Why Is London So Appealing To New Arrivals To The Premier League?

Reference: Found here

There is no doubting the sizeable and growing divide between London and much of the rest of England.

A recent report found London wages were 33 per cent higher than the national average and as high as 68 per cent more than in Burnley, a town in the north-west of the country.

But what about football? Do London clubs hold an advantage when it comes to signing prospective players?

Well, there has certainly been a geographical shift in where the Premier League's clubs are based.

Last season, there was a record-low number of northern clubs — just five — since the league's rebranding in 1992. Conversely, there were seven London clubs and a further three from the south (Southampton, Bournemouth, and Brighton), meaning half the division came from London or further south.

All 12 clubs from the first Football League in 1888 were exclusively from the Midlands and further north. West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa were the two most southerly teams in a landscape that reflected where many of the country's industrial powerhouses still were.

That remained the case for the next 16 years until Woolwich Arsenal became the top flight's first London away day in 1904. The only other southerly club in the top two divisions (comprising 36 teams) at that time were Bristol City, in the Second Division, but Chelsea (1907) and Tottenham Hotspur (1909) soon followed Arsenal into the top flight.