WHERE WERE THE EUROPEAN ULTRAS WHEN THE GAME’S FUTURE WAS AT STAKE?

NOT every football supporter was against the European Super League. Comments posted on social media last week reveal each club harbours its lamentable opportunists, even outside the boardroom. ‘I’m actually happy they don’t want dead rubber games against poor teams that qualify for the Champions League,’ sniffed one Tottenham fan. ‘More quality is always better.’ For amusement’s sake, here are the last 10 teams to knock Tottenham out of Europe: Dinamo Zagreb, RB Leipzig, Liverpool, Juventus, Gent, Borussia Dortmund, Fiorentina, Benfica and Basle — although that’s nine. The season before that Tottenham failed to emerge from a group comprising the titans of PAOK, Rubin Kazan and Shamrock Rovers. So that’s two exits to Super League opposition in a decade, and eight to the ‘poor’. Spot the consistent weak link in that chain. Equally, what about the socios and ultras? We hear so much

about the fan-owned Spanish clubs and the power of the biggest Italian fan groups but, when it came to it, barely a peep of protest from either. This is the reason government charters and tighter regulations are a better lock on owners than fans on the board. If the socios really run their clubs, where was the resistance at Real Madrid and Barcelona? If Juventus are so intimidated by the boys on La Curva Sud how would they dare even try this? Once inside the club, fans can be worked on, and worked over. There still remains the idea within the elite that this league could have flown had it been better sold. Fans in the boardroom sounds a great idea, but it only works with independence. What would a lone voice, or the illusion of representation, achieve? The silence of the lambs in Europe suggests, ironically, that English supporters were more unified and louder outside the castle wall, where they stood beyond reach and beyond persuasion, and exercised their greatest power: the withdrawal of support, both financial and physical.