Ditch red tape to save Premier League

Stringent regulations were supposed to fix the finances of England’s best football teams. Instead, it has holding back clubs that could one day beat the best, writes Sidhant Kshetrimayum, 15, from Chatsworth International School.

How many Premier LeagueEngland’s highest level of men’s football. teams, apart from the Big Six, have won a Premier League title since 2014?¹ 

Only one.

What caused this phenomenon? PSR. 

In 2014, the Premier League introduced PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) to prevent clubs from incurring debtWhen you have borrowed money and need to pay it back. and make them financially sustainable.² However, PSR is now ruining our beautiful game. Here’s another damning fact. From 2022 to the 2024 Premier League season, Chelsea FC has been able to spend a staggering £1,132,500,000 on player transfers, more than double that of the next club on the list.³

This massive expenditure has been enabled by the broken system of PSR. While PSR was introduced with the best intentions and to help the league, it has over time become a system that stifles growth among other clubs that could challenge the status quoA Latin phrase referring to the current or present situation.. The last time a team outside the Big Six won a Premier League title was back in the 2015 to 2016 season when Leicester City made their incredible title run. Now, Leicester has been charged by the Premier League for breaking PSR.⁴ Everton and Nottingham Forest are the only other teams that have had points deducted for breaching PSR.⁵

The PSR system is plagued with problems, as multiple clubs use loopholes and workarounds to try and circumvent the PSR punishments. One method is amortisation, which was pioneered by Chelsea. Amortisation works by evenly spreading the cost of a player across the years of his contract. For example, a £100m player on a 10-year contract would cost the club £10m each year that he stays at the club. These problems with the PSR system lead to a usually predictable top half of the table, sometimes changed up with one or two surprise teams. As a fan, this leads to less competitive and less intense matches. 

As a supporter of Newcastle United, I was overjoyed when our club made it into the top four in the 2022 to 2023 season. However, we were close to breaching PSR, so we were forced to sell our star youngsters, Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson. The dominance of the Big Six with their already established large revenueIncome. streams leads to the inflation of prices. To challenge the status quo, we had to spend lots of money to buy quality players, which landed us our PSR struggles.⁶ This problem also exists for other clubs who want to break into Europe to improve. This restriction on the other teams allows the Big Six to keep their monopoly on the Premier League. 

To conclude, the only way we can revive our beautiful game is to pressure the Premier League to switch to a better system like the BundesligaGermany’s top tier football league is comprised of 18 teams and is ranked third in Europe behind Spain and England. It has the highest attendance levels of any football league in the world.’s. Everyone — fans, footballers, and anyone who cares about this game — can help save it before it is too late. Only this sort of pressure can solve this problem and make this game fairer and more enjoyable for all the fans of this glorious sport.

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Keywords

Premier league – England’s highest level of men’s football.

Debt – When you have borrowed money and need to pay it back.

Status quo – A Latin phrase referring to the current or present situation.

Revenue – Income.

Bundesliga – Germany’s top tier football league is comprised of 18 teams and is ranked third in Europe behind Spain and England. It has the highest attendance levels of any football league in the world.