Yes, it's taken me this long, to bloody get over the disgust and after taste of this poisonous affair.
Greed, arrogance, selfishness, detached, nefarious are just some of the words I could use to describe the whole sorry state of the European Super League, and it's short-lived existence.
I thought I'd be alright, writing this article. I wanted to be scathing, fully deserved, but I wanted to be balanced, but as I type this up, the anger I feel is bubbling to the surface.
I'm not a professional journalist, but neither should I be required to hold back. What these European clubs attempted, was nothing short of daylight robbery. It stank of pure greed. JUST, in case, you failed to spot thus mammoth news story, here's a brief recap according to Wikipedia.
The European Super League (ESL), officially The Super League, was a proposed seasonal club football competition that would have been initially contested by twenty European football clubs, being twelve of them the competition's founding members. It is organised by the European Super League Company, S.L., a commercial enterprise created to rival the UEFA Champions League, Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA.
In April '21 while most of the Europe, indeed the world, was still coming out of lockdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a handful of the biggest clubs in Europe announced their intentions to leave UEFA and the Champions League, to take part in closed shop European Super League. This wasn't sound boarding, this was clear intent. The clubs had handed in their resignations from the European Club Association (ECA), which was ironically led by the idiot Florentino Perez (Real Madrid chairman) ably back by his minion, Andrea Agnelli (Juventus' owner). In their thrall were the following clubs: Atletico Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, AC Milan and Internazionale.
All twelve clubs were in the top 16 on the 2021 Forbes' list of the most valuable football clubs; their combined value was US$34.4billion.
The absence of Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, was heartening. Often hated PSG, backed by the petro-dollars of the nation of Qatar, were a figurehead of what was wrong with football. But if ever you needed a clear signal of intent that their owners were first and foremost footballing fans, this was it. Maybe that is being optimistic, there could be more to this story, but Bayern and PSG, stood tall and rallied against the greed of the others, we had something to rally around, at least, for now. The timing of this sick secretive breakaway, made the whole thing even more disgusting.
UEFA was vehemently against the ESL. For once I agreed with them.
Look, UEFA are no saints, FIFA neither. But they represent structure at least. Sure, both organisations caused this, in some ways, which we will discuss later. But for now, this structure is fundamental to us in particular, and grassroots football. For all the bad traits, UEFA and FIFA make a lot of money. The bone of contention between both federations is the cash cow that is the UEFA Champions Leagues. Annually it raises billions of pounds. Much of it remains in the coffers of the successful clubs along with UEFA, but even if it's a small amount, it still represents a vast sum, that eventually does trickle down to us at the bottom.
This means more 3G pitches, more coaching sessions, making football more accessible to the disadvantaged. In London, this is sobering an important point. 2020 saw the most teenage deaths from knife crime in over a decade. This is intrinsically linked to the youth projects. The Tory government has made cuts, closed youth clubs down and has torn the heart out of many communities in the UK. Give kids something to do, and they wont be doing something bad. The crime problem is, of course more complex than that. There's never 1 solution, it will be people coming together from all sorts of tiers of life, to sort this. But football has the power. The power to save young people's lives.
With PSG and Bayern support UEFA, the outrage start to spill onto the streets. Fans of Chelsea descended in their 1000s to Stamford Bridge to demand answers. United fans stormed Old Trafford, and caused the cancellation of an Premier League match. Gary Neville had made an impassioned speech on Sky Sports, a rallying call only the week before.
FC7 posted their disgust on Instagram and signalled their opposition to the ESL. A small but nonetheless important public display against the whole rotten idea.
How the heads of these clubs were so detached from public opinion is beyond me. Are these ivory towers they live in, so far from reality that they truly thought that their owners could take their play-thing clubs and uproot them from the very communities who had created them?
It makes me wonder how some of these poor excuses for human beings, are so rich, when it is so plainly obvious, how stupid they are.
I don't want to be too overly harsh. All the clubs involved, were wrong. Some more than others. It seems the ring leaders were Juventus, Real, Manchester United and Liverpool. There's an element of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out - I learnt this from Clare at work the other day). I'm still refusing to accept this as any sort of justification of their behaviour. But as custodians of their respective clubs, if the ESL had gone ahead, would they have regretted making a stand. In so many walks of life, does honour even mean anything nowadays?
The English Premier League had also made a stand, threatening to throw the involved clubs out, as in essence the rebel teams had made choices for all the 20 Premiership teams, choices they had no right to make. But let's remember, that the existence of the EPL, had its roots in a similar breakaway, so could they really be throwing rocks from their glass houses?
The key point here, of course, is that the EPL split wasn't and still isn't a closed shop. The ESL was.
Are we supposed to be grateful, that this sham of a group were going to "invite" 5 clubs yearly, to their sweet little competition. How dare they act with such arrogance.
It wasn't long before the owners slowly crawled out from the shadows.....to offer apologies, can the idea of the ESL and throw platitudes to the fans and UEFA. It's worth noting that to this day, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus haven't officially ended their membership of the ESL. They still maintain that this is the future of the game and are holding out that somehow they can resurrect it.
This story still has some way to return. It may of faded from the back pages, sports TV channels, but there are some legal issues still to play out. UEFA have only put on hold, potential punishments for the renegade clubs, but many of them with the exception of the 3 above, have made token payments and accepted their responsibility or should I say irresponsibly.
We the fans, have to shoulder some the blame too. Not all fans are the same. In fact I had a public argument with a social media user in India. He was all for the ESL, and told us "Europeans" to stop crying and accept the inevitable. I understand the Premier Leagues foreign fans, we have a great product which shouldn't be monopolised to just the English. But these clubs were created and exist purely because of their local fans. This thirst for elite football.......take it in India, and energise yourselves. Start movements to get football to as many as the young as possible.
It goes full cycle again. India and China could have domestic leagues to rival the European powerhouse. Alas, this is a sign of the times. The current young generation, are used to having all their needs on tap. They want to watch movies, they download them. The same with the latest games, convenience is the key. You press buttons and your junk food is delivered. It's natural they want the same with football.
I'm hoping that the outcry, may have taught these naïve fans something, but it is really worrying at the same time. They represent the future of football......are we leaving this most beautiful of games to the wrong people? Only time will tell I guess.
I was mixed about the response of fans. It welled me up, seeing them march on their owners, demanding answers. But it also made me questioning their mentality. In the aftermath, vocal figures like Ian Wright, asked, if fans could mobilise in unison like this, why couldn't they rally against racism in the same way, equality, or against homophobia. There's no reason. The same fans who marched against the ESL, some of them, would be the same people booing players to take a knee. Ignorance. It seems to be catching.
The ESL, was good in some ways. It re-affirmed fan-power. It may of changed the landscape of football ownership, in a positive way. In Germany, just the other week, clubs agreed to new rules to stop clubs leaving the Bundesliga and double down on their 50+1 ownership rules. They has been new calls in England, for an independent regulator to govern football.
But as mentioned before, there are worrying signs too. The underbelly of football was for all to see.
And some of it didn't sit well with me.
UEFA and FIFA, are in direct competition with eachother, rather than work together there is currently a one-upmanship which gave rise to this vacuum which Agnelli and Perez, exploited for their own selfish gains. You would of thought that this would be a wakeup call to the governing bodies.
But no.
Barely 6 months after this whole ESL debacle, and FIFA were sounding out the idea of changing the idea of a 4 year cycle for World Cups to 2. Europe and South America as well as domestic organisations were against, but Africa has already thrown it's support behind it. FIFA voting is 1 country 1 vote, so it will depend on how Asia reacts....trouble is brewing. The ill-fated but short lived European Super League was just the start. You'd think we'd learn. But humans have shown time and time again, they can't. Selfishness outweighs the selfless. We all saw it during the pandemic. Anti-vaxers although a very small minority, showed that weakness is still prevalent in society. It only took a handful of football club owners to cause this earthquake in football. Selfish men, who seemingly, value money over morales. The EPL approved the Saudi-backed take-over and most fans seemed behind it too. Where was the outrage then? Where is the consistency?
Storm clouds are gathering. The fate of grassroots football is what is at stake. Where this will all go, is unknown.
Football has so much power, but with it, comes responsibility.
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