Many football fans don’t feel entitled to trophies. Nor do they feel entitled to status or membership of a league. They understand that a certain degree of success on the pitch is required to attain these things. A competitive edge.
For a vast array of fans, they know only too well that they are entitled to nothing but passion and hope.
And this is why there is outrage over the announcement of the European Super League. A league that will open the door to a place where football for fans would have the passion dimmed and the hope removed. A brave new world? Certainly not. For there is nothing brave nor challenging about this League. A league from which the eventual twenty self-appointed members cannot be relegated.
The membership itself has brought a mixture of anger and contempt from media outlets and fans around Europe.
Let’s be brutally honest. Tottenham Hotspur have won less than Leicester City in the last thirty years. Yet the latter weren’t invited but the former have been. Arsenal have become a mid-table Premier League club and not won the big prize since 2004 but they’re in. Ajax are giants of European football but, due to their modest domestic league, are not in. Celtic and Rangers likewise despite their huge fan following. Liverpool are included, having won their domestic league title only once in thirty years.
This is a cartel. And one that lacks diversity and credibility in equal measure. At the time of writing, the clubs involved are from Italy, England and Spain only. German clubs have seemingly declined to be involved.
It feels like an attempt to take the elite stages of the existing Champions League and crystallize them, broadcasting them more regularly so that the likes of Ajax, Slavia Prague or Malmo are no longer in the way. But if you’ve seen any of the recent Champions League finals, you’d know watching so-called elite sides can be really dull.
Admittedly the early stages of this competition have become predictable and this is where UEFA have failed. They have enabled a hegemony of clubs to get together and render leagues in the Netherlands and Portugal as far inferior to what they were in the 1990’s. This could have been restricted with transfer or wage caps but UEFA watched on while Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint Germain, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City outspend their domestic rivals to diabolical levels so that competing with them became untenable.
On Merseyside where football is a thing of high drama, Everton might become the preferable club to support given their imminent stadium move and work in the community.
The twelve clubs ready to breakaway have seemingly gambled. Hell bent on reaching out to a global audience, they might have overlooked what might happen back home. West Ham – currently higher in the league than Arsenal and Spurs – could inherit floating voters in North East London, Hertfordshire and Essex. Those football fans wanting authenticity and regular matches.
Even Barcelona might lose support with locals defecting to Espanyol.
The clubs are stepping even further away from their surrounding communities which is troubling for those fans who have been with them for decades and generations.
Many football fans admire authenticity and can spot pretentiousness. Yet this is a gamble the clubs breaking away have been prepared to take, presumably to satiate the demand of overseas viewers.
While there are many football fans who watch from the armchair, many are also bred from the stands. They are seduced by the smell of hotdogs, the floodlights, the beer beforehand, the tribal and febrile thrill. But they don’t always look for artistry or excellence. Otherwise, the National League would never get any fans. They want action and events. They want a spectacle, to see grit and determination.
In some ways however, the fans and the media have created this Frankenstein’s monster of a competition. While the club owners are clearly doing this for their own ends, they have watched the elitism in European football and globally where the Champions League, the World Club Cup and pre-season friendlies bring in television revenue and gravitas for those involved. They have taken a simplistic view that having more Real Madrid versus Manchester United matches will only be beneficial. But they apparently have not considered that what was once a novelty could be turned into a formality in the schedule.
The media, in connivance with social media, have created the constructs of ‘Top Four’ and ‘Big Six’ to sell their own content, whether or not the clubs involved are legitimately performing to deserve that classification. Unfortunately, this has led to the six clubs from England believing their own hype.
The notion that the new league will not have a relegation system in place is also a major flaw and goes to demonstrate how it is a closed cartel. It is a reward for mediocrity and failure. Indeed, since the Champions League was launched, rich clubs not winning trophies have enjoyed the money and prestige from being in the competition which is an anomaly, a contradiction in a sport that is meant to be about competing to be the best. The Champions League rewards finishing second, third and fourth best. Its title is a contradiction. However, the entitled hubris continues as this new league is being given the moniker “Super”. Branding yes, but who says who is “super” on or off the pitch? Who has the right? The clubs involved are not only marking their own homework but are awarding themselves A grades.
There are other anomalies. Many of the bigger clubs have complained bitterly about international matches and cup games giving their players fatigue. Now while they might get their wish by being banned from both, in their minds they were adding the new league games to the existing schedule thus totally undermining their previous calls to trim down the amount of games they have to play.
Over the course of the next few days, this could fizzle out with fan and peer pressure brought to bear on the club owners. However, if that doesn’t happen, irreparable damage could be done to the game as we know it.
Athon 