New super league is all about money
IT was almost 29 years ago now, but I still have the football shirt that I bought after going to my first match.
It was the last game of the 1992-93 season, when Bournemouth were playing Reading. I was in the raucous South Stand end of the Cherries’ Dean Court ground, which I can still remember erupting after Jimmy Quinn rolled in a late winner.
I was totally hooked.
Because the away strip was being replaced the follow season, shirts were going for a fiver after the game, and I grabbed one. It’s a bit tight now, to say the least, but I can just about squeeze my girth into it. Just.
Fast forward almost 30 years and I have been one of the lucky fans to have lived through a dream period for their club.
I’ve seen Bournemouth promoted into the Premier League, play five seasons in the top flight, and seen the likes of Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero work their magic in front of my very eyes.
While the Cherries were relegated last season, they are having a fair stab at getting back into the Premier
League, which, for all its foibles, remains open to any club which can win enough games to get promoted into it.
Any of our region’s clubs could make it – and, once you are in it, you only need find that dream formula and you can be playing in the Champions League.
Leicester City winning the Premier
League was, arguably, one of the best things that could have happened to our game, as it showed that you can’t simply buy success, or be guaranteed titles if you spend enough money.
That is general rule, sadly, but one that can be broken.
Which cannot be said of the mooted European Super League. That is a competition which has been proposed by the ‘big six’ English clubs – both Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham – together with the biggest sides in Spain and Italy. Others are waiting in the wings.
These clubs, seemingly unsatisfied with competing in their domestic leagues, and frustrated at all-toooften failing to qualify for the Champions League, have formed a new tournament which they would be ever-present in. Founding teams that could not be relegated.
More importantly, there is more than £300 million for each team, which is a nice guaranteed sum to put on the balance sheet.
And let’s be clear, this is what it is all about. Money.
It is not about the glory of playing the top teams for an elite trophy, it is about selling the TV rights to the highest bidder and counting the cash that will inevitably come rolling in from a plethora of sponsors.
The sad thing is that fans don’t really come into it. The billionaire owners of the clubs aiming to launch this competition couldn’t care less if the games were played behind closed doors, as long as the TV rights were sold for eye-watering sums and a few replica shirts are shifted.
You only have to see the owners of Manchester United floating the club on the New York Stock Exchange to see why they are involved in football.
It’s not for the love of the game, that’s for sure. Hence their keenness for this new competition. It would, at a stroke, do away with the European Cup and UEFA Cup, even though these cups have been changed beyond all recognition, anyway, in the guise of progress. More importantly, it would be a closed shop, even if a few lucky clubs are allowed the chance to qualify for it.
If, as suggested, these clubs are then banned from their domestic leagues, it’s goodbye to the Premier League. Then it really would be over for the dreams of fans everywhere.
It’s not about the glory of playing the top teams for an elite trophy, it’s about selling TV rights