Power kills EPL interest

What does it say about the state of the English Premier League when even the vice-captain and crowd favourite of Tottenham Hotspur walks out on the club to join of England's big-four clubs?

Keane's $42.28 million switch from the North London club to Liverpool should send alarm bells ringing among those in charge of running the game. It is a major blow to those many fans around the world that would love to see the total dominance of the Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool come to an end.

But when the key player of the club that has finished fifth in two of the past three seasons and of the club that again showed its potential by upsetting Chelsea to win last year's League Cup decides to walk out on his club, it's not a good message sent to the rest of the competition.

Right now, with the way the competition is set up, it is simply impossible for any other team to break into the top four and share in the enormous riches of qualifying for the European Champions League.

And because United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool qualify for the Champions League every year, they continue to attract the best players from rival clubs, finish in the top four and assure their place in the richest club competition.

It's a vicious circle and it has got to the stage now where the best the other 16 clubs that make up the EPL each season can hope for is to finish fifth and maybe snare one of the two domestic cup competitions as Portsmouth (FA Cup) and Tottenham (League Cup) did last year - which was the first time since 1991 that both domestic cup competitions had been won by teams from outside the big four in the same season.

Keane, who in the past six years has become the idol of Spurs fans for his goalscoring, skill and seemingly unbreakable passion for the shirt, claimed in leaving Tottenham that he wanted to join the club he supported as a boy.

But would he have gone to Liverpool had they not been playing in the Champions League?

You can hardly blame a player for wanting to test himself in the game's greatest club competition but what will happen to the EPL if the dominance of the big four over the past decade and a half goes for another decade and then another decade.

What happens is fans begin to lose interest, crowds fall, television revenue falls and the game stagnates.

Already in recent years we have seen thousands of empty seats at matches at clubs such as Blackburn, Wigan, Bolton and Middlesbrough and who can blame the fans of those clubs for deserting the game when they realise it is impossible for them to compete on an even footing with the likes of United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea.

After all if Tottenham - arguably the financially strongest club outside of the big four - cannot even prevent its vice-captain and crowd favourite from joining one of the big four clubs then what hope have the other clubs got of competing in a competition already monopolised by the rich and powerful and one which is on the verge of becoming extremely boring for anyone other than United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool fans.