4th May, 2016
England’s rich clubs will dominate the Premier League for the next two decades following Leicester City’s title win, says Foxes manager Claudio Ranieri.
Leicester’s squad was assembled for £57m, the cheapest of any currently in the top half of the table.
“Big money makes big teams and usually big teams win. Now we can say only 99% of the time,” said Ranieri.
“Next season will be the same and for the next 10 or 20 years, it will be the same.”
The cost to assemble Leicester’s squad is dwarfed by that of the Premier League’s elite.
A recent study showed nearest challengers Tottenham had a squad built at the cost of £159m, while Arsenal (£231m), Liverpool (£260m), Chelsea (£280m), Manchester United (£395m) and Manchester City (£415m) had invested significantly more.
Ranieri suggested a surprise title winner only comes along roughly once every 20 years, pointing to the examples of Nottingham Forest in 1978 and Blackburn Rovers in 1995.
Forest won the league a year after finishing third in the second tier, while Blackburn, themselves heavily backed financially by Jack Walker, were champions three years after winning promotion to the Premier League.
“How many years after Nottingham Forest and Blackburn have another team won?” said the Italian. “The richest, or the team who can pick up the best players to make a team, will win.”
Leicester are owned by Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who spoke in 2014 of his readiness to spend £180m to secure the Foxes a top-five finish in the Premier League within three years.
Next season, they will receive between £99m and £150m in prize money as a new television deal worth £5.136bn over three years begins.
Ranieri’s argument, though, is other clubs in the Premier League still have more money to spend on players.
“Maybe now is too early to think what we have done,” said the 64-year-old. “Maybe in one or two years it will be easier to understand, but now it is important to stay high in the world.”