Oral Tracey | Why the EPL is the best in the world

It has been a festering and fluctuating debate in recent years - not just if the English Premier League (EPL) is the best football league in the world, but why is it so conspicuously more popular, more watched, more exciting and more lucrative than any of the other top leagues in the rest of Europe and the world.

My personal experiences drive my personal perspective on this issue. I have never been to the city of Liverpool, England. I have never been to the world-famous Anfield Stadium, the home of Liverpool Football Club. I have never even watched the Reds play, except on television, but I can sing you the famous Liverpool anthem You'll Never Walk Alone from start to finish because I have been a proud and loyal Jamaican fan of Liverpool Football Club for over three and a half decades.

Like every young and aspiring footballer, and indeed, football fan growing up in Jamaica when Liverpool were the undisputed kings of the English game, the English First Division, which became the English Premier League in 1992, was the first foreign league we watched on television, with the likes of the Jamaica-born John Barnes and other club legends, such as Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, and Graeme Souness. Liverpool was the only team in England back then that did not play the typical 'English Llong ball', but, by contrast, the Reds won multiple titles playing the skillful and attractive passing game that made them conspicuous standouts. I became a Liverpool fan then and have never switched or jumped on to any other wagon despite going almost 30 years without a league title.

TENS OF THOUSANDS

My experience is multiplied by tens of thousands, not just in Jamaica but in Africa, Asia, North, Central and South America, and indeed across every continent where football remains the king of Sports. Multiply that by the Liverpool experience Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and now Manchester City experiences, all with fans like me who became attracted and attached to the respective EPL clubs across all the subsequent eras, and there is a reason why almost all the top players in the world have either played in the EPL or will do so in the future. The same applies to the top coaches in the game, all following the logical path of gravitating towards the elite level in their game.

The theory that the players in the Spanish League are more technically skillful and thus produce better-quality football than is on show in England and elsewhere, plus the fact that Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona have consistently dominated the top European Club competition, the UEFA Champions League, has been posited as evidence in support of the Spanish LaLiga being the world's top league.

However, marginally better-quality football and/or the predictable dominance of two top teams do not speak to all the dynamics which make a league the best. There are other integral elements that make the EPL, as a package, the best in the world by far. The superior marketing of the EPL the fact that English is the universal language are all part and parcel of why the league is the most appealing, as reflected in the jam-packed stadia and the unparalleled atmosphere, the wall-to-wall media coverage, the lucrative contracts for the managers of the league, top players and top coaches - are all clear cases of premium rewards by the market for a premium product.

A certain English club did make it to the UEFA Champions League final last season. This season, all four English teams are into the last 16, unmatched by any other league in Europe. Had it not been for limited space and time, I would have churned out more cold-hard facts to further highlight the claim that the EPL is the best football league in the world, as an early contender for the 'NON-ARGUMENT OF 2019'.