Greed is everywhere in the modern world.
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The anti-hero in your favorite TV show does, whether it’s Tommy Shelby, Tony Soprano or Walter White, who’s a little more captivating.
Maybe in the last week, if you live in England, it is meant to have the fourth pint when three would have been enough.
Leading European football clubs announce new Super League competition.
– Liverpool FC (@LFC) 18 April 2021
With these terms, greed, as Gordon Gekko would say, is good. He’s also the type of character who wholeheartedly agrees with the terms of what the hell this European Super League is.
The insurmountable greed that creeps into football has long come, but most fans are romantics. They are still in love with their teams. Before the pandemic, they would unpack the arenas for the clubs they love, whether they fly high in the Premier League or scrap for their lives in League Two. Supporters probably did not want to admit how their experience of the modern game was transformed from a spiritual to simply trying a product, but the clues have been around all along.
Owners without links to their clubs. Ridiculous fees that broadcasters pay for TV rights. Blackmailed prices for the most basic club goods. The basic experience of match day being cleaned to such a shameful extent.
Ed Woodward, Man Utd’s Executive Vice President | ALEX LIVESEY / Getty Images
We have been on the road to a European Super League for a while now, but it has not made the greed of those involved less shocking, disgusting or nauseous.
Arsenal. Chelsea. Liverpool. Manchester City. Manchester United. Tottenham Hotspur. Inter. Juventus. AC Milan. Atletico Madrid. Barcelona. Real Madrid. Shame on all these clubs. With an English nuance on, the Premier League teams in particular are ashamed.
At a time when fans feel more independent than ever, the formation of a competition that will secure the pockets of the rich and leave them at the bottom of the English football pyramid is scrubbing. To believe that talks for this competition would have taken place before and during a time when the country’s national health care is on its knees. Yes, the clubs have been happy to share all the “big” work they have done in their respective communities, but somehow these conversations have taken place under cover of darkness until now, where they receive generally poor publicity. Funny that, huh?
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, also the first chairman of the Super League, has claimed that European clubs are on their knees and desperately need a new direction to lift them out of the economic mess they have been in.
Florentino Perez thinks the Super League are good guys? ? pic.twitter.com/v4RgtSU6M6
– 90min (@ 90min_Football) April 20, 2021
Do you know what may have saved them there? A little frugality. Do not live in excess. Does not spend around £ 50 million on players like Luka Jovic. Sure, the transfer market has changed, but if they acted with a bit of responsibility, they might not be £ 1bn in debt.
Clubs like Real have no problem taking exorbitant amounts of cash from TV offers, but fans are the people who have to pay by the nose to get into the basics, or who at one point would have had to pay £ 15 per pop to watch Burnley vs Sheffield United.
Somehow, instead of healing the divisions that have begun to grow between these 12 clubs and their fans, those responsible have signed up to 23-year offers for a closed league. No promotion, no relegation. And it will get worse in the future as well.
Fans from Merseyside, Enfield, Manchester, anywhere, will get fewer and fewer games to go to when they are hosted in China and the US instead. That globalization may be good for some, but it makes the last 100 years and more for each side meaningless. It abandons their history, and history is a massive part of football’s romance.
UEFA President Ceferin publicly appeals to English clubs behind Super League: “Gentlemen, you made a big mistake. Some will say it’s greed, others ruin, arrogance … there is still time to change. Everyone makes mistakes “pic. twitter.com/urIDYIs0qg
– Rob Harris (@RobHarris) April 20, 2021
When we talk like a Tottenham fan, the feeling is pure shame and disappointment.
Are they a leading club in Europe? They may have made great strides from the pitch in recent years with their profile rising, their value to grow and the new arena impressing many, but right now they would not qualify for the Champions League.
Why? Because they are simply not good enough, they are seventh in the Premier League.
And this is a club that wants the divine right to sit at the table of adults and take a massive piece of the pie while other teams surpass them on the pitch? When, almost a week ago, were they embarrassingly knocked out of the Europa League? While Leicester and West Ham rightly sit above them in Champions League qualifiers?
Maybe we should all start watching the Bundesliga again, huh? | Sebastian Widmann / Getty Images
The meritocracy of football began to wane as soon as the rich could pump billions into the most random football team with little or no control. Football before the European Super League was obviously not perfect. Greed and money in the game is disgusting, but it may have been to save.
If these plans continue, the whole landscape of the game will change and definitely for the worse. We must all say goodbye to Manchester United and Liverpool by name and say hello to Manchester Reds FC and Merseysiders FC, with perhaps an American city added there for good measure, depending on where they play.
Those in charge have lost touch with supporters and if they get their way with this ESL, it will be the end of the game we know and love as we know it.
For more from Jude Summerfield, follow him on Twitter!
