The great swindle foiled
Well that all fell apart very quickly didn’t it?
It almost seems funny now that the monstrosity that the proposed European Super League is/was was even a credible possibility but just a few days ago it very much was.
Those 12 club owners, the dirty dozen, were happy to try something incredibly destructive and venal to make more money and possibly destroy hundreds of clubs in the process.
In setting up their own almost closed shop of a breakaway league, they risked destroying the entire professional football ecosystem across Europe.
That ecosystem was far from perfect, of course, with the biggest clubs hoovering up more and more of the talent and creating a system where huge expenditure was needed to compete at the top.
But they went too far, too fast. I was worried that they would introduce their breakaway super league more slowly in a way that would be more palatable to people. But they went far too far too quickly and people would not accept it.
It has shown just how much the owners of these clubs see their possessions as simply businesses to be sweated for maximum profit. Or given that the 12 clubs have a cumulative reported debt of over €2.4bn, maybe some of them were doing it just to survive. For the clubs in dire financial straits, the pandemic has certainly accelerated trends that were already obvious. The cost of running the top clubs grows all the time, while tv deals have plateaued or declined across Europe’s top leagues leaving lots of big clubs in an unsustainable position.
Forming a European super league they could not be relegated from would have insulated them from that, while throwing hundreds of other clubs into unsustainable positions. That’s capitalism and the free market I guess though.
For some of the owners of these clubs, particularly the American ones, it’s entirely logical to do whatever they can to ensure future profits. After all, it is just a business to them.
Surely there are easier businesses to make money from though? Professional football is not a great way to earn profit.
These big clubs are run by people who don’t care much about football and less about fans. Fans are customers, clients or subscribers to them.
Liverpool owner John Henry realised a video apologising to the fans yesterday but what does it actually mean? If they cared about the fans, especially local fans, they would never have entered into this.
There is a solution, an antidote to this corporate football world, which can be akin to supporting IBM, Tesco or Shell. Support your local club, whether it’s Cork City, Cobh Ramblers or even (gulp) a Dublin club like Bohemians. Come on City!