UEFA need to be backing clubs, not annoying them!
APRIL 18, 2021 will live in infamy for football fans. On that day some of European football’s most powerful clubs, as well as Arsenal and Tottenham, announced they wished to form the European Super League (ESL).
A closed tournament which ensured the richest clubs would get richer sparked anger among fans, and rightly so.
It became a stain which City would quickly be desperate to get rid of as supporters turned against the idea.
Remarkably, the ESL was so bad UEFA even became the good guys for a period.
Just two days later the idea was dead in the water as first Chelsea and then City withdrew from the ‘modern football project’. As one-by-one teams dropped out of the league, UEFA’s selfrighteousness grew.
Instead of looking at the reasons behind this breakaway competition and working towards ensuring something similar does not happen again, they relished in the glory of being victorious.
The governing body decided to force the clubs involved to accept UEFA was the supreme leader of football and should not be challenged.
Fast forward to the present and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has decided to seemingly ignore the issues of 12 months ago and pursue a hostile relationship with his member clubs.
Pep Guardiola has often bemoaned the number of fixtures his players are faced with throughout the course of a season.
His point was proven when four matches in the relatively inconsequential UEFA Nations League were added to the calendar a couple of weeks after the regular season ended.
Instead of reasoning, though, Ceferin went on the offensive, effectively telling the City boss and other club managers to keep quiet because they could be working in a factory instead.
Admittedly, feeling sorry for footballers can be a bit of a stretch in times of a cost-of-living crisis, but would it have killed the president of one of football’s top governing bodies to not jump straight on the attack?
UEFA should be on the side of football teams, but so often they seem to be more than happy to work against them.
This is exactly how projects like the ESL come about.
If clubs continue to feel unappreciated by UEFA, it will only stoke the fire for a Super League 2.0.
The president owes it to football fans to keep all of its clubs happy but this forceful, patronising, ‘put up or shut up’ approach is not the way to do it.
For football’s sake, Ceferin needs to help mend the fractious relationship that has been created by his organisation.