Welcome to the new Farmer's League! Man City's dominance and European failures have exposed the Premier League lie

The popularity of the Premier League is a masterclass in marketing. It is a perfectly packaged product that has been successfully sold to the entire world.

Rupert Murdoch's Sky played a pivotal role, elevating coverage of the game to a whole other level while at the same time boosting the income of clubs, but so too did the authorities by almost completely eradicating the 'English disease'. Hooligans were identified and banned from stadiums.

Lessons were also learned from the tragedy that was Hillsborough, which made it abundantly clear that grounds, and the way in which they were managed on match days, had to change. The net result is modern, family-friendly stadiums absolutely always packed to the rafters, resulting in an atmosphere that not many other championships can match.

The style of play also helps in that regard. English football is frenetic, fast and fiercely competitive. Every good game is touted as a 'great advert for the Premier League' and football fans all across the globe are drawn to its supposedly superior intensity.

Even when it hasn't always boasted the best players on the planet, it's still managed to draw the biggest TV audiences. The new domestic rights deal (2025-26 to 2029-30) is worth £6.7 billion; the last overseas rights sale fetched £5.05bn - a figure expected to rise upon renewal.

The money garnered should ensure that mid-table Premier League clubs will remain in a position to spend far more money in the transfer market than top continental sides for years to come, meaning an even stronger concentration of playing talent in England.

The Premier League's PR department now has a problem, though: the obvious difference between perception and performance.

Nobody at the Premier League can publicly admit it, but City's latest title triumph is a disaster for the brand.

For years, English football fans mocked followers of Europe's other 'Big Five' leagues, dismissed as 'Farmer's Leagues', utterly devoid of drama and depth. Paris Saint-Germain were perennial champions in France (and still are, in fairness), Bayern were unbeatable in the Bundesliga, Juventus reigned supreme in Serie A, while it was only ever Barcelona or Real Madrid who could lift the Liga trophy. By contrast, there were four different title-winners in England between 2013 and 2017.

Since then, though, only Liverpool have managed to finish ahead of City - and it took a record-breaking start to the season to do so. City have raised the bar so high that not even 97 points guarantees top spot.

One can obviously point to the fact that certain title races - like this season's - have, on paper at least, been close, that they've gone to the final day. But what does it matter if the same team always finishes first? Or if it's obvious who will be crowned champions before the season even begins. Even when there were three teams in the title race (Liverpool, City and Arsenal), nobody had any doubt over who would win the league.

Liverpool should have beaten City at Anfield, while Arsenal claimed a deserved and disciplined draw at the Etihad, but neither pretender managed to take the throne. Jurgen Klopp's revitalised Reds almost inevitably ran out of steam, with injuries eventually taking their toll on a revamped squad competing on four fronts all the way into April. Arsenal, meanwhile, were essentially punished for losing a home game to an excellent Aston Villa side in April. It was their only league defeat in 2024, and they only dropped two other points, at City, and yet still finished second.

It makes a mockery of the claim that there's a 'Big Six' in England, when it's really City and everyone else.

Because let's face it: City weren't even at their brilliant best this season. Kevin De Bruyne was sidelined for half of the campaign and Erling Haaland only scored 27 league goals as a result. The fact that they won the league anyway, after going unbeaten since December, does not reflect well on the supposed competition. Nor does the quite frankly embarrassing performance of English sides in Europe this season.

City obviously could - and should - have beaten Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but Arsenal's meek last-eight exit at the hands of the weakest Bayern Munich side we've seen in Europe for more than a decade reflected horribly on Mikel Arteta's men. Still, at least they made it out of their group - unlike Newcastle and Manchester United.

In the Europa League, Brighton did wonderfully well to qualify let alone make the last 16, while West Ham were unfortunate to run into a brilliant Bayer Leverkusen side in the quarter-finals, but Liverpool's elimination by Atalanta at the same stage, coupled with Olympiacos' dismantling of Aston Villa in the Conference League semis, resulted in England missing out on the extra Champions League spot that was taken as a given - and completely dismantled the idea that the Premier League is stacked with top teams. Remember, it was only last August that some people were arguing that Brighton would win Serie A, the same Brighton side that were routed 4-0 by Roma at Stadio Olimpico in March.

So, while many English fans are completely indifferent to City's sustained success, many of their continental cousins are revelling in their latest title triumph because of the way in which it's exposed the great Premier League lie.

Many Premier League followers have looked down on other leagues for so many years because of the supposedly superior excitement, quality and competitiveness on show in England's top flight. But it's an illusion, a figment of the collective imagination, pure PR.

Do the other Big Five leagues have their issues? Absolutely. There's a reason why so many top continental clubs are in favour of creating a Super League. They know they can't compete with the Premier League when it comes to commerce and revenue.

But not one European league has seen two sides suffer points deductions this season while its champions await the outcome of a court case centred on charges of such severity that it could render the past 15 years of play utterly meaningless. It's a horrifying thought, almost too terrifying to even attempt to comprehend, so no wonder that many fans would rather just not think about it.

Of course, City say they've done nothing wrong. They say that they have an irrefutable body of evidence proving their innocence. But it could be another year before a verdict is reached. In the interim, the Premier League and its partners will keep trying to convince their customers that this is a product worth paying for, a brand worth backing, a competition that's actually competitive.

It's an unenviable task, one only made all the more difficult by City's latest title triumph. Indeed, on Sunday evening, Richard Masters went to the Emirates rather than the Etihad. Not even the Premier League's CEO wanted to be involved with the inevitable City celebrations. How long before the fans decide that they want nothing to do with this supposed competition too?