Super League farce shows there’s no limit to greed of football’s rich owners
If only the latest lockdown had lasted as long as the ill-fated and ill-judged European Super League.
When news first broke of the intention of 12 European giants to form their own money- spinning, invite- only competition earlier this week, I was taken aback, but not totally surprised.
Because, let’s be honest, while these clubs usually have thousands of supporters in the stands and successful histories forged on the pitch, their owners value something else much more highly - a healthy profit margin.
And, for the last decade, long before coronavirus arrived, which has quite disgracefully been used an excuse for this power grab, success on the pitch has not always resulted in the cold, hard cash these owners and chairpeople are chasing.
There’s absolutely no coincidence that every club initially involved in the European Super League was up to their eyeballs in debt.
According to football business expert Swiss Ramble, Chelsea – who are into the semi-finals of this season’s Champions League – are understood to currently owe their chairman Roman Abramovich £1.4billion.
Tottenham, who reached the Champions League final in 2019, are closing in on £1bn owed to their owners ENIC Group.
Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, who have lifted the Champions League trophy four times in the last six editions of the competition between them, are £70million and £467m in the red respectively.
Juventus, whose owner Andrea Agnelli came up with the scheme in the first place, are £611m in debt, despite reaching the Champions League final twice in the last six years and winning the Serie A every year for the last nine years.
Giant city rivals Manchester United, Manchester City, AC Milan and Inter Milan are all similarly well in the red.
At the end of the day, these clubs have all been, to different degrees, relatively successful on the pitch. Some have even dominated their domestic leagues and shone on the European stage.
Their issue is their management off it has been nothing short of abysmal.
The wages handed to superstar players has reached well beyond the grotesque, while the rights for TV cash pushed by Sky Sports and BT Sport has gone through the roof.
There’s so much money in football now it’s almost hard to fathom just how the biggest and most successful clubs in Europe could be in such dire financial straits.
That’s why it was no surprise to discover that several of these owners had been secretly working on a plan to raise more cash. Their business heads could see that the current cash coming in was never going to clear the debt they found their clubs swimming in.
What they didn’t factor for was the incredible backlash they were about to elicit from the football fraternity.
While there is more than a hint of irony at fans from clubs like Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea protesting about financial fair play, when their recent dominance of the English Premier League has been undoubtedly fuelled by cash- rich owners, it was nonetheless a welcome sight to see the backlash to the European Super League being so widespread and bipartisan.
Even in Scotland, every right-minded football fan was disgusted.
The idea of a closed- shop ‘competition’ that teams cannot be relegated from is against the very principle of football.
Yes, there’s still far too much money in the sport and, yes, it’s greatly exacerbated the difference between the haves and the have-nots.
But, as soon as the elite of the competition separate themselves from the rest of the pack by playing in a competition they cannot be taken out of, whatever their results on the pitch, the game’s a bogey.
Success in sport should always be earned, not bought.
Hopefully, some of these rich oligarchs have finally bought into that message.