For a league branded as elitist and divisive, the Premier League has been surprisingly egalitarian in spreading its largesse around the 92 clubs that made up the Football League before its controversial creation 16 years ago.

When Stoke City and Hull City take their places in the most lucrative domestic league in world football this weekend, they will bring to 42 the number of clubs that have enjoyed at least one season in the sun. However, history suggests it is a party that, for some clubs, induces a hangover which can take years to shake off.

Leeds United, Bradford, Swindon and Wimbledon are among the most glaring casualties of what Leeds's then chairman, Peter Ridsdale, once described as "living the dream". A lengthy list of clubs going into administration with resultant points deductions and relegations show that some dreams become nightmares.

Yet each year the prize for reaching the Premier League rises inexorably. With about £45 million ($97m) on offer to the club finishing 20th, and two years of £11.2m parachute payments for relegated clubs, May's promotion play-off final has become arguably the most valuable club match on the planet.

Sometimes parachutes fail to open, however, as Leeds, which sank from European Champions League semi-finalists to third division also-rans, would testify. Wimbledon's Norwegian owners discovered that, without the Premier League gold rush, the economics of running a tiny south London club suddenly became unviable and the club effectively, and painfully, split into two: AFC Wimbledonand MK Dons.

So is chasing the dream still worth it? David Sheepshanks, an administrator and director, experienced the highs and lows of Premier League life with Ipswich, where he is now non-executive chairman, and identifies some subtle shifts in the make-up of promoted clubs.

"Increasingly, the clubs who are promoted are those that benefit from a parachute payment following relegation from the Premier League or have a benefactor," he said. "The [second-tier] Championship is a competitive and compelling division, but it is a loss-making division. The top eight last season, to a greater or lesser degree, enjoyed either a parachute payment or a benefactor. The disparity between Premier League and the Football League is so great that it requires a whopping investment when you get there. You can't hope to succeed if you go into the Premier League and just take the money to rebuild the stadium or pay off the bank. But for well-run clubs, with backing, there's a great incentive to try to finish 17th."

Even if it might take two attempts. "Derby fans who endured last season's pummelling might take heart from Sunderland - they endured similar misery [in 2005-06] but regrouped and reinvested and are making a real fist of it," Sheepshanks said.

What is certain is that West Bromwich Albion, Stoke and Hull will have had to do their sums very carefully. Sheepshanks added: "All Football League clubs have to specify in their contracts the salaries - including the effects of promotion and relegation - for the following season which does at least make directors think about the consequences."

So any club new to the Premier League will write in dramatic cuts in salaries if the worst happens and they are relegated. "That is fine for aspiring players who are desperate to join you, but it does make it difficult to persuade players from other Premier League clubs to come to you."

The gap between the divisions may be widening, but the odds are not insurmountable. "Only once have all the promoted clubs gone straight back down," Sheepshanks pointed out. And if it all goes horribly wrong for West Brom, Stoke and Hull, there will be plenty more willing to take their chance next season on the £70m roulette wheel.

The Telegraph, London