The week of 18 April saw the glorious announcement by 12 of the top football clubs in Europe – 3 from Spain, 3 from Italy and 6 from England – of the formation of the Super League. This was a proposal for a pan European competition for the 20 top clubs in Europe each year with founder members guaranteed a place, replacing the Champions League run by UEFA. It was met with hysterical opposition from fans of the English clubs concerned, from other premier league clubs who would be excluded, from pundits, some players and ex-players, and even from the managers of Liverpool and Manchester City, two of the Super League founders.
It appears the outcry from English fans was based on their view that the owners of these Super League clubs, who had pumped tens of millions into them to give them and their fans success, were being driven by money and greed to increase the profits of the businesses they own; and specifically because those fans did not want their clubs not to be outside the Premier League or for their English players to be excluded from playing for their national team – and these two propositions were not part of the Super League proposals, which on the contrary contemplated staying in the Premier League; rather they were two of the retaliatory punishments being considered by the Premier League itself, and by UEFA and FIFA, international ruling bodies, supported by some commentators.
Some football lovers and pundits, and managers, said the ideas of the Super League were not sport, making up new definitions of what constitutes sport.
Then the UK Government jumped in, mainly through Boris Johnson and Oliver Dowden, Culture Secretary of State, abhorring the Super League concept with threats of legislation to stop it and punitive tax measures on the breakaway clubs. There is now a review of the structure of football being proposed – to consider ideas such as requiring football clubs to be substantially owned by the fans. UKGOV should have kept quiet but instead shot from the hip. Calm consideration was needed, not rushed politicising.
What a lot of hypocrisy and prejudice, as if professional football was being corrupted at its heart. Top class football has for decades been mainly about money. The Premier League was established to rake in the billions from TV broadcasting, originally SKY, and now by a host of media channels including BT and Amazon in the UK.
The righteousness of football administrators is perhaps shameful theatre. It was FIFA who awarded world cup hosting rights to nations such as Qatar, where corruption of officials and national representatives bought the prize. Perhaps some of those corrupted had to leave office, but the current FIFA seems quite happy for the next world cup event to proceed in Qatar. Nothing has really changed.
Fans are vital for football but professional football clubs from the Premier League through the other divisions have been rich men’s toys forever. Many only survive because of essentially gifts from rich owners, and many are probably insolvent. The phenomenal, obscene, sums of money which change hands in tax avoidance schemes around expensive players and their transfers – with agents creaming off millions while they represent both player and club in negotiation – perhaps well represent the reality of football morality.
The sheer animalism of fans, for whom football is at the heart of life, generating hatred for the opposition teams and their supporters, producing abusive language and often violence, is part of a much-loved game enjoyed by millions of children as well as adults. Football can be a wonderful culture in a community bringing hope and unity, when rightly applied. It can also produce behaviour which in other walks of life would not be tolerated as normal or acceptable. The Super League was squashed within days of its birth by the weight of public outcry leading to withdrawal of clubs from the project and apology from owners. But most of the outcry was driven by self-interest, such as other Premier League clubs seeing value draining away
It may be a good thing if new structures and morality are considered for professional football out of this debacle. If smaller professional clubs became amateur instead, run by and for the communities they serve, there would be value perhaps. But the biggest clubs such as the Manchester clubs and Tottenham are major centres of their communities providing amenities and focus for a wide range of people. They are businesses and sensible, not emotive, discussion with them and other major clubs will be needed, not the imposition of hastily concocted regulations to show that innovative, but disliked, ideas will bring retribution. UKGOV should stay away from the issues, as an interested observer, and contribute thoughtfully to the debate only if a major “wrong” against the national interest is a possibility. The Super League is not in that category. The real stakeholders should surely be left to work out the future.
