With relegation and promotion is there no tournament between the promoted and relegated teams? Without this, it seems that the same teams could seesaw back and forth year to year.
Looking at Cardiff City's long-term fortunes....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#/media/File:...
There are clear long term trends over the decades, with the team slowing sinking down to the 4th tier in the late 90s and working its way back up.
In the 2010's we can see see-sawing you mention: back and forth between the Championship and Premier leagues. They fight like hell to be promoted, quickly find themselves overmatched in the Premier League, and are then relegated.
It's worth noting that the team's post-2000 rebirth corresponds with an influx of juicy cash via foreign investment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#Foreign_inve...
So, I mean, it's a "meritocracy" but it's still largely dependent on who's got the money because they can afford the best players and player development.
http://thepyramid.info/asp/pyramid3.asp
A big part of the appeal of local football is the knowledge that your team could theoretically get promoted all the way to the top. A closed league goes against this sense of fairness.
The closed American leagues are actually much fairer at least to the teams that are in them, TV money is split more evenly, there are caps on how much money can be spent on players and the teams at the bottom of the league table get more chances to acquire the more talented players due to the draft systems. Whereas in European football the pretty much the only thing that matters is how much money a club has to spend.
Combined Counties League divison 2 -> Two below premiership. Who beat a the team now 4th in premiership (West Ham) two season ago.
No wealthy individual replacing all the players, just fans.
There are plenty of examples of rich clubs performing badly and less rich clubs punching above their weight.