JUR A Calm down? It
THOMMO: GIVE FANS THEIR SAY
PHIL THOMPSON says fan representation is needed in the Liverpool boardroom.
The Reds were forced into an embarrassing climbdown following backlash to their proposed involvement in the European Super League.
Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea also backed out of the controversial project.
Liverpool owner John W Henry has publicly apologised to the Anfield faithful. The other five Premier League sides also issued remorseful statements.
Following the high-profile debacle, Thompson says supporters now need to have a greater say in how clubs are run.
“What you would like to see is fans on the board,” he said. “Somebody at least to share ideas and put them forward. If just one person had asked the Spirit of Shankly supporters group, it would have been a non-starter straight away. It’s the same with the other clubs.
“They understand the history and heritage, which a lot of owners don’t.
“Henry was the first one to come out, even though Liverpool were one of the last to pull out of the Super League.
“Will it be enough? Not for now. I think they’ll have to earn the trust again of supporters. I thought it was a wonderful apology, but still more has to be done.”
Henry’s Fenway Sports Group have owned Liverpool since 2010. However, there are now growing calls from some quarters for the 71-year-old to sell up. But Thompson has called for calm. “We have to work together because Liverpool’s owners, believe it or not, have been very good,” added the former defender, who won three European Cups and seven league titles with Liverpool.
“Since they came in we’ve played two Champions League finals back-to-back, winning one. We’ve also won the Premier League after 30 years.
“But this last week has been astonishing. Wealthy and intelligent men have made a right pigs ear out of this.
“Like every Liverpool fan I’d have rather they’d have gone, ‘No we don’t want any part of it’. But I think the English teams – and not just Liverpool – didn’t want to get left behind.”
IF John W Henry wants to know particular, well-remembered,
the extent of the damage his between these two.
deeds have caused then he should Joe Willock’s late, late equaliser was
consider this. what Newcastle deserved and their Events on the pitch in a match between presence in next season’s Premier League Liverpool and Newcastle United, a rivalry is now a formality. that carries so many wonderful It was also a nasty blow to Liverpool’s memories, were of only passing interest. top-four ambitions but whether or not Mohamed Salah’s 123rd goal of his they secure a Champions League place Liverpool career was a reminder of his for next season should be an irrelevance – excellence and it was a pleasant it is a competition the six-times European OUR WORDS enough contest Cup winners did not want to be in anyway. with enough Even some Liverpool supporters would chances to acknowledge the sweet irony of Henry replicate and Fenway Sports Group missing out on one the financial rewards of another Champions League campaign.
Even some Reds supporters would see the ironic beauty of one of the selfproclaimed elite scrambling fixture
around in the Europa League. Some Liverpool supporters did congregate outside Anfield to make their feelings known. Not in Friday night’s Arsenal numbers, not in the numbers that once protested against another set of American owners.
But make no mistake, it will be different when those supporters are allowed back into the stadium, even if it will not be to Jurgen Klopp’s liking.
They will still support the team, just as the protesters gave the bus a hearty welcome ahead of this match.
But if Klopp thinks the ramifications of the Super League scandal will quickly fade and disappear, he is wrong. The
German does not get much wrong but his advice to the media was badly misjudged.
“You all have to calm down. It’s winding people up,” Klopp (left) told a television reporter before the match. Calm down? Calm down?
In his response on social media, Gary Lineker put it perfectly.
“A handful of owners try to tear our game apart and may well try to do so again and we’re just told to ‘calm down and move on.’ Huge admirer of Klopp but he’s spectacularly tone deaf here. Without the fans of our beautiful game, it would be much uglier today.”
Well said, Gary. And if everyone calms down and moves on, how long before a group of owners, whether a current lot or a future lot, try a similar stunt?
This is not the time to calm down, this is the time to get angrier.
Klopp tries to make a distinction between the institution and its owners “…it was not Liverpool Football Club, it was representatives of Liverpool Football club – we have to make a difference.”
Try telling Henry and his mates they are ‘representatives.’
Try telling the Glazers they are ‘representatives’ of Manchester United.
These guys are steeped in an American tradition of owners doing what they like with their sports clubs.
After Robert Irsay, the owner of the Baltimore Colts, moved his NFL side to Indianapolis in a midnight flit in 1984, he told reporters: “It’s not your ball team, it’s not their ball team.
It’s my family’s ball team. for it.”
And no matter what they say to the contrary, that is probably how Henry and the Glazers think.
That is why fans must hold them to account.
That is why they should not calm down.
Klopp is concerned that players will feel targeted but, again, he is mistaken.
He will know better than anyone that, once the whistle sounds and this ground is full, the support will be as passionate and as unrelenting as it has always been.
He can bank on that.
He can also bank on no one calming down any time soon.
The billionaires who own six of England’s biggest clubs betrayed their fans last week.
If going on about it winds people up, tough.
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