Last season PSV won the Dutch league by 17 points. They scored 92 goals in 34 games and won all but five matches. They were a bright young attacking side under an impressive young coach in Phillip Cocu, the sort of team who might, a couple of decades ago, have had a serious crack at the European Cup over the next couple of seasons before inevitably being broken up as economic reality kicked in.

The modern world being what it is, that process has already begun and they’ve lost Memphis Depay to Manchester United and Georginio Wijnaldum to Newcastle United, players who between them represent 36 of those 92 goals (and eight assists). And PSV probably think they’ve done quite well to hold on – for now – to Luuk de Jong, Adam Maher and Jetro Willems.

Last season Marseille mounted a very Marcelo Bielsa challenge for the French league, playing some stunning football before fatigue set in and they fell away towards the end of the season. Since then, amid a raft of departures, they’ve lost Dimitri Payet to West Ham and André Ayew to Swansea City.

The likes of Manchester United have always – or at least for 20 years or so – plundered the likes of PSV. Perhaps they do it sooner now, but it’s an established trend. This summer, though, has also brought a flexing of muscle by the Premier League’s middle class. Southampton have signed Jordy Clasie from Feyenoord, Stoke have signed Ibrahim Afellay from Barcelona, Crystal Palace have signed Yohan Cabaye from Paris Saint-Germain, Newcastle have signed Aleksandar Mitrovic from Anderlecht, Sunderland have signed Jeremain Lens from Dynamo Kyiv, Watford have signed Valon Behrami from Hamburg and José Holebas from Roma.

They’re all deals, even the free transfers, that induce a frisson of incongruity, players still near enough in prime form leaving great European names to join sides that will almost certainly be in the bottom 14 of the Premier League.

That’s not to blame any of those clubs: if they can afford players of that calibre, then of course they should be signing them. They exploit those below them in the chain as they are exploited by those above them. That’s just how the system works. But what has happened recently is unique for two reasons: firstly, power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite of super-clubs, making numerous national championships absurdly imbalanced (Bayern Munich, for instance, are 10-1 on to win the Bundesliga title); and, secondly, the wealth is overwhelmingly in one country.

Jeremain Lens has joined Sunderland. Photograph: Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

The real shock comes in the teams between 21st and 30th in the Deloitte Money List. As well as five former European Cup finalists in Aston Villa, Marseille, Roma, Benfica and Hamburg, there are also West Ham, Southampton, Sunderland, Swansea and Stoke City. And that is before the new television deal takes effect, before West Ham move into the Olympic Stadium. Sunderland, who have finished in the top half of the top flight three times in the past 59 years, are the 27th richest club in the world and climbing.

There are those who say that this traffic from the poor to the rich has always gone on, which is true – but that’s the attitude of the frog in the simmering pan. It’s happening more and faster than ever, and that means that top-level football is increasingly becoming the preserve of perhaps half a dozen super-clubs.

This is, after all, a world in which Juventus reaching the Champions League final can be portrayed as some sort of underdog fairytale – that’s Juventus, the most successful team in Italian history. It’s a world in which we marvel at the achievements of Borussia Dortmund (11th-richest club in the world) or Atlético Madrid (15th) and then watch as their squads are pillaged by even wealthier rivals. It’s a world in which Liverpool, the ninth-richest club in the world and the joint-third most successful club in European history (by European Cup wins), are in successive seasons unable to resist bids for a key attacking player from super-clubs.

It’s arguable that the agglomeration of talent at the top clubs means football, at the highest level, has never been better. For those of us who watch most of our football in the Premier League, the present situation is great: we may worry that the readily availability of off-the-shelf stars means English football remains tactically conservative and perhaps doesn’t develop as much of its own talent as it ought to, but we get to see vast numbers of vastly gifted players (even if the very best are still at Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich).

But where is this heading? How can it be right that fans in the Netherlands or Portugal or France (apart from PSG) or even Italy (apart from Juve) only get to see a second string and know that if ever a decent side does come together it will be broken up before the trophy’s even in the cabinet? How long can the Bundesliga or Ligue Un retain their interest when one side is not merely dominant but hegemonic? And that’s only considering Europe. The Argentinian and Brazilian leagues have become clearing houses to ship out young stars to Europe and then to process them to retirement once they hit their thirties.

Perhaps this is simply the logic of globalisation, that money accrues at the top. Perhaps in terms of creating a spectacle that is consumed around the globe, it’s not even a bad thing. In terms of romance, though, in terms of the sense of club as the centre of its community, it terms of the dream that your club could actually win something (unless you happen to be a fan of one of the super-clubs) it’s disastrous.

The brilliant marketing of the Premier League has distorted existing power structures: it’s now a world league that happens to be played in England (and Wales), that benefits from the fact that its upper echelon consists of four clubs (with two not that far behind) rather than being the monopoly or duopoly that exists in almost every other major league.

And that’s the next question. When the owners aren’t English and the coaches aren’t English and most of the players aren’t English, how long before the move to take it out of England gathers momentum?

Richard Scudamore’s proposal for the 39th game may be flawed in terms of competitive balance, but the underlying logic that the Premier League has perhaps outgrown England makes a worrying amount of sense, particularly with overseas television rights and sponsorship deals on the rise.

When other European leagues are so imbalanced, you wonder how long the likes of Bayern and PSG will be satisfied with the Champions League in its present format: how long before there are calls for it to be played on more of a league basis, with some matches perhaps played outside of Europe? (And how long then before somebody decides that Boca Juniors or Flamengo or a franchise representing New York might be more marketable than Viktoria Plzen or Club Brugge or Young Boys?)

That’s not an immediate threat, but it might not be that far in the future given football’s remorseless pursuit of cash. For now, we just have to cope with a world in which the side that finished 12th in the Premier League can buy the most creative midfielder from a European champion who finished fourth in France last season, in which the team that finished 15th can buy a star from the champions of the Netherlands, and in which the team that finished 17th is the 22nd richest in the world.