English elite football clubs will have to tighten their belts

THE ENGLISH Premier League (EPL), the world’s wealthiest domestic football competition, has just survived a nasty scare. The short-lived European Super League (ESL), all within a few days in April, would have been disastrous for it, threatening the source of its remarkable ascent: a huge increase in the value of its broadcasting rights. If attention had switched to the midweek ESL, the league would have struggled to command such big fees for its matches; and the windfalls given to the six English teams that were among the 12 ESL founding members would have further weakened the EPL’s power over them. But the ESL’s collapse is not the end of the Premier League’s troubles.Its domestic broadcasting contracts are up for renewal. This used to be a chance to extract even more money from its partners. Yet the broadcasting market has softened so much that the EPL has for the past few years been in commercial retreat, and appears to be facing its stiffest test yet. So much so that this year it has asked the government for permission to abandon the auction process that has proved such a lucrative way of distributing broadcasting rights, in favour of rolling over its existing contracts on the same terms.