Opinion: The Premier League should grant newly promoted clubs a one-year amnesty

While the upper echelons of the Premier League have been something of a closed shop for most of its history, we're starting to see outsiders regularly contend for the UEFA Champions League places.

The top of the Premier League is arguably as competitive as it's ever been, but that has come at the expense of the other end of the table, which is now as uncompetitive as it's ever been.

• Ruud van Nistelrooy bemoans gap between Premier League and Championship following relegation

In recent years, Nottingham Forest are the only club to have made a real fist of trying to stay up, but the route they took was fraught with danger. They signed 24 players upon their return to the Premier League, and while there were a handful of free transfers and five players arriving on loan, the club spent the better part of £200m.

It was a huge gamble for a number of reasons; firstly, they could have been relegated, lumbered with more than a dozen players on unaffordable wages with a new squad rebuild needed the following season; secondly, the vast spending meant they were likely to break profit and sustainability rules.

While they avoided the first fate, just barely staying up, they fell victim of the second and were deducted four points. As it happened, the four points didn’t change their league position, and though they finished 17th, they had a platform to build on and are now challenging for European spots.

Although the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules have come under much scrutiny with critics suggesting it prevents ‘smaller’ clubs from acquiring the financial might to compete at the other end of the table, it does take steps to ensure that clubs don’t spend way beyond their means and jeopardise their futures.

However, it’s led to a league where the newly promoted clubs are coming up and being relegated without a fight, even accepting their destiny before a ball has been kicked.

Last season, Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton Town went down with 16, 24 and 26 points; this season, Southampton and Leicester have gone down with Ipswich set to follow.

• Lowest points tallies in a Premier League season

Leeds look set to be promoted back to the Premier League, and some fans are already remarkably suggesting Daniel Farke should be sacked; the thinking being that while he may have been the manager to take them to the Premier League, he won’t be the one to keep him there.

It simply cannot be that teams can no longer enjoy promotion to the Premier League. The anticipation of finally getting to rub shoulders with the big boys has been replaced by a year on death row, grimly awaiting the inevitable.

West Ham are currently 17th in the Premier League, while boasting a squad featuring Lucas Paqueta, Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen.

Crysencio Summerville was signed in the summer for £25m and he’s started seven games. Of course, his recent injury issues haven’t helped, but West Ham could afford to sign the best player in the Championship and use him as no more than a squad option; this is the gulf between the Premier League and Championship these days. It’s presented a playing field the newly promoted sides can no longer operate on.

It all goes to present the Premier League with two big issues: competitiveness and entertainment, and both could be solved with one radical measure.

One way to make the Premier League more entertaining, and to give the newly promoted clubs a fighting chance, is to grant a one-year amnesty to those coming up from the Championship.

With clubs guaranteed two years in the Premier League, they can make a proper go at survival; they’d have an extra year to acclimatise and wouldn’t have to worry as much about the financial implications of not getting it right straight away.

It allows for more planning and more stability, with clubs able to attract better players, knowing they’d be guaranteed two years of Premier League football, rather than a year of Premier League football before dropping to the Championship or moving somewhere else.

In an ideal world, you want to buy two or three real quality players but you can’t afford them, or you might be able to afford them, but you can’t afford their wages

- Roy Keane on Sky Sports

They’d also be forced to have a proper go at staying up; fans wouldn’t tolerate owners sitting on the extra Premier League money only to be on the receiving end of a weekly pasting for two years.

Regarding the other 17 clubs, it makes the Premier League much more exciting, and relegation suddenly becomes a prospect for a lot of sides. These days, clubs like Crystal Palace don’t have to do anything particularly bold to stay in the Premier League and they’ve been happy to finish in the bottom half of the table every year, keeping the money rolling in.

Since their return to the top flight in 2013, the Eagles have never finished higher than 10th or lower than 15th; they've never won more than 14 games or fewer than 11. A change to the relegation rules could see them take measures to keep their heads further above water and – who knows? – in doing so, they may find themselves in European competition.

Using this season as an example, the actual ‘bottom three’ would be West Ham, Tottenham and Wolves, with Manchester United only out of the relegation zone on goal difference, creating a relegation dogfight that would be more exciting than most title races.

Of course, it’s not a measure the established Premier League clubs would willingly vote through; it makes relegation for them more likely, denying them the riches that come with being a stable top-flight club.

But part of the thrill of football is the jeopardy that relegation brings, and it’s a jeopardy that’s being removed from the Premier League.

Liam Williams

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