Luton Learns the Power of Premier League Status

Europe|This Town Had a Reputation Problem. Premier League Soccer Changed Things.

As the announcement trilled retired implicit Kenilworth Road, the jumble of rusted metallic and peeling overgarment that Luton Town F.C. calls home, the code started to shift. At the commencement of the sentence, it was small much than the accepted polite invited to the stadium for that evening’s visiting team, Manchester City.

By the end, though, the dependable of the announcer seemed flooded by what sounded a small similar awe. Luton, the fans successful the stands and the players connected the tract were reminded, was astir to look “the champions of the F.A. Cup, the champions of England and the champions of Europe.” Luton seems to beryllium having a hard clip believing the institution it present keeps.

There is simply a crushed for that. Fifteen years ago, Luton Town had been relegated to the 5th tier of English soccer, a satellite distant from the powerfulness and the prestige of the Premier League. There was, for a time, a genuine hazard that the club, founded successful 1885, respective years earlier the invention of the zipper, mightiness fold altogether. For years afterward, wealth remained tight, ambitions modest.

That meant an contiguous translation successful the club’s fiscal outlook: Playing successful the Premier League for a azygous play is worthy astir $150 million. More important, the presumption that came with it gave the municipality — a spot that has agelong suffered a chronic estimation occupation — a planetary level connected which to alteration not conscionable however it is perceived by others, but however it thinks of itself.