Premier League maintaining parity

[Posh Ram]

A bit bored, so thought I might try and gather others' thoughts on this.

Leicester (and Tottenham, I suppose) have made this the most exciting Premier League season in recent memory, imo. Seeing teams not traditionally in the "Big Four" be at the top at the league whilst clubs like Man U, Chelsea and City flounder in mediocrity has been both exciting and refreshing. West Ham and Southampton have also challenged the Top Four and without key injuries (Payet, Forster) they might have been gunning for the EPL title as well. 

Do you guys believe that it's in the Premier League's interest to maintain this kind of parity?

I think it definitely is. Here's a couple of ways they might go about it imo:

1) Bigger TV deal - which is happening. Helps established PL clubs (likes of Stoke, Southampton) and allows them to potentially spend more recklessly, although it might widen the gap for recently promoted clubs.

2) A draft - feasibly, can't see any way of making this work. Seems completely unfair to make eighteen year olds move to the other side of the country and teams like Man City or Chelsea achieve their superiority through signing players. However, we could look at something similar to a "Rule 5 draft" (in baseball) - players who have been in a club's academy for three or four years and aren't yet in their PL squad can be drafted by other teams in reverse order to where they finished the previous season (i.e. the winners of the play-offs get first pick, then 2nd in Championship, then 1st in Championship, then 17th in Prem, etc.). This would stop teams like Chelsea simply stockpiling talent in their academies but then never giving that talent a chance.

3) A salary cap - seems a bit restrictive, we still want to attract top talent. Maybe a modified cap would work, with designated players like in the MLS, although I'd probably still be in favour of no cap at all.

4) English player quotas - nah, you're alright Greg

5) FFP - again, a bit restrictive, pretty easy to circumvent as well.

6) Playoffs - think these could work well. See the top 8 (or, more likely, top 4) teams qualify for a knockout tournament, with the final played at Wembley. If anything else this would be a massive money-spinner and lots of teams would still have something left to play for as the season reached its end. However maybe there would be too much cultural opposition?

Those are a couple of ideas that I've had. With the current sh*tstorm at our club I'm just curious to know what people think about the PL and parity, if anything it will provide some of us with a little distraction!

 

[ramsbottom]

The parity is good all round, makes things more exciting for the fans and it's good for the marketing department so it can keep peddling it as "the most exciting league in the world!!!"  However I can't see any of the above really working other than evening out the money given to the clubs.  Other than that it's up to the 'lesser' clubs to find ever more progressive ways to compete with the top four.  Leicester using those oxygen booths to aid recovery and reduce injuries to their first XI is one example.

[RadioactiveWaste]

Play off for the last champions league place might work. An English "Superbowl" type of thing might not.