At just after half past midnight on Monday morning UK time, an announcement was made that a new football competition called the European Super League was going to have 12 clubs as foundation members, with six of them being from England; and that they would be playing on a Wednesday night, in direct competition with the European Champions League and the Europa League.
Now the idea of such a thing has arisen before and usually it was used as a threat by the richest clubs in Europe that if they weren't given increasingly larger slices of the football pie, that they would pack up and leave. It seems that the past 15 months of this pandemic have finally convinced the clubs that at the end of the day when gate sales aren't as critical as they once were, that selling the game on television to a worldwide audience is where best business decisions are made. As far as business is concerned, they are probably right. As far as what this means for football, it is as if they have taken a century and a half of tradition and decided to burn it publicly. Football to the bankers and marketers is nothing more than a commodity to be packaged up and sold and the fans are nothing more than customers. Whatever tradition, legend, community, and grand story might have been told, has now in part been thrown into the fire and burned on the altar of the holy god Dollar, praise be.
This kind of thing isn't new to football. The very invention of the Premier League itself was the result of the owners of London Weekend Television (a former ITV company), BSkyB (aka News Corp), and Lord Sugar, who saw the potential of putting live football on the telly and charging subscribers loadsa money for it. That has meant that the last first division game of football to be shown live on terrestrial free to air television, was shown in 1991.
This new Wednesday Television Cup Cup Cuppity Cup (European Super League), starts off with as much tradition as a plastic bag. As such, it pretty much gained the instant ire of lots of fans who correctly judged that just like a plastic bag, they too were being thrown out like rubbish.
The idea had apparently been kicking about since at least before 2008 and had previously been used as a threat. When you have backers like Fenway Sports Group, JP Morgan, the Agnelli Group, as well as a few oligarchs and billionaires from Russia and Qatar, they look at football not as a sport but as a business. When the pandemic started and they saw revenues fall and began to think that they could do without the fans, the monied interests have obviously met and discussed plans in secret; not even pretending to consult the very people who built the things they now own.
For a club like Barçelona who is carrying more than a billion Euros in debt, management has seen the giant chunk of money being waved about and has made a choice. Liverpool which is owned by Fenway Sports Group, has obviously decided that it can simply dictate terms of service because an American franchise model of team ownership has no problem with uprooting a team and plonking it somewhere else. Capital which already doesn't care about borders, place, and tradition, also has no problem with uprooting a team and plonking it into an unconnected and completely independent system.
From best as I can determine, the plan either involves running a new competition running alongside the European Champions League but with the twelve founding members being given permanent status. This by its nature is exclusionary and naturally UEFA, FIFA, and the various FAs in Europe are furious. It also destroys the principle that the best clubs should fight their way into a competition on the basis of merit. Like so many fans across the world, I scarcely see any value in a competition where simply having more money entitles you to a place but actually being good does not.
It doesn't surprise me that the three clubs in Italy and the three clubs of Spain have decided to chase filthy lucre after having poisoned the well in their own domestic competitions. It also does not surprise me that Liverpool which is owned by Fenway Sports Group or Manchester United which is owned by the Glazer family would either. Nor does it surprise me that Chelsea and Manchester City whose billionaire owners are temporary jobbers would show no allegiance to tradition or their fans. What does surprise me is why Arsenal who are have reverted to an embodiment of mediocrity decided to join, and it also surprises me that Tottenham Hotspur was asked in the first place. Why would Spurs sign up for a Wednesday Television Cup with no tradition and which they will perpetually come 12th in?
If I was in charge of the English FA, then my punishment would be swift and brutal. Already I'd have docked the 'big six' clubs all of their points. This would immediately invalidate them from European competition. Furthermore, I'd relegate all six to the Football Conference, which is the fifth tier of English football; then apply the normal promotion rules. It would take three years for them to get back out but that's not exactly a problem.
The next thing that I'd do is have six clubs promoted upwards from the Championship and likewise six clubs promoted upwards from League One, League Two, and the Conference.
There are massive residual questions surrounding contracts with broadcasters such as Sky Sports but quite frankly, they can deal with the big six who are responsible for this. None of the other 14 clubs in the Premier League should be held responsible, none of the other 72 clubs in the FA should be held responsible, and to be honest if the 'big six' are swimming in billions of Euros then I can not even begin to feel the slightest bit sorry for them.
The people who I do feel sorry for are the players, coaching staff, managers, ground staff, and all of the office staff. This nutbaggery has happened at a level way way above their heads and as employees who are being blown about by the vicissitudes of fate, they can hardly be held responsible. I can understand Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp's decision to stay even though he has already publicly stated that he personally hates the idea because even he still needs a job. This is an awful position to be involuntarily placed into.
The decision about what to do with the 'big six' lies with the other 14 clubs of the Premier League, the English FA, and UEFA. Yes, this looks like the owners of giant pots of capital arguing with each other and this looks like several seasons of a drama being packed into a week but ultimately the story of football has done and always will rest with the fans. Sitting behind all of this is the cautionary tale of Wimbledon FC whose owners merely uprooted the club and plonked it in Milton Keynes. What followed was a revolt by the fans, who set up their own phoenix club which rose out of the ashes and now sits seven divisions above where the new club started. AFC Wimbledon started out with having trials on Wimbledon Common, and is now in a new home in the New Plough Lane stadium; whereas the franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes has never again ascended to the heights of the former Wimbledon FC, despite starting out with all the assets of the previous club.
My hope is that this whole thing collapses in a giant embarrassing heap before it even begins. My other hope is that the FA makes the 'big six' suffer some kind of very public shame for this. If the clubs voluntarily back out because they've come to some sense of sensibility then I still think that they should have their European competition places taken away but I wouldn't relegate them.
Should Liverpool enter the new Wednesday Television Cup then I will in principle refuse to care about it. If they actually leave English football, then I don't actually see the point of caring about then any more.
Remember that warning by Tinkerbell? "If you don't believe in fairies, then they all die." If a similar phoenix club (called Anfield FC and playing out of Edinburgh Park) was started, then just like the jilted and injured fans of AFC Wimbledon or FC United Of Manchester, if the club doesn't believe in us then we won't believe in it.
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