Slap transfer bans on the Sleazy Six to punish owners for the greed that has tarnished our game for over a decade

SEEING the football community come together last week to stop the European Super League in its tracks was great and it felt like a big moment.

Everyone was shocked at first and then upset – although maybe not surprised – and they stood shoulder to shoulder, channelled their anger and won the battle brilliantly.

Punishments

Now, as the dust starts to settle on a crazy few days, attention is starting to turn to what punishments should be meted out to our Sleazy Six.

And while I understand calls for points deductions or European bans, I wouldn’t go there because we’d be hurting the players and managers – and that wouldn’t be fair.

Transfer bans of three to five years would be a much more appropriate punishment for the owners and execs who drove the ESL.

And that way James Milner, Jordan Henderson and Jurgen Klopp, Marcus Rashford and Luke Shaw would be allowed to keep challenging for the trophies they have

Football’s ultimate maverick sounds off earned the right to challenge for. These Liverpool fans, we’ve managed to get clubs have deep enough squads and Harry Kane out of Tottenham to plenty of talent in their academies to remind you that John W Henry really stay competitive in that period, does care”. but their owners couldn’t I’m already starting to see social do any business in the media posts from Reds fans saying, transfer market. “Great that Henry has apologised and

They couldn’t don’t forget he is the guy who has given curry favour with us the last four or five years”. fans, either, by But that’s not a sentiment I go with. presenting an Erling Haalandshaped present that says, “Here, Manchester City supporters, look how great Sheikh

Mansour is”. Or, “Hey,

John W Henry wouldn’t have known Virgil van Dijk from Dick Van Dyke before he was asked to sign the cheque that landed

him

Henry simply employed a guy who coached his players brilliantly and employed other people who scouted very good players for that coach.

He wouldn’t have known Virgil van Dijk from Dick Van Dyke before he was asked to sign the cheque that landed him. That’s why I hope people

aren’t just content to give these owners a bloody nose in the short term and move on. Because the greed we have witnessed isn’t just confined to the past week, it has consumed our whole game for a decade and more.

And, while I supported the T-shirts worn by Leeds and Brighton, and statements on Everton and Nottingham Forest’s social media accounts, I wonder how many owners or execs at those clubs, or at my club Aston Villa and the rest of the English pyramid, would have jumped at the chance to join the ESL if they’d be offered it? I’d suggest 80 per cent, maybe 90. What I’d like to see now from proposed reviews of our game, then, is for the transfer ban I’ve talked about and for UEFA to ditch their co-efficients.

Powers

I want to see the owners and execs of our wealthiest clubs removed from committees and boards so we can strip them of the residual powers that allow them to dictate to the other 14 Premier League shareholders.

And I want Boris Johnson to introduce the 50+1 per cent fan ownership model they have in Germany.

Bayern Munich are Treble winners and European champions, and they and Borussia Dortmund have companies falling over themselves to invest, so you can’t tell me it doesn’t work as a financial model or as a model that protects clubs.

I promise you, if we do go down that route, we’ll be kicking ourselves for the next 40 years

that we didn’t do it sooner.

If we don’t, then we will see Henry’s Fenway Sports Group selling to, say, the Chinese government or the Manchester United-owning Glazer family selling to the Saudis.

And when that happens, we’ll find ourselves back where we were last week in no time at all.