Fans only have themselves to blame
Igladdened to read that Partick Thistle, a football club I supported many years ago, has decided not to join the proposed European Super League. I’m sure even the £3 billion bung being offered to the Shameful Six in the English game would not have enticed the Maryhill Magyars into deserting their country and community. Small town; big dreams.
I gave up watching football years ago, partly out of revulsion at how it has become a playground for plutocrats, but mainly because it’s become pretty boring.
I’d rather watch the dads playing park football – there’s a lot more goals for a start. So I was supremely indifferent to the news that some English clubs with more money than sense had decided to join a breakaway European Super League. Better off without them.
However, the mega-stushie in the beautiful game has now taken on an unexpected political significance. The future king has joined with the Prime Minister to condemn this European League of Greed. Boris Johnson has promised to blitz the ESL with “a legislative bomb”.
I’m not entirely sure the government can prevent these foreign-owned private businesses crossing continents, but never mind.
This is a Red Wall issue. Sir Keir Starmer has also cried foul and called on the government to take back control, as if this were another dimension of Brexit.
The European Super League has nothing whatever to do with the European Union, but it does with something underlying it: globalisation.
It is part of the relentless march of capitalist expansion across national borders, leaving the little people behind. And there has been a hint of Brexit in the way commentators have condemned the mega clubs for betraying their country and community.
Pundits on the left have been sounding like Nigel Farage wondering whatever happened to patriotism and loyalty to one’s own.
So what exactly is all this about? Well, on Sunday, 12 of Europe’s elite clubs gave football an offer it can’t refuse. They are setting up a special European celebrity league in which they will play each other in mid-week fixtures while remaining part of national leagues.
The English clubs are Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea, although last night it appeared the latter two clubs may back out. These are big businesses, typically owned by oligarchs with revenues running into hundreds of millions. Other clubs will be invited to join the ESL on a temporary basis depending on how they perform “locally”.
It is all about money, of course. The founding clubs will reportedly share £3bn courtesy of JP Morgan, which is one of the mega banks now financing Big Footie.
This is to help them adjust to the rarefied atmosphere of global football, and is absolutely not intended as a bribe, or to buy the lads a drink. It is also to cover their vast debts.
Fans and football governing bodies like Uefa are furious. The left-behind clubs stand to lose a heap of money by not being included in this European Super League. Politicians and football celebrities like Gary Lineker are attacking the breakaway clubs for disrespecting the fans and for polluting the Peoples’ Game with filthy lucre.
There is, it has to be said, just a hint of hypocrisy in this outrage from wealthy ex-players and managers. British football is hardly a model of affordable community sport.
The Premier league is all about money – mainly TV cash – which has been used to pay ludicrous sums to the primping prima donnas of the pitch. The main reason the sports personalities and clubs are worried now is that some of their money will be creamed off by the super leaguers.
Defenders of the ESL say it’s just the way the game is going in the age of globalisation. They claim that many of the big clubs, far from minting it, are actually dicing with bankruptcy. This is partly because of Covid, but mainly because of the huge debts they have incurred trying to maintain their standing in the world and keep their fans happy. To survive, the top clubs need to cash in on that global status. Playing a wet Wednesday in Stoke doesn’t make it.
The fans aren’t entirely innocent bystanders here. They’ve wanted success above all – silverware in the boardroom.
To quote Bill Shankly: “If you are first, you’re first; if you’re second you’re nothing”.
To win nowadays is hugely expensive.
Superstar Lionel Messi’s contract with FC Barcelona is worth over £100 million a year. This may help explain why the world-famous club is £1.2bn in debt.
Of course, there’s a simple answer to that cash flow problem: just don’t pay them. But that doesn’t work in the global sports marketplace, apparently.
From the point of view of clubs like Manchester United, who apparently have more fans in India than in England, it is all about giving their viewers what they want.
It is no more objectionable, they say, than rock bands performing in mega stadiums on world tours. No one says the Rolling Stones are abandoning their fans and following the money.
If people keep paying, the Super League will probably happen, sooner or later, whatever the politicians say. As for Scottish football – well, nothing to see here since no team in Scotland is remotely in contention. Which in many ways is a very good thing.
Every few years there are rumours about Rangers and Celtic plotting to join the English Premier league on the grounds that they can’t afford to continue in the small pond of Scottish football. But it never seems to happen.
This could be an opportunity for Scottish football to go precisely the other way: become a sport which was more about local fellowship than global finance.
Be more like the Jags. Partick Thistle is one of a small but growing number of Scottish clubs that are owned by their supporters.
Mind you, that was because of the generosity of the late Colin Weir, who essentially bought the club to give it to the fans. I doubt if the American Glazer family, who own Man United, will do likewise.
It is part of the relentless march of capitalist expansion across national borders, leaving the little people behind