Two Sundays ago, media headlines worldwide screamed a leaked story from the football world. Perhaps it is the biggest sports/economics/entertainment story of this century and it is simply about pure greed. Super greed.
According to the story, 12 elite European football clubs were planning to form the European Super League (ESL). The clubs, all members of Forbes magazine’s Top 16 List of Wealthiest European Football Clubs comprised six English Premier League (EPL) clubs: Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur; three Italian Serie A clubs: Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan; and three Spanish La Liga clubs: Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. By the time the official announcement came at 11 pm that day, the ESL was already sinking.
The ‘Dirty Dozen’, as the select group was quickly dubbed, was to be joined by three more elite clubs, who would be guaranteed permanent places in the league, while the other five teams selected from the domestic European leagues would be subject to the vagaries of relegation and promotion. The proposal was based on the assumption that the clubs would continue to participate in their respective domestic leagues and compete in the Super League rather than the current UEFA Champions League competition, Europe’s elite tournament. The timing of the announcement was significant, since UEFA was scheduled to release the following day, a slew of reforms for the Champions League, its biggest money maker, and many of these breakaway clubs had already endorsed the changes.
Talk of a Super League had been floated since the late 1990s, but was often stymied by concessions to the larger clubs that felt entitled to a bigger slice of the pie since they have the most fans, and create the most interest in the game. As recently as last year, the Big Six English Premier Leagues which signed with the ESL – subsequently dubbed the ‘Sly Six’ by the British media – had tried to initiate Manchester United’s and Liverpool’s proposal of ‘Project Big Picture’ in an attempt to concentrate more power and wealth in their hands whilst mooting a breakaway league as a warning. Well, as it turns out, the breakaway league was no idle threat. It has since been disclosed that the ESL was three years in the making and was the brainchild of Florentino Perez, the President of Real Madrid.
The menace of a super league to football’s razor-edged financial balancing act was now real. Football controlling bodies such as UEFA and the English FA rely on the presence of these elite clubs in the Champions league and the domestic competitions, respectively, to attract the large revenue generated by television and sponsors’ contracts, which is filtered down to the lower levels to sustain the whole structure. Without the presence of the elite clubs, football in Europe could be held to ransom.
The concept of the ESL always attracted blood-hungry financiers, and in this instance, American investment bank J P Morgan Chase had agreed to underwrite the start-up league to the tune of 3.6 billion Euros. The ESL, whose motto is “The best clubs. The best players. Every week”, promises that the new league will provide “greater economic growth” within the game and generate more income than the current European competition.
The absentee billionaire owners of five of the ‘Sly Six’ EPL participants – Americans Stanley Kroenke, John Henry, and the Glazer family who own Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, respectively; Chelsea’s Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi’s Royal Family – were clearly not expecting the instantaneous backlash they received from across the board once the news was leaked before the official announcement. FIFA, UEFA, the respective English, Italian and Spanish football governing bodies, players of the six EPL clubs, the other 14 EPL clubs, and most importantly, the fans were swift and vocal in their condemnation of the ESL.
Armed with signs such as “Football belongs to us not you” and “Created by the Poor Stolen by the Rich”, fans descended in waves outside the stadiums of the Big Six and chanted their disapproval of the scheme. The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust issued a statement which probably best summed up the feelings of the English football fan base: “Our members and football supporters across the world have experienced the ultimate betrayal. This is a decision of greed to line the pockets of those at the top and it has been made with no consideration for the loyal supporters, our history, our future or the future of football in this country.”
“The motivation behind this so-called superleague [sic] is not furthering sporting merit or nurturing the world’s game – it is motivated by nothing but cynical greed. This competition is being created behind our backs by billionaire club owners who have zero regard for the game’s traditions and continue to treat football as their personal fiefdom,” the Footballer Supporters’ Association, which represents fans in England and Wales, said in a media release.
UEFA, no doubt cognizant of the power the EPL wields over the English game since its formation in 1990, was not about to yield any control to the ESL. It held long discussions with its members, figuring out ways to block the ESL, including banning the teams from domestic competitions and blocking their players from competing for their countries in events like the World Cup. It said in a press statement: “We will consider all measures available to us, at all levels, both judicial and sporting in order to prevent this happening. Football is based on open competitions and sporting merit; it cannot be any other way.”
Under pressure, the ESL, following three years of secret meetings, wilted and collapsed in 48 hours, as the teams withdrew from the startup league, like a pile of cascading dominoes. First to abandon ship was Chelsea, followed by Manchester City. The other four EPL teams also capitulated, and Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus followed suit. The ESL was on its knees, with only Barcelona and Real Madrid screaming to anyone who chose to listen that the project was still alive.
The events of April 18th to 24th are truly a sad reflection of the world we live in today. There are signs everywhere of the insatiable greed of the super-rich, who operate as though rules and regulations are instruments designed to keep the rest of the world at the bottom of the hierarchy, whilst they freely plunder the objects of their desire. They squeeze every cent out of whatever they lay their hands on, regardless of the consequences to people, their culture and the environment. Isolated in their plush boardrooms, cut off from everyday reality, this time around they underestimated the importance and the need to involve players, coaches, managers, and most importantly fans, in their greedy plans. The unified backlash from those excluded was swift and totally unexpected, leaving the self-absorbed owners scurrying from a sinking ship, and shedding crocodile tears whilst issuing half-hearted, inept excuses as apologies.
However, these club owners view fans as simple consumers, and they will not go away quietly, since they are not accustomed to having their whims and wishes spurned. They will most likely return to fight another day. The battle is adjourned for now, as the largest potential wealth transfer to a small number of clubs in sports history has been put on hold.
Karl Marx would be proud of the fans’ demonstration of unity and their unequivocal demands for inclusion in the decisions involving the fate of their clubs. After all, what is football without the fans?
