Is the Premier League suffering from a superstar deficit? The question arises as the future of Mohamed Salah once again sits in the balance as well as that of his two Liverpool contract standoff team-mates. Most agree Salah’s future will be in the Premier League at Anfield, but what if he were to decide otherwise?
The great Egyptian is, so to speak, front cover of the Premier League tender for broadcast media-rights sales. That will not help him in his contract negotiations with Liverpool but it does speak of the wider picture. Who else comes with that prime billing? Certainly Erling Haaland, a man whose long-term contract with Manchester City is now so all-encompassing one wonders if they have first refusal on his grandchildren. Haaland is the Premier League’s most famous face – and the man most likely to feature on the subscription merchandising of every rights holder in the world. No little irony given the epic legal battle between his club and the same organisation charged with selling those rights.
Yet as the final straight of the season commences, with a title race all but settled – and the bottom three all but set adrift – the intrigue is elsewhere, the outcome of City’s 130 charges with the Premier League and the accompanying ruling on the associated party-transaction case. Neither of the last two Champions League survivors, Arsenal and Aston Villa, are favourites in their quarter-final ties. Were they both to be eliminated, it would be the second consecutive season without a Premier League team in the last four of the Champions League. The last time that happened over two consecutive seasons was 1993-94 and 1994-95.
Then there are the futures of Salah and Virgil van Dijk, for whom the smart money says Liverpool but who knows what twists might await. Trent Alexander-Arnold is now surely departing as a free agent to the superstar enclave of Real Madrid.
Does the Premier League need the world’s most famous players? At Real, superstardom is the club’s identity. They have accumulated more than any other club, through a financial model based largely on the sale of future incomes, its attendant indebtedness and an eye for restless big-name free-agent potential. Like La Liga, the Premier League has disparity of revenues between clubs but it does have a ratio of just 1.8 in broadcast-rights distribution between the top and the bottom which is key to the competition. One can argue about the relative strength in depth in clubs between the two leagues, and the level of match-day jeopardy, but in the end the market’s judgment is clear. The world’s broadcasters prefer the Premier League. They pay so much more for it.
