For years, people have critiqued the French Ligue 1 as being a ‘development league’ and a place for players to come through at. And while that might be true to an extent, it’s also an exceptionally high quality league. Only thing that you need to look at with the French top flight is the number of young players who have become genuine stars in their time in Ligue 1.

The latest name who appears to have intense interest in him is Boubakary Soumare. The holding midfielder has become a really interesting player for most Premier League clubs. The Frenchman has all the combative skills needed to succeed in England, but a passing accuracy just short of 90% in the league also shows a player who does not waste the ball very often at all.

He’s a strong tackler, too, and excels at winning the ball back. With very impressive performances in midfield for Lille this year, he’s been linked with a host of clubs in England. One club who is likely to move for him is Liverpool, who are seemingly interested in adding more depth to the middle of the park. While many clubs have moved for Soumare, Liverpool are one being linked the most doggedly.

Interestingly, though, the COVID-19 outbreak is very likely to have some kind of impact on transfer fees. Despite being listed as a player worth in excess of €40m just a few short weeks ago, it’s now expected that the financial disparity that has taken place across football will likely mean that the midfielder moves for around €25m instead.

For now, though, we expect more Premier League teams to be linked with one of the most impressive midfielders in the French league. Given the number of talents to come from that league, can anyone really be surprised?

In recent weeks, we’ve come across a whole range of different stories about player X joining club Y. The funny is that while we all see money in football, there is an acceptance that the money in the game might just be about to drop a touch. The COVID-19 outbreak has left many football clubs unable to keep their transfer plans in place. This is not just logistically, but financially as well.

Major deals were being spoken of for the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar Jr. – can anyone really see any club having the hundreds of millions that it would need to sign either?

And in reality, is this going to bring about a quiet end to the major money moves we have seen for the last few years?

Within a short period of time, football went from Paul Pogba being a near-€100m player to Neymar costing in excess of €200m. The transfer record, and the wages that went with it, have exploded in recent years. This was always a bubble that could never be sustained, but will this viral outbreak play a major role in making people realise just how severe the issue is?

It’s going to become a major talking point in the weeks and the months to come. It’s also going to see many clubs re-evaluate where their money goes. While clubs have thrown around hundreds of millions for years now, the time of such ludicrous singings might be about to come to an end. For that reason, there’s a genuine interest in seeing what comes next. With football about to change almost entirely over the coming months, are the days of major contracts worth hundreds of thousands of pounds per week gone?

Is it possible for any club to realistically go back to the kind of figures being thrown around before this outbreak happened? Football has been shown just how vulnerable it really is. For all the wealth at the top, it’s been shown that even the biggest clubs lack the financial steel to survive something as intense as this – not without cuts and concessions.

For many football fans, the ending of leagues early has become something they are likely going to have to accept. But for many fans, the loss of games has meant a loss of personal time and enjoyment. And while that pales in comparison to what is happening the world over, some leagues have not stopped. And this has led to some of the smallest football leagues in Europe gaining much more interesting followings than many would have assumed.

A fine example of this comes from the Belarus Premier League. The top flight in Belarus has gained many new admirers, with fans who are desperate for some football to watch tuning in to watch the BPL. With the nations president Alexander Lukashenko unwilling to shut down the league and much of the country, it has become in many ways ‘the only show in town’.

That’s why so many fans today in Belarus are happy to see their league finally get some kind of recognition. For years, the league has been derided as one lacking quality – but that looks set to change. Clubs like Dynamo Brest and BATE Borisov might be regular names in European competition, but now they are becoming household names for fans who would normally never give their league a second glance.

This is a fine example of how something we are so used to – something like football – becomes so routine. Without our own teams to play in or teams to watch, people are getting their fix in any many ways. From watching classic old games to switching on to the game in Belarus, this just goes to show how football-hungry the whole world is.

If we can see thousands of people signing up to watch the Belarusian league, it just goes to show how many people let football become such a focal part of their lives.

For years, the English Premier League has been seen as the pinnacle of football in terms of commercial control. More or less every player who takes part in playing in the Premier League is playing at the highest domestic football level in the world. However, even this league – with all of its financial strength – can sustain long recessions and months-long breakoffs of the football. That’s why reports suggesting the Premier League is set for a loss as big as £1bn is not something to ignore.

The clubs have been on high alert for some time now, with many fans resigned to the season coming to a premature end. However, with losses set to come in the hundreds of millions, it could run as high as a billion loss across the entire league. This would result in many clubs having to drastically reshape their club and their ability to use the money they have. It would also likely result in a massive change in form for how the league works.

Since its inception, the Premier League has had no qualms making its financial wealth known around the world. This is one of the largest sporting leagues in the world, and so there is a natural desire to spend to try and capitalise on that attitude of being the best.

This is a big reason why so many fans are worried about what the losses actually mean. For many people, the concept of these figures means that clubs who already spend massive sums of their turnover on wages will either need to shed squad numbers or stop spending as they do.

It’s going to have a major impact on the entire football world, but the Premier League in England might be the most changed league in the world come the end. Will it still be the best after such a transformative change?