Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United last Shared the Top Four in 2009

For the first time since the 2009-10 campaign, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United are all competing in the Champions League. The three clubs have not occupied the top four positions of the Premier League table together since the 2008-09 season, which ended shortly after Manchester City was sold to Sheikh Mansour on September 1, 2008.

Manchester City executives have described a coordinated effort by these rivals to prevent the club from succeeding. Chief executive Ferran Soriano referred to a "Premier League conspiracy theory" following an independent tribunal's finding that City breached 114 Premier League rules across a nine-season period. The tribunal described certain contracts as "sham" agreements that inflated revenue by more than $1 billion.

Historical records show that the three clubs occupied the top four together in 10 of the 11 seasons between 1996 and 2009. They did not achieve this again for the following 17 years. During that period, Arsenal and Liverpool each recorded eighth-place finishes, while Manchester United finished 15th.

Financial data illustrates a shift in the league's economic distribution. In 2008, Manchester United reported revenue of 324.8 million euros, ranking second in Europe behind Real Madrid. Manchester City ranked seventh in England that year with 104 million euros, less than one-third of United's earnings. In the 2024-25 season, Liverpool led English clubs with 836.1 million euros, while seventh-ranked Aston Villa earned 450.2 million euros.

Football finance analyst Kieran Maguire stated, "the Premier League is the Super League." He added, "There has been a broad attempt to change the landscape." Maguire noted that nine of the 20 richest clubs globally are English, as are half of the top 30.

Maguire characterized the relationship among the clubs differently than the term "Red Cartel" suggests. "A cartel stops everybody else from taking part," he said. "This is an interest group who have common interest." He noted that Chelsea earned 80 million pounds from a tournament last year with limited viewership, stating, "They will watch if we've got four Spanish teams, four English teams and so on as opposed to the two of the latter."

Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have pursued structural changes to the sport's governance. In October 2020, Liverpool and Manchester United owners proposed Project Big Picture, which included an immediate 325 million dollar payment to lower-league clubs and a 25 percent reduction in future Premier League television revenue. The proposal also granted special voting rights to nine clubs, including Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City. Six months later, the owners of those three clubs were among the founders of a proposed European Super League.

In the past four seasons, Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Brighton have each finished in the Premier League's top six.