The English Premier League took a hit on the field pitch yesterday when FC Barcelona of Spain's top soccer football league topped Manchester United to win the Champions League--Europe's top honor.  But Aaron Patrick and Dana Cimilluca write in today's Wall Street Journal that the Premier League is taking a much bigger hit in the wallet.  Over the past two decades, the league rose to match its name, and became the premier soccer league in the world, regularly attracting the best footballers from arond the globe with huge contracts.  The growth of the British economy fueled the sporting ambition.  But times have changed, rapidly:

Today, thanks to Britain's deep recession, the league must spend its off-season grappling with falling ticket prices, ailing corporate sponsors and financially distressed owners. Unlike teams in the NFL, Premier League clubs are almost entirely unregulated: There is no salary cap, players are freely traded, and league administrators have no control over who buys and sells clubs. Given such wide latitude, some owners racked up big debts during the credit boom, both on buying the clubs themselves and recruiting expensive, on-field talent. Analysts fear the owners who spent big will now be whipsawed by the downturn and forced to make deep cuts.

Patrick and Cimulluca point out that since this is a global recession, there aren't many clubs in other countries who can take advantage of the Premier League's debt woes.  So the quality of play may not suffer all that much.  For the sake of attendance, it can't.  The league has raised ticket prices, on average, 10-15 percent a year.  This year, most clubs will not take the risk of alienating fans with the usual price hike, but they still will struggle for revenue, which is expected to fall an estimated 5-10 percent according to the article.  

Read English Soccer's Morning After here.