Since the English Premier League was created in 1992, 45 clubs have competed but only four have ever won the competition: Blackburn once, Arsenal three times, Chelsea three times, and Manchester United a whopping 12 times. The Scottish Premier League is an even more skewed tale. Two clubs, Celtic and Rangers, have won every title in the competition's history. Or consider La Liga in Spain, where Barcelona and Real Madrid routinely dominate. In the last seven years, only one other team has finished in the top two, when Villarreal came second in 2007-2008.(Villarreal just lost 5-0 to Barcelona)Success breeds success. In Spain, for instance, the 20 clubs in La Liga individually negotiate for television revenues in free market fashion. The predictable result is a feast for Real Madrid and Barcelona, who receive about half of the total revenues, while the other 18 clubs share the scraps from the table. In the 2009-2010 season, Real earned $190 million from television revenues, whereas their rivals Getafe received only a fraction of this amount - nine million Euros. Real's handsome bounty allowed it to buy the superstar Cristiano Ronaldo for a staggering $130 million. Ronaldo's contract has a buyout clause letting him leave Madrid - but only if another club stumps up $1.4 billion, or the GDP of Belize.
European football is a cut-throat capitalist world, where success is self-perpetuating. Clubs that win the league gain more revenue, purchase the best players, pay the highest wages, and then win the league again. In the same spirit of capitalism, the system mercilessly punishes failure. European football is based on a hierarchy of leagues with relegation and promotion. The worst performing teams slip down a division with potentially disastrous financial consequences.
Adapted from here
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