Football (Soccer) Thread

[Tamas]

The UK government consult with the UEFA on how to regulate things going forward with the Guardian cheering on:

This is more like it.

Oliver Dowden, the UK's Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has been speaking this morning.

"It's very important that we don't see this as the end of the process. What this is highlighting, more than ever, is the need to look at the wider governance of football ... I met with the president of Uefa on Monday and I'll be ... speaking to him again later today. We've been absolutely resolute in saying that we will not have our national game taken away from us for profit."

[Gups]

yes and no 

The working class are already exceedingly pissed-off here in the UK and now there was an attempt to take their game from them; it has turned out to be a damp squib but it is also an entry on a long list.

Part of the game being taken away narrative was because people in positions of power and influence found it in their interests to promote the narrative that the game was being taken from them.

No. It was because the game was being taken away from them. No narrative was needed, it was bleeding obvious.

[The Larch]

Yeah, there's no need to get all super cynical and snide eyed about it, it was really fucking blatant.

[Sheilbh]

I do wonder to what extent EUROPE in the name pissed off the fuckwits

It didn't - it was called "The Super League". Therre's no doubt in my mind that was so it wouldn't be limited to Europe as other media markets develop and I expect that some of those owners would have looked at moving those clubs away from their "legacy fans" and legacy location.

I think in the press and statements by the clubs it was described as a European Super League to make it more palatable.

I just can't see this as a "seismic moment". I never like when stagnation wins over change, as stagnation inevitably leads to decay. I think the seismic change would have been this Super League and even if it eventually would have flopped it would have triggered positive changes overall.

There's always been an inevitability about a European Super League and it's been the big threat from the big clubs to get their way.

They wanted more games, they wanted ways to make sure they can qualify for the CL even if they didn't do very well in the league, they wanted a bigger share of the money. And generally they got those things because they are a huge attraction for people to watch the leagues they're in - and if they didn't get at least some of what they want they'd walk away and set up their own league. When this launched most football journalists I saw thought this was another bit of posturing so the clubs would stay in the CL but get more money and more games and more security. But it was serious and it failed.

So that threat's gone. It's like the Emperor's new clothes - next time they say they need x, y and z changes or they'll form a Super League I think other parties will be comfortable with calling their bluff.

Now I hope fans move on - I hope agitate for lower ticket prices at these clubs, for more of a say from the government.

Got to hand it to the press, they very quickly turned a betrayal of UEFA execs into a betrayal of all people.

Isn't it that, by accident, UEFA found itself on the same side as the vast majority of football fans (including the fans of those clubs)?

[Tamas]

In what way do the fans currently exercise control over the game that was about to be taken from them, even in the long run?

[The Larch]

Atlético announce they're withdrawing, and Agnelli (which apparently hasn't resigned as had been reported yesterday) has admitted that the Super League can't go on with the remaining teams.

[Tamas]

I do wonder to what extent EUROPE in the name pissed off the fuckwits

It didn't - it was called "The Super League". Therre's no doubt in my mind that was so it wouldn't be limited to Europe as other media markets develop and I expect that some of those owners would have looked at moving those clubs away from their "legacy fans" and legacy location.

I think in the press and statements by the clubs it was described as a European Super League to make it more palatable.

I just can't see this as a "seismic moment". I never like when stagnation wins over change, as stagnation inevitably leads to decay. I think the seismic change would have been this Super League and even if it eventually would have flopped it would have triggered positive changes overall.

There's always been an inevitability about a European Super League and it's been the big threat from the big clubs to get their way.

They wanted more games, they wanted ways to make sure they can qualify for the CL even if they didn't do very well in the league, they wanted a bigger share of the money. And generally they got those things because they are a huge attraction for people to watch the leagues they're in - and if they didn't get at least some of what they want they'd walk away and set up their own league. When this launched most football journalists I saw thought this was another bit of posturing so the clubs would stay in the CL but get more money and more games and more security. But it was serious and it failed.

So that threat's gone. It's like the Emperor's new clothes - next time they say they need x, y and z changes or they'll form a Super League I think other parties will be comfortable with calling their bluff.

Now I hope fans move on - I hope agitate for lower ticket prices at these clubs, for more of a say from the government.

Got to hand it to the press, they very quickly turned a betrayal of UEFA execs into a betrayal of all people.

Isn't it that, by accident, UEFA found itself on the same side as the vast majority of football fans (including the fans of those clubs)?

Trust me you don't wan the government meddling in sports.

[Sheilbh]

I thought David Conn's column was good on this - I think the reforms by this review might be quite strong especially if the FSA is going to be involved:

PM sides with fans in Super League outcry – but will he stay with them?
Analysis: Mindful of 'red wall' voters, Johnson protested, but the question remains whether he can give the game long-term help
David Conn
Wed 21 Apr 2021 00.00 BST

The spectacle of Boris Johnson, acme of an old Etonian rugby man, weighing in on the side of football fans against the breakaway European Super League, is a collision of political and sporting cultures that has been brewing for 30 years.

The abortive participation in the venture of England's "big six" clubs, all owned by investors from overseas, is the culmination of a financial carve-up that began with English football's own breakaway, the 1992 formation of the Premier League. The then big First Division clubs were determined not to share the new pay-TV riches with the clubs in the Football League's other three divisions. As their fortunes subsequently boomed, British owners made multimillions by selling their shares.

As the Premier League roared to unprecedented wealth and global popularity, supporters' groups warned successive governments that the cherished heart of the game and clubs' beloved character were at risk from the ruthless imperatives of mega-commercialisation. Many fans alarmed by the acquisition of their clubs as financial investments educated themselves, and came to admire the German sporting model, which embeds football's social role, keeps match tickets affordable and blocks corporate takeovers by requiring clubs to be more than 50% controlled by their supporters. It has been striking that while England's six clubs – three, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, owned by US investors, Manchester City by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, Chelsea by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and Tottenham by the Bahamas-based currency trader Joe Lewis – signed up to the Super League, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, great German clubs still formally controlled by their fans, refused.

This exact scenario was explicitly predicted for years if the commercial juggernaut were not slowed: a tiny group of clubs would grow much richer than the rest and irresistibly dominate, with a European breakaway a logical final destination.

Yet while UK governments have dabbled, prompted by a string of select committee inquiries, none has been prepared to decisively intervene. New Labour came closest with a "task force" that produced some progressive reforms, but that was as long ago as 1998; its administrator was a young Andy Burnham, now mayor of Greater Manchester. As governments held off, insufficiently concerned and generally dazzled by the game's reinvention, the big clubs' demands escalated to this point where Johnson threatened a "legislative bomb" to stop them.

His sudden discovery of football as turf for the Conservatives to park on clearly falls within the Tories' strategy of appealing to their new voters in the north and Midlands former "red wall" seats, taken from Labour in 2019 in the fallout from the Brexit referendum. The Tories do not need their relentless focus groups conducted with these voters to understand that many of them are football fans. Hence Johnson leaping immediately into action after the clubs dropped their own Super League bomb, the Conservative prime minister writing in the Sun that although, he acknowledged, he is "far from an expert on the beautiful game", he would give the breakaway "a straight red".

The appeal to red wall voters is apparent in his and other ministers' language, similar to that in which the promises of "levelling up" come wrapped, funds to make small-scale improvements in selected provincial towns.

"Football clubs in every town and city and at every tier of the pyramid have a unique place at the heart of their communities, and are an unrivalled source of passionate local pride," Johnson's piece propounded.

This championing of football's traditional values has come just days after Johnson was revealed to have wanted a takeover of Newcastle United by a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund to go ahead last year. Yet the apparent contradiction between that support for a Saudi takeover and his condemnation of the "ludicrous" Super League plan does not mean his threats of legislation are necessarily empty talk.

The view that football needs regulation has been hardening among Conservative politicians, particularly after the culture, media and sport select committee, chaired by Damian Collins and now Julian Knight, inquired into the truly grim 2019 collapse of Bury, a Football League member club since 1894. Tracey Crouch, the former sports minister newly appointed to lead yet another inquiry, the government's promised "fan-led review," is thought to be prepared for it to recommend meaningful reform this time. The Football Supporters' Association, which has campaigned against corporate takeover and over-commercialisation all these years, is to have a central role in the review.

Whether Johnson's government will produce legislation for football given the outcry against the Super League remains to be seen, but the clubs have certainly been jolted by the volume of opposition, and a prime minister exercising himself about it.

Seasoned campaigners are rolling their sleeves up now for another round, while also lamenting the missed opportunities and warnings, that the heritage heart of the people's game needed to be preserved while its top clubs were enjoying the fruits of their modern bonanza.

Edit: And I think in England - this is the second time these clubs have done this in a year. There was also Project Big Picture which was similarly cooked up behind closed doors then leaked/launched on an unsuspecting public and eventually withdrawn.

If these clubs really think this change is necessary - then win the argument. Convince a broadcaster, find your three other "founder clubs", get Klopp and Guardiola on board, get buy-in from the players and their agents, sell it to fans so they want it to happen etc.

[The Larch]

Apparently Juventus' shares in the Italian stock exchange are plumetting.

[Zanza]

If your action leads to UEFA and FIFA being seen as the good guys, you should reevaluate your action.

[Sheilbh]

If your action leads to UEFA and FIFA being seen as the good guys, you should reevaluate your action.

And PSG!

[Zanza]

And Bayern.

[The Larch]

Agnelli:

"I don't think our industry is a particularly sincere, trustworthy or reliable one in general."

[Sheilbh]

[Josquius]

Doesn't seem to be too much rage from Italy and Spain?
Or am I just missing something?
Maybe a Spanish-Italian league could be a halfway compromise?