Dull dominance of a few teams and glaring inequality are harming soccer

It's not a good thing that only a handful of teams, often the richest ones, are winning the major leagues throughout the soccer-playing world.

- By Mike Wills

Club soccer is a genuinely uncompetitive sport across the globe. Almost everywhere, the richest clubs are getting stronger and the poorer ones are increasingly marginalised.

In England, Liverpool have broken Manchester City's record-breaking four-season monopoly of the Premier League, but the Reds are scarcely disruptors - the two clubs have now shared the last eight titles between them. London's The Times recently did a Gini coefficient calculation which demonstrated that the Premier League had become relentlessly less equal since 1990.

Here at home in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) it's the same, only worse. Mamelodi Sundowns have cruised to their eighth consecutive crown, once again without breaking a sweat or generating any great excitement from anyone except the residents of Atteridgeville in Pretoria.

Most of Europe's big leagues all have serious problems in this regard - Bayern Munich have taken 12 of the last 13 Bundesligas; PSG 11 out of the last 13 French titles. Spain is a Barca-Real duopoly with very occasional Atletico Madrid interludes; only twice since the founding of the Portuguese league in 1934 has anyone other than the triopoly of Benfica, Sporting and Porto taken the title; ditto the Netherlands, where Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord utterly dominate.

Italy's Serie A is a standout at the moment, with Napoli disrupting the grip held by Juventus and Inter Milan. Still, between them, these two have won 16 out of the last 20 Scudettos.

And in the undergrowth it's even worse - Celtic won 12 out of 14 titles in Scotland and it's been 40 years since anyone other than Celtic or Rangers won it; Ludogorets Razgrad have won 14 straight in Bulgaria; Qarabag 10 of 11 in Azerbaijan - and there are more examples from Moldova, Belarus, Greece and elsewhere.