Premier League must be very careful or the empire will come crashing down

Resuming the season is absurd and the ‘safety’ ideas are terrible, but whatever football decides it must decide together

“You eat alone, you choke.” During the years of plenty it became a habit to compare the Premier League’s wielding of power – always with a note of admiration – to the structures of a mafia family.

It isn’t hard to see why: the hierarchy of captains, the beautifully ruthless sense of unity, of a cartel of self-propelling interests. And yet the thing about mafia families is that now and then those interests start pulling in different ways. In mob lore breaking ranks is sometimes referred to as “eating alone”, with a certainty that bad things follow – and worst of all that bad business follows.

Continue reading…