Premier League’s credibility is being eroded case by case

Drawing an analogy to chemical doping in athletics, Matthew Syed wites in The Times about how financial doping, and the covering-up thereof, has infected England’s top flight to a damaging degree:

“[T]here is a growing crisis of trust in the integrity of the league. We have known for a long time that money counts in football; that a sugar daddy or sovereign wealth fund can take a club to places that ‘organic’ growth never could.

“But what we are seeing here is subtly different. It is the perception that rich clubs do not merely have the advantage of buying sporting talent but also the ability to evade rules incumbent on smaller rivals.”