NOW’S THE TIME FOR FENWAY TO WALK AWAY. THEY’VE GOT IT WRONG AGAIN AND LIVERPOOL FANS WANT THEIR CLUB BACK
IF Liverpool’s owners were ever thinking of selling the club, then now would probably be the right time.
It’s hard to see how they can ever fully win back the trust or confidence of the fans, after getting it so wrong over the disastrous Super League plans.
Getting it so wrong again. That’s the point. Liverpool’s supporters, the core supporters, the fans from my city, have a specific view on how their club should be run, what it should stand for.
And, with the best will in the world, those Super League plans in the form they were presented go against everything they believe in.
It’s not the first time Fenway Sports Group have got it wrong: ticketing, furlough, even the Project Big Picture which they and United were behind. The reaction to that
alone should have set the alarm bells ringing over any Super League breakaway.
That it didn’t says they don’t understand their fan base.
Maybe the Glazers at Old Trafford can get away with that by hiding away, but I think that will be difficult at Anfield.
I’m almost reluctant to talk about Liverpool specifically when it comes to the breakaway group because it seems they have been singled out more than any club – and the fact is that there were 12 of them.
Even some of the other English clubs involved seem to have got off lightly, where Liverpool have been under the spotlight.
But I guess that’s the nature of
the club. The fans are different and the values are different – and I mean that in the best possible way.
I think it stems back to the Shankly era and beyond. There was always a true working-class ethic to the club and he tapped into that – just as Jurgen Klopp does now – making it almost a religion.
It’s still there in the city.
There is a hard edge, of course, and I’m definitely not romanticising it, but there is still a belief that people should help each other, just as Shankly suggested with his “socialism I believe in” quote.
God knows what Shanks would have made of these Super League plans – and I think it would be the same as Klopp truly feels now, without being able to really say it
– but the ruthlessness of it all, the sheer naked opportunism and the awful timing of it leaves a sour taste.
Look, I get it’s business and I think some of the more hysterical reaction in the past week has been laughable – because it’s as if they think football was a perfect world where everything had been fair and equal previously.
I heard the comments coming from UEFA and FIFA about greed and arrogance.
Really? Coming from them?
The Super League plans didn’t happen in a vacuum – they have been drawn up in an environment where football’s governing bodies have not only done nothing to stop the naked greed and arrogance, but have virtually invented the concept. These are the organisations who have been creating more and more competitions to cream off more and more profit. Nations League anyone? World Club Cup?
The Champions League proposals are laughable too.
But they do seem designed to bring the
governing bodies more money and I think the clubs who will generate that money felt they should simply cut out the middleman.
Look at where the governing bodies have led football, too.
Under their watch, we are now in a position where the biggest clubs can only be owned by oligarchs, nations or ultra-wealthy businessmen... and, with that, you inevitably get a lot of unsavoury characters, so don’t pretend it’s a shock when they start doing unsavoury things.
I’m glad the fans came together to stop these Super League plans.
They were wrong and it’s heartening to feel that the supporters can still have a voice. I’d actually like to see changes in ownership which gives the fans far more direct influence.
I know many of Liverpool’s fans
would like to see a change of ownership now – and United fans for that matter. But who can afford to buy clubs that size?
I’d be banging on the door of Government to change the rules regarding football club ownership, but this is Boris Johnson we’re talking about.
He’s a Prime Minister who apparently acted on a personal plea from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to intervene when he was blocked from buying Newcastle.
So I’m not sure he’s the best man to go to and ask that fans own clubs, not billionaires.
There is appetite for change, though, and that is the best thing to come out of the past week.
I hope the momentum can be used to challenge the whole direction of football now.
SUNDAY MIRROR
I know many Liverpool fans would like to see a change of ownership now – and United fans for that
matter