Early in the coronavirus pandemic, as the country went into lockdown, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, demanded that, in the spirit of social solidarity, Premier League footballers should take a pay cut. Top-flight football operates as a rapacious meritocracy; it is one of the purest manifestations of free-market, winner-takes-all globalisation. Until the present crisis, the elite clubs’ business model was founded upon the complacent expectation of ever-rising television rights deals from home and overseas markets, as well as ripping off football supporters, who are considered to be a “captive market”. Premier League footballers, because of their spectacular wealth and ostentatious lifestyles, their sleeves of tattoos and body-narcissism, make an easy target for a cocksure politician such as Hancock.
The game’s global popularity and considerable soft power attract the covetous desires of acquisitive plutocrats, oligarchs and Gulf autocrats – Saudi Arabia is the latest nation state that wants to own a Premier League club. It lavishly rewards the best players and their agents, and in recent years has become largely colour-blind: if a player is good enough, no matter where he is from in the world, he will play and be paid what the market rate commands.
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