0:00 Does the Premier League's big six even exist anymore? Because if we're judging it purely by what happens on the pitch, I'm not really sure how you can say it does. Look at Manchester United. One season they are 15th, the next season third, and then back to struggling again. Then you have Tottenham who spent multiple seasons hanging around the bottom half of the table. In the 2024 2025 season, they literally finished 17th. The next season, they were saved from relegation on the last match day. How about Chelsea who have spent an insane amount of money under their new owners and they've still finished outside the top six multiple times under this new ownership. When people hear the term big six, I think they automatically assume that you're talking about the best six clubs in England. But that's not what it is anymore. The big six is Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tana. And
0:47 whether they're first, fifth, or 15th, or guilty for 115 charges, those same six clubs continue to dominate the conversation around English football. They have the biggest global fan bases, the biggest name. They also have financial advantages that just don't disappear when they have a bad season. Which means a club like Tottenham can finish 17th and still be called a big six club and spend a ton of money on new players like Matteas Fernandez and Sandro Tonali, while Aston Villa can finish above them, play Champions League football, and still be treated like they're trying to break into the big six. So why do the same six clubs keep the same label no matter how they're performing? To understand why these six clubs have
1:34 this label, you have to understand where the big six actually comes from. Because English football hasn't always had the same group of clubs sitting at the top. Go back far enough and the league was actually way more unpredictable. Hutterfield Town won three league titles in a row in the 1920s. Nottingham Forest won back-to-back European Cups. In the 1960s alone, seven different clubs won the English League. And the big reason for that was money. Before television completely changed football, clubs made most of their money from people actually coming to games. And there's obviously a limit to how many people you can fit inside a stadium. So even the biggest clubs couldn't financially separate themselves from everyone else like they do today. Then television money arrived and everything started changing. By the 1980s, English football had started developing its first modern group of financial giants. Liverpool, Manchester
2:21 United, Arsenal, Everton, and Tottenham. These became known as the big five and these clubs realized pretty quickly that they were the teams people actually wanted to watch. So in 1990, representatives from the big five met with television executives about breaking away from the football league. 2 years later the Premier League was created. And this is really where the modern version of English football starts. Now the successful clubs can use their success to make even more money. During the late 90s that created the big two, Manchester United and Arsenal. Sir Alex Ferguson against Arson Wenger. Roy Keane against Patrick Vieiraa. United and Arsenal owned English football. Between 1998 and 2003, they completely dominated the top two positions in the Premier League. But that wouldn't last either. Liverpool started pushing their way back into the conversation. Then in 2003, Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea.
3:08 And Chelsea suddenly had unlimited money because back then financial fair play wasn't a thing. They spent huge amounts building one of the best squads in Europe, hired Jose Mourinho and very quickly became one of England's dominant teams. So now we have the big four, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Chelsea. Now unlike the big six today, this label actually made a lot of sense based on what was happening on the pitch. From 2004 to 2009, these four clubs owned the Champions League places. You know, back when some of the best players in the world actually played in the Premier League. The only exception was Everton finishing fourth in 2005. Other than that, it was the same four teams over and over again. And this created a cycle that was very difficult for other clubs to break. The club gets Champions League football, they get extra money, they use that money to buy
3:55 better players, and then they finish in the Champions League again. And the cycle kept repeating and repeating until two new clubs joined the party. The first was Manchester City. In 2008, City were bought by the Abu Dhabi United group. And suddenly they had the money to compete with anyone. They started signing stars, built a completely different squad. Of course, now we know that these guys were literally scamming to build the foundation for the success they would have later on, which is a shame because some of my favorite Premier League players ever are from Manchester City. By 2012, Agüero was scoring that goal to win them the Premier League. >> VALENT STAGGERING JUST STAGGERING. >> AT THE SAME TIME, Tottenham were also improving. Now, of course, Spurs did it very differently. They didn't suddenly have City's unlimited spending power.
4:40 They built really good teams with players like Gareth Bale and Luca Modric. They made some smart signings and eventually qualified for the Champions League in 2010. So by the early 2010s, calling it the big four didn't really make sense anymore. There were now six clubs consistently competing for the Champions League. Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tano. And this is where the big six came from. Sky and other broadcasters obviously loved it because now every time two of these teams played each other, you could market it as some massive heavyweight game. So every other week, you had some sort of a big six clash. But then something happened. The big six stopped changing. If the label was actually about being one of the best six teams in England, a lot of these clubs would have lost it years ago. Manchester United are probably the easiest example. Since Alex Ferguson retired, they've been all over
5:26 the place. One season they're in the Champions League. Another season they're finishing 15, then suddenly they're third again, and then they're struggling again. There is zero consistency. But nobody stopped calling Manchester United a big six club when they finished 15th. Tottenham are an even crazier example. As I showed you guys in the intro, these guys finished 17th one season. Yet, nobody suddenly started saying Tottenham were a small club. I mean, I guess Arsenal supporters, but in general, they're not seen as a club outside of the big six. Nobody replaced them with Aston Villa. Chelsea had similar problems. Since their new ownership came in, they've spent a ridiculous amount of money. Yet they finished 10th in the 2025 2026 season. They spent so much money that they had to do creative accounting just to stay within the financial boundaries. Chelsea sold their own hotels to a sister company. They also sold their women's team within their ownership structure. All to help
6:11 balance the books. So clearly the big six isn't really about who's playing the best football anymore. And to understand what it actually means, you just have to follow the money. If you look at the club revenue instead of the Premier League table, suddenly the big six makes perfect sense again. In the 2024 20225 season, Liverpool generated around €836 million euro. Manchester City were at 829 million euros. Arsenal 822 million euros. Manchester United made around €793 million. And remember, United were doing this while experiencing the worst period in their club's history. Then you have Tottenham at around €673 million and Chelsea at 584 million. So the Premier League's six highest earning clubs were the big six. Then you get to Aston Villa at around €450 million. Newcastle were around €398 million. And that's the real gap. Tottenham could
6:57 finish 17th and still make more than €220 million more than Aston Villa. That's absolutely ridiculous, but it also shows you why these clubs can have a bad season and still not be removed from being among the elite. United can finish 15th and still have one of the biggest fan bases on the planet. They still have massive sponsorship deals. They still sell shirts everywhere. Sponsors still want Manchester United on the front of their product. Tottum are probably the funniest example of this because they looked at their stadium and they're like, "Okay, how many different things can we do here? NFL games, boxing, concerts, whatever makes money." So, when the football team is horrible, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is still generating ridiculous amounts of revenue. That's the advantage these clubs have built. If a normal Premier League club has a horrible season, it can completely change their financial
7:42 situation. Even during a good season, Villa had to sell players for PSR. Meanwhile, Manchester United can have a horrible season and spend another massive amount of money the following summer and try again. Now, television money has helped protect that advantage, too. The Premier League's international popularity has become one of its biggest sources of money. From the 2025 to 2029 cycle, international broadcasting rights grew massively, and for the first time, overseas rights become worth more than the domestic UK rights. Now, originally, that international money was shared equally between the 20 Premier League clubs, which makes a lot of sense. Everyone is part of the league. The biggest clubs did not like that. Their argument was that the guys in the USA are not waking up early in the morning to watch Bournemouth. I apologize if I offended any Bournemouth fans. I mean, you guys are way more entertaining than Manchester United these days, but that
8:27 was the argument from the big clubs. The big six believed international viewers were paying to watch clubs like United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea. So, why should everyone get the same amount? After years of pressure, the system changed in 2019. part of the international TV money started being distributed based on where clubs finished in the league, which obviously benefits the teams that are near the top. So, as Premier League football becomes more valuable around the world, the biggest clubs made sure they got a bigger share of that growth. And this is why the big six label survives even when the football sucks. They don't have to be the six best teams every season. They've built such a massive financial advantage that even when they fail on the pitch, they're still playing a completely different game off of it. Now, you would think having rich owners would eventually allow clubs like Aston Villa or Newcastle to be able to join the party as well. Villa are owned by
9:14 NASF Sawiris and Wes Eden. Newcastle are literally owned by Saudi Arabia's public investment fund. So, these guys are not exactly short on money, but they can't just spend it and that's because of the Premier League's financial rules. Under PSR, clubs are allowed to lose a maximum of £105 million over 3 years. Then, we move towards squad cost ratio rules. The idea is that if you're playing in Europe, you can spend around 70% of your football revenue on things like player wages, transfer amortization, and agent fees. For Premier League clubs outside of Europe, that limit is 85%. On paper, that sounds completely reasonable. Don't spend money you haven't made. Don't bankrupt your club. The problem is that it gave a massive advantage to clubs that were already big. If Man United make €800 million, they're allowed to
9:59 spend based on €800 million. If Newcastle make €400 million euros, they're allowed to spend based on €400 million. So even if Newcastle's owners have way more money available, they can't actually use it. Aston Villa are the perfect example of how frustrating this can become. They finally built a brilliant team, qualified for the Champions League, and then had to start worrying about selling players because they were getting too close to the financial limit. Douglas Luiz went to Juventus for more than £42 million. Musa Diyabi went to Allet Tahad for around £50 million. So, Villa finally returned back to the Champions League and their reward was, "Here you go. You got to sell all your best players. All the guys that got you here, yeah, they got to go." Which is why it's so difficult for new clubs to break into the big six. Villa can't suddenly build a 60,000 seat
10:45 stadium. They can't magically create Manchester United's global fan base. They can't immediately generate hundreds of millions in new sponsorship revenue. These things take years. But the financial rules apply right now. Newcastle ran into basically the same problem. When Saudi Arabia's PIF bought the club, everyone thought Newcastle were about to become Manchester City 2.0. Just start spending ridiculous amounts of money and eventually build a super team. Except the Premier League has rules specifically designed to stop clubs from suddenly creating massive sponsorship deals with companies connected to their owners. These are the associated party transaction rule. If Newcastle suddenly announced some enormous sponsorship with a Saudi company connected to their ownership, the Premier League can check whether that deal actually represents fair market value, which makes sense because otherwise owners would sponsor their own club with magical endorsement deals and
11:30 give themselves 500 million pounds out of nowhere. I'm looking at you Manchester City. But again, the result is that Newcastle can't quickly close the financial gap. Meanwhile, Tottenham already have their massive stadium. United already have this massive fan base. Liverpool already have their commercial machine. So those clubs don't need their owners to create new revenue. They've had decades to build it. That's why Tottenham can have a horrible season and spend over £140 million net in the summer. Villa can have a brilliant season and they still end up worrying about who they need to sell. And the big six have never hidden the fact that they want even more control. In 2020, we got project big picture. This came during co when clubs further down the English football pyramid were getting destroyed financially. United and Liverpool helped push this proposal that included a 250 million pound bailout for EFL clubs.
12:15 Sounds great, right? Manchester United and Liverpool being the good guys. Well, obviously there was a catch. The Premier League would have been reduced from 20 clubs to 18 like the Bundesliga. The Carabal Cup would have been removed. And most importantly, the longest serving Premier League clubs would have received much greater voting power. That would have given the biggest clubs enormous influence over how English football was run. they could potentially have more control over things like broadcasting and ownership changes. The proposal got rejected and then a few months later came an even crazier idea, the European Super League. Naturally, all six English big six clubs signed up. And the whole point was to remove the biggest risk involving these clubs, and that's missing out on Champions League football. Under the Super League proposal, these clubs would have had guaranteed membership. So, you could have a horrible domestic season, and it
13:02 wouldn't really matter. It's like the way the NBA and the NFL is ran. you'd still be sitting at Europe's biggest table collecting massive amounts of money, which tells you something pretty important about the big six. The most important thing for them is not losing their seat at the table. Now, the backlash for this was insane. Fans protested so much that the English clubs pulled out and the whole thing collapsed almost immediately. But the idea behind it is important because these clubs understand exactly how valuable their position is and they don't want to lose it. Eventually, all of these financial problems and attempted power grabs became big enough that the UK government stepped in. After a major review into how English football was being run, the government created an independent football regulator. By 2025, it had officially been established through the Football Governance Act. Its job is to make English football more financially
13:48 sustainable, make sure owners are actually suitable, and hopefully stop clubs further down the pyramid from spending themselves into oblivion trying to reach the Premier League. Because the numbers are pretty scary. By 2026, the big six accounted for around 56% of all Premier League club revenue. And once you go further down the pyramid, the gap becomes even more ridiculous. The highest earning Premier League club generates around 605 times more revenue than the lowest earning National League club. So, clubs are spending ridiculous amount of money to try and climb that ladder. According to the regulators report, 94% of clubs across the top five divisions lost money in the 2025 2026 season. A lot of these clubs are relying on their owners continuously putting money in just to survive. Now, the regulators can hopefully stop some clubs
14:33 from destroying themselves. It can potentially push more money down the pyramid, but it can't magically make Manchester United's global fan base disappear. It can't take away Tottenham Stadium. And that's why breaking the big six permanently is so difficult. Now, back to the original question I asked. Does the big six still exist? Well, I think the answer depends entirely on what you mean by the big six. Based on performance, they're not always the six best football teams in England, but financially they absolutely are. And that's all the term means nowadays. If you enjoyed this video, I'm sure you will love this one, too. Check it out right here.
