I’ve read an awful lot of comments about the new European Super League over the last few days, but not written many myself. To be honest I’ve found the whole situation so depressing that I needed to gather my thoughts rather than react emotionally. Having given it a day or two I think that where we’ve ended up has been inevitable for some time now. We’ve all seen it coming, but done little to change it – in fact we’ve all been complicit in it reaching this point.
There was little consternation when the Premier league started. Not much when everything moved onto a pay per view broadcaster. With the right owners and support we could still try and compete even if we went bust trying to do so. Then we had the likes of Jack Walker who could buy the league for Blackburn. Then you could only win the league if your owners were billionaires rather than millionaires. We have already established a structure where only a select few can compete. Financial Fair Play has ensured that Championship teams cannot threaten those in the Premier League. Teams at the bottom of the Premier League bounce back up after relegation. Historic clubs like Derby, Forest, Sheffield Wednesday etc. are locked out as Premier League revenue has been absent for too long.
If you support one of the clubs higher up then, frankly, we don’t care. Leicester have landed billionaire owners and they’ve now got a foothold in the Premier League. Teams above us have all the advantages of CL revenue and the obscene broadcasting revenue generated by the TV rights. So the Premier League can cherry pick the very best players and have the best league, so why should we care that other great clubs like Bolton Wanderers are going to the wall?
The ESL is, perhaps, the wake up call we all needed. I’m enormously encouraged that the supporters of the teams who stand to benefit most have the intelligence to realise what this is all about. Their owners thought that they could be cynically manipulated and rinsed for short term greed but, instead, these fans appreciate the importance of football history. All these teams have had to work to get to their positions of supremacy. Legends of the game like Bill Shankly and Alex Ferguson have lifted clubs to where they are now, through an incredible talent and hard work. Something I’ve always said to my daughter is: “…. If you don’t have to work for it, then it’s probably not worth having". The journey is as important as the destination (without getting too cliché).
The ESL is really the top of a slippery slope. What next? - The 39th game? games played in Asia or America? clubs being franchised and moving abroad? People will laugh and say this is impossible, but a few years ago you might have said that so was creating a league, for a select few, with no promotion or relegation.
We can use all sorts of words to describe the ESL: “disgusting, grotesque, vile, corrupt etc.", but we’ve all been responsible for it getting this far. Now it must be stopped. If there is ultimately some sort of compromise and we just carry on, then this might become an historic, missed opportunity, for change. Fans, pundits, people involved in football should stand united and encourage the development of a proper, regulatory, framework that will stop these non-football fans from trying to steal the game. The result might be less money and smaller contracts, but the spirit of fair play and competition will be maintained. There will still be big clubs and smaller clubs, strong clubs and weak clubs, but we all accept that. Part of the fan experience is being David against Goliath. We have an opportunity to save the sport – we should grasp it!
ESL - We are all complicit in it
posted on 20/4/21
comment by Troy'sTanguyTanganga (U6468)
posted 19 minutes ago
"The ESL is really the top of a slippery slope. What next? - The 39th game? games played in Asia or America? clubs being franchised and moving abroad? People will laugh and say this is impossible, but a few years ago you might have said that so was creating a league, for a select few, with no promotion or relegation."
This is exactly where its going.
Im actually embarrassed that my club is part of this.
Not even sure why we there. I can still see the entitlement of some of the other clubs. We just being used to stop moves against them in the PL.
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Feel sorry for the fans of these clubs as well because your club have already said fu to every single one of you
posted on 20/4/21
comment by Hamilton Fox (U22508)
posted 16 minutes ago
Great write up mate, right now I want the 6 chucked out the league and wouldnt care if the money went out of the remaining leagues and we had a competitive game again.
What we can’t have is those 6 teams playing in this super league and the pl at the same time it’s an absolute nonsense they think they can do both with no competition
I’m not naive enough to think that if it was other owners (maybe even our own) were in the same position they wouldn’t have done the same most billionaires got there by being ruthless and chasing the dollar at every opportunity.
The German idea kind of works in that yeah fans have the final say but it didn’t stop Bayern hoovering up all the players and winning 9 in a row or what ever
It’s all a big mess!
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They will never throw their beloved Manchester united and Liverpool out. Never in a million years.
posted on 20/4/21
Haven't posted on here in yonks, but there's more sense and sound analysis in the OP than I've encountered anywhere on TV or in print.
So I just had to say Joby
posted on 20/4/21
We are to Blame, Little Old Leicester Won the League and Shocked them, money wasn’t buying the League anymore and if Leicester could do it so could others.
We knew they’d react, the expectation was that it would be through Football on the pitch and by taking who they wanted from our team rather than a plan designed by Americans to teach us how Sport works.
I wonder if the Winner of the new League will be crowned World Champions?
You also have to wonder if this would have happened If Spurs or Arsenal had beat us to that Title?
posted on 20/4/21
Well said Joby.
I really can't see any possibility that any of the prospective ESL teams will be able to compete (not exactly the right word is it? - not any real competition) in both the ESL or their own domestic league. There are going to be sanctions. Whether it's expulsion or a points deduction is doubtless the subject of ongoing debate within the EPL and the remaining 14. As I have mentioned on another related post a 20 point deduction would make life interesting.
The probable cause for this scenario is the vast expenses some of the big clubs are trying to cope with (with the possible exception of Spurs and Atletico Madrid) at a time when the pandemic resulted in empty stadia and significantly reduced income. Huge transfers, obscene wages, payments to agents and so on have doubtless had more of an impact than on 'smaller', more prudent teams. It has been said that Barcelona and Real Madrid are not a million miles off bankruptcy so to some extent you can see why they have opted for the ESL. Smacks of desperation. How they thought they could ever get away with it is beyond me though.
posted on 20/4/21
Thanks all for the kind words in response to this thread. It looks like it’s unravelling already by all accounts.
I hope, if it does collapse, that people stay angry and push for change. This is a wake up call
posted on 20/4/21
I think your last paragraph is the most poignant, noteworthy and provocative.
It would be interesting, from a debate perspective, to see this considered, dissected and questioned. Which, almost as a consequence of recent days, seems inevitable now.
posted on 20/4/21
comment by Jobyfox (U4183)
posted 2 hours, 37 minutes ago
Thanks all for the kind words in response to this thread. It looks like it’s unravelling already by all accounts.
I hope, if it does collapse, that people stay angry and push for change. This is a wake up call
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This isn’t over. We absolutely need to stay angry and den and reforms that stop this happening again. We need a new system that protects the fans from owners, both negligent ones who see clubs go bust, and disgusting greedy ones who give the impression they would watch fans suffer quite happily if it made them more money.
We need change. Not champions league changes to placate these owners. Genuine change to protect football.
posted on 21/4/21
I wonder whether the ultimate fallout from this will be the German ownership model. I don’t buy into the theory of some that this was all a ruse to usher through unpopular CL reforms when nobody was looking. You don’t damage yourself to the extent some of these owners have done just to achieve that. There are simpler ways. I genuinely believe this was as it looks: An attempted breakaway gone wrong, curtailed by a combination of player power and governmental threat, each influenced massively by unity and ferocity of condemnation.
I doubt the punishment for the return of the Big 6 will be that severe. Essentially, they’ve come back during the “we’re warning you...” phase, so they’ll likely get a damned severe finger-wagging and urged not to try to destroy football again for 18 months or so. The bigger punishment on the horizon is how seriously the government took it, and could easily start looking into the 50+1 ownership model popular and lauded in Germany. Even if that is only applied on the next transfer of club ownership, it would greatly devalue each business for such a future sale. In which case, no wonder there’s talk tonight of Americans looking to sell up and get out.
But tonight we simply celebrate the fact that the ESL has been killed. Tomorrow we start to work out how to prevent it ever coming back to life.
posted on 21/4/21
Destroy all the horcruxes.
I agree that it was an arrogant power grab plain and simple.
Americans who believe that because they can franchise and up and move teams in the ‘biggest country in the world’, it would be a simple thing to do in ‘lil ol Blighty’
I think the German model is hopefully an Endgame to come out of this terrible fiasco but in the immediate future, this anger need to be turned into determination which is constantly fuelled until we chase these snakes out our our country and game for good.
As Lineker put it ‘we have our ball back’. Let’s make sure no f***** tries to purposely kick it over the fence again.