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Most agree Mohamed Salah’s future will be in the Premier League at Anfield, but what if he were to decide otherwise? - Paul Ellis/AFP
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.
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Erling Haaland’s long-term contract with Manchester City is now all-encompassing and he is the Premier League’s most famous face - Martin Rickett/PA
Financial controls have maintained the Premier League’s competitiveness and they have changed the model of the kind of players for whom clubs are searching. Every year at least one club cracks it and this season the trading trophy looks destined for Bournemouth. Even for the biggest clubs, there is a disincentive to chase the biggest names in the world for huge fees and contracts when their value will melt away every year on the books in amortisation costs. Neither is there a resale value at the end of it all. Those players are all cost. For clubs like Bournemouth, there has never been any question that a Dean Huijsen or a Milos Kerkez is a much better option. Now that seems the same for the biggest clubs too.
One must also note that for decades it was Manchester United who contributed more than any other to the superstar quotient in the Premier League – and now are a club more likely to incinerate a reputation than enhance it. Bruno Fernandes is nobly fighting that trend but this single club’s plunge from power can hardly be ignored when it comes to the big question.
Every show needs its headliners. As Kevin De Bruyne heads towards retirement, Harry Kane is outside the Premier League and with Jude Bellingham never having played a minute in it – who are the faces of the league beyond Haaland and Salah? There is the long-term injured Rodri, the Ballon d’Or winner whose absence from the game has come, unfortunately, just as his star should be at its highest. The same goes for Bukayo Saka, the foremost English talent in the league, out since Christmas. There is a great opportunity for those players at the next tier, including the likes of Alexander Isak, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard.
As all of them know, it is the consistency that has set apart the likes of Salah and De Bruyne – and now Haaland – over the years. A tough act to follow.
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Arsenal striker Bukayo Saka is the foremost English talent in the Premier League but has been out injured since Christmas - Adrian Dennis/AFP
By contrast, the supremacy of the sporting director – those men charged with defining the course of clubs and shaping the strategy of recruitment – has never felt more complete. They seem as important as the manager in this era. The arrival of Andrea Berta at Arsenal, as the replacement for Edu Gaspar, will be the story of the club over the next 12 months. Can he finesse the squad this summer into one capable of winning the Premier League? And if he does, will he take as much credit as Mikel Arteta?
At Tottenham Hotspur, Daniel Levy seems so wedded to the idea of Fabio Paratici that not even the Serie A scandal which earned the Italian his ban from football seems to have discouraged the Spurs chairman from potentially calling on his expertise in some capacity in the future. The sporting directors and the architecture of multi-club chief executives above them, the owners with data-analysis companies – all of it has become a fundamental part of the debate. As well as Berta there is Monchi – aka Ramón Rodríguez – at Villa where he and Unai Emery wield huge influence. Hugo Viana is soon to arrive at Manchester City. Perhaps it is these men, vying with one another for the best talent, trading academy players, wrangling budgets, who may emerge – at the very least – as the equals of the coaches who pick the teams.
But the movie, so to speak, still requires its stars.
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