Extract:
“The irony is that this is happening to Leicester, the club responsible for arguably the greatest season in Premier League history. The myth has always been that Leicester did not spend money to win the title in 2015-16. No, they did not spend Manchester City or Manchester United money. They did not spend as Todd Boehly has done at Chelsea. Yet for a club of their size, Leicester spent plenty.
But look what it gave us. This is a fabulous campaign with three clubs vying for the title, but it still isn’t Leicester. “Like winning the Grand National, on a cat,” as the comedian Mark Steel put it. Bayer Leverkusen are leading the Bundesliga this season from Bayern Munich and this is considered a feat, but Leverkusen have played 117 matches in the Champions League, including a run to the final in 2001-02. Leicester had not played a game in that competition, or the European Cup, before winning the Premier League. Their European record, in all competitions, amounted to eight matches.
And this is the club that the Premier League is now pursuing to the bitter end. A club that isn’t impoverished, that has been held up as the epitome of all a smaller club can be. This is who it seeks to ruin, as if relegation isn’t punishment enough. That Leicester may re-enter the elite with fewer than zero points is the greatest travesty. As the bottom of the table shows, it is hard enough to make the step up from the Championship. To start with a points deduction would be potentially ruinous.
The old Premier League was a more sensible place. Those parachute payments, for instance, are as much about coming up as going down. They represent a form of guarantee for any promoted club. Spend £40 million improving the squad and we’ll give you that back if you drop. And if you stay up, you’ll be making so much money that you can afford it anyway.
It was, in part, an incentive to keep the league competitive. Yet Leicester could arrive on the back of a fire sale and a points deduction. And they’re not skint, not in financial jeopardy. This is an artificial construct, another number alighted upon with a click of the fingers.
There is a possibility that one of Burnley or Sheffield United — two of the poorest teams ever to play in the Premier League — may survive this season, if harsh judgments are made against Everton and Nottingham Forest. Imagine that. A team loses 8-0, 6-0 and 5-0 on four occasions and stays up.”
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