Gavin Cooney’s latest column for The Irish Times delivers a pointed critique of the Premier League’s influence on international football, arguing that the World Cup has exposed the English top flight as “football’s Starbucks”—ubiquitous, homogenising, and ultimately ill-suited to producing a World Cup winner. With Germany already eliminated, Cooney notes the dispiriting realisation that there is so little mystery left in the tournament, a symptom he attributes directly to the Premier League’s demanding style. The column points to England’s narrow round-of-32 victory over DR Congo as emblematic of a side that, despite its
Gavin Cooney: This World Cup has shown the Premier League to be football’s Starbucks
Source: The Irish Times