A league

The higher Premier League clubs push prices, the greater the inflationary risk for everyone else. Chelsea might have the financial resources to pay more than ...

It has mostly proved fleeting and it has always proved futile, but it has helped a little to stave off the sense of dread inevitability. I’m not quite sure whether that last bit is boasting or a subtle message to Subaru, but regardless: Some Premier League teams, in particular, will put the full cash total down for a deal, often as a way of improving their chances of signing a player they really want. Bayern is on top, of course, with just a narrow gap to its nearest challenger, the remarkable Union Berlin. In almost every season, there has been a moment in which a challenger seems to have a glimmer of a chance. Or they could sit and watch, as they have for so long, as soccer fractures and splinters and breaks under the weight of all that cold, hard cash. All of a sudden, the Then there was [Laurence Stewart](https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/laurence-stewart-to-join-chelsea), brought on to act as a “technical director to focus on football globally,” and [Paul Winstanley](https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/paul-winstanley-joins-chelsea), the Blues’ Director of Global Talent and Transfers. But it is more immediately devastating for soccer as a common endeavor across Europe and the world. The clubs of the Premier League can see the players they want, the players everyone wants, and throw money at the problem until they get what they want. Vivell and Stewart both had connections to the Red Bull network of clubs, long regarded as one of the finest hothouses of talent in global soccer. In the gap between the summer transfer window and the winter equivalent, Chelsea’s owners set about hiring some of the most well-regarded recruitment staff that global soccer has to offer. The precise nature of the hierarchy is, in truth, a little confusing.