In terms of global sports success, nothing comes close to the English Premier League. It is football's blueprint to success. It is the perfect model that other sports' leagues seek to emulate.
The £1.5 billion (Dh10.7b) revenue it generates is nearly double that of any competitor. This is the story that Premier League chairman Sir David Richards, who has been instrumental to the success, travelled to Dubai to share with the UAE at the third International Sports Conference this week.
"Six people's vision 15 years ago created the Premier League" says Richards. "The vision was to have something special, something different, to what already existed. Today, we see the success of that vision in the best and most profitable league in the world."
Richards came into sports from a business background, running a group of companies involved in engineering, telecommunications and water and waste treatment.
It was this experience that helped him treat the Premier League as a business, creating its foundations in the same way any multinational corporation would.
"We developed a business plan to run the League, but what was crucial was getting the best people to do the job," says Richard. "In fact, this is crucial for anybody's success – the people you hire need to share your vision.
"We went out and hired the best CEO available in Richard Scudamore and the best management personnel and we got it right because the core management are still in place after 10 years."
What was also crucial for the founding members was to implement a structure that could run on its own and thus making it simple to manage.
The Premier League Board meets once every two months only, which demonstrates exactly how well their foundations were laid. "A rule book for the Premier League was created by us, which basically told the clubs what they could and could not do," says Richards.
"The rules are basically cast in stone and need a 75 per cent vote by the shareholders to change. "There is also the Chairman's Charter, which is the founding members agreement on running the League and that cannot be changed."
Many people criticise the Premier League for the huge amounts of foreign players plying their trade in the United Kingdom, which seems to have a detrimental affect on the England national team.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was also attacked in the press for once fielding a team devoid of any English players. However, Richards says luring foreign talent was huge for the Premier League and that Arsenal had a crucial part to play in that.
"The strategy we had was to put on the best possible show in the best stadiums, while attracting the best playing talent available," says Richards.
"All this would play a role in achieving our other vision of getting full attendances at the games. "Arsenal started the process of bringing in the best players when they signed Dennis Bergkamp. He brought magic to the Premier League with his style of play and other clubs followed the lead."
The amount of foreign players in the Premier League has increased from 12 to more than 500 since its inception in 1992.
The result is a double-edged sword with the League reporting the clubs wage bill has topped £1 billion this year – a 13 per cent increase on the £969 million spent on wages in 2006-2007.
However, with the best players on show, television revenue has shot up. The Premier League's most recent television deal with British Sky Broadcasting Group and Setanta Sports, plus international rights, is worth £2.7bn (Dh19.3bn) over three seasons – the biggest in world football. Compare that figure with the paltry £14m Sky TV paid to secure its first deal in 1992.
"All this money belongs to the clubs," says Richards. "But we needed a system to distribute the revenue equally because some clubs always do better and dominate.
"What we decided was to spread 50 per cent of the money equally across all clubs. The next 25 per cent we gave depending on how the club performed, so, to the bottom club, we gave £750,000 and to the top club – £18m, says Richards.
"We then stipulated that each club had to appear a minimum of six times on television, for which we gave them £600,000 for each appearance. Last year, as our revenue increased, we also increased the minimum amount to at least 10 appearances per club."
Richards ended by revealing the crucial component to the Premier League's success was getting the government to support football and much of this was achieved by realising the responsibility they had to society.
"The Premier League was generating a lot of money and the government asked what we were going to do with it," says Richards. "We said we are going to invest in social responsibility programmes and that's how we started the Football Foundation for Children. Now, more than £124m has been spent with all the clubs contributing together with the British government. We provide for the grass roots development of football by building pitches and changing rooms.
"We also contribute to the well-being of society with education, adult classes and several other endeavours," says Richards.
"The results are that children are taken off the streets and reports show that the rate of crime and drug problems have dropped. I know the UAE does not have these problems, but as society evolves we all get them and this is a great way of dealing with it."