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England performed
well below expectation at the World Cup in South Africa and judging by
the FIFA Ballon d’Or list announced on Tuesday the stock of the Premier
League is not at its highest either.

Just three players
from the league that likes to call itself the best in the world are on
the list and it would be a huge surprise if any of them made it into
the top three:

Have a glance
through the full list (in all its glory above) and you’ll see just
Didier Drogba, Cesc Fabregas and Asamoah Gyan representing England’s
Premier League, and the latter has barely figured for his new club
Sunderland.

I doubt anyone in
English football will be too worried by this, with the money from TV
rights still rolling in, but perhaps they should be.

In terms of star quality La Liga makes the Premier League look strictly second division.

Serie A, derided
over the past few seasons, now boasts the European Cup holders and a
resurgent AC Milan and even the Bundesliga has a healthier than usual
representation thanks to the exploits of Champions League finalists
Bayern Munich and Joachim Loew’s fearless Nationalmannschaft – the
national team.

It was different,
perhaps, when Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Fernando
Torres and the likes were being described as among the world’s finest
but performances at the World Cup that were indifferent to poor have
made those assessments look like so much hype.

The Premier League still commands enormous global appeal which
translates into massive revenues for the clubs. That will continue for
the foreseeable future but the fact that the most exciting players from
the World Cup are all delighting audiences elsewhere should at least
give the Premier League pause for thought.