How London's lure altered the Premier League gravity

It is a refrain that many Premier League executives have become resigned to – at least in some areas of the country.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

As part of summer negotiations with foreign players, they have been repeatedly told “he’d prefer to live in London”. The internal research of one Championship club even found that, on average, those outside the capital had to offer an estimated £2,000 more a week to persuade signings to go outside London.

This is a modern and more widespread version of what used to be known as the “Newcastle United premium”. Over 20 years ago, when the St James Park club were trying to properly compete with rivals from London and the northwest, they became renowned for some of the highest contracts in the Premier League. Kieron Dyer was at one point believed to be the division’s best-paid player. That dynamic has now dramatically evolved, to almost split the Premier League.

It is not just that players gravitate towards London. The competition’s geographical centre has completely shifted, too. For the third successive season, the Premier League will have seven clubs from London, as well as a further three from either the counties around the capital or further south.

It has been part of a longer trend, and a much more pronounced shift. To fully grasp it, you only have to consider how it was as recently as 2012 that England’s top division had just five clubs from London or the surrounding area. The proportion generally hovered around this level, between 25 and 35 per cent of the 20, for most of the Premier League’s existence. Now, half the competition has a distinctive southern flavour, with The Clash’s “London Calling” being heard more than ever.

This genuinely represents a huge change from modern football history, but also grander football history. England’s cradle of football going back to the mid-19th century was the North, with its 20th-century heartland the northwest. Lancashire alone offered six of the 12 founding members of the English Football League in 1888.