IT will be an Alex Ferguson hairdryer moment.
To mix metaphors, MPs will this afternoon line up to give the owners of England’s big six football clubs a damn good kicking as they vent their anger at the attempt by Manchester’s United and City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur to break away from the popular Champions League and start an elite European Super League of around 20 clubs.
They will be joined by the likes of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus as well as Inter and AC Milan but not, interestingly, the top clubs from France and Germany.
Oliver Dowden, the normally urbane Culture Secretary, will, for once, adopt the demeanour of Roy “bite your legs” Keane, and lead the attack with a Commons statement and then, hold onto your bobble hats, as a torrent of invective will be unleashed from the back benches.
READ MORE: European Super League: Everything you need to know
For those not initiated in the lore of football, what has happened is a dastardly bid by some of Europe’s super-rich clubs to try to get even richer by breaking away from the current Champions League.
This is a decades-old knockout competition beloved of fans. But the plan is that the elite clubs would leave this system and create a new league, closed off to other clubs, but which would guarantee their place in it as there would be no promotion or relegation.
The aim is to appeal to global TV audiences and maximise revenue. To put it another way, it is greed, pure and simple.
As fans, and players, have been deprived of the human atmosphere at football matches due to the pandemic, this attack on the game has given all the party leaders a golden opportunity to stand by the people, the fans. Politically, it is an open goal.
UK Government ministers are considering “all options” to kill off the Super League at birth. One could be to adopt the German model, whereby the law upholds a 50%+1 fan ownership rule requiring supporters to have majority voting rights at each club. Legislation could be fast-tracked through Westminster in days.
This ownership rule is being given as to why no German team has signed up to the Super League. One Government official noted: “It’s not gone unnoticed that German clubs are not in this and they have fan representation. We’ll look at all options.”
On a trip to Gloucestershire, Boris Johnson set his face against the Super League plan, telling reporters: “We are going to look at everything that we can do with the football authorities to make sure that this doesn’t go ahead in the way that it’s currently being proposed. I don’t think that it’s good news for fans. I don’t think it’s good news for football in this country.”
UEFA, the English Football Association, the Premier League, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), LaLiga, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and Lega Serie A have today released a statement.
— UEFA (@UEFA) April 18, 2021
Read it in full here: 👇
UEFA has also raised the stakes significantly.
European football’s governing body has launched its counter-attack by making clear any club that joins the Super League would be banned from playing in any other domestic competition, European or International level; in other words, the likes of Man Utd and City, Liverpool and Arsenal would be kicked out of the Premier League.
And, the players of the elite clubs could be denied the opportunity to represent their national teams. Which throws up a threat to some players’ roles in this summer’s European tournament.
So, this means not only will the elite club owners be getting it in the neck from fans but players too.
What has been interesting since the news about the European Super League broke late last night has been the complete absence of anyone supporting the elite clubs’ move.
So will it ever happen? Probably not.
To many, it looks like a crude ploy to garner more leverage, and, of course, money, to get the football authorities to change the current Champions League format to the elite clubs’ benefit.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson condemns ‘very damaging’ European Super League
Yet, politically, it is a massive own goal as it emphasises how the people who own the clubs are not football fans but money fans. All they are interested in is using sport, loved by millions of people, to feather their own nests.
Of course, football fans are not naïve. They know from the cost of tickets to the sale of merchandise that the foreign businessmen who own the big football clubs are only really interested in one thing and it is not football.
But this attempt to uglify the beautiful game is shameless. It must and will be resisted. Fan power is about to be unleashed. Let’s hope it wins the day.
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