of the old big six.

The Premier League could become a victim of its own success in that sense, which is how you might also describe the prospect of the world’s best league having no Champions League semi-finalists for the second successive season. Neither Arsenal nor Aston Villa are favourites for their quarter-finals against Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, respectively, with both English clubs having endured injury crises due to the intensity of their seasons. Liverpool also dropped off at the wrong time.

Then again, both LaLiga and Ligue Un would love to have some of the Premier League’s issues. Overseas executives look at its wealth with envy. The Premier League may be the ultimate illustration of modern football right now. It has never been more popular, but it has never had more problems, in part due to that very popularity.

It could certainly do with some good games being back on, starting with this week.