The Super League stinks
Football's current set-up has its faults – but at least it's not unsporting
By signing up to the European Super League, the two Manchester clubs have united their city – in disgust. In fact, in the space of 36 hours, they’ve united the nation. Where Gary Neville led, everyone from Jurgen Klopp to Bruno Fernandes, from James Milner to Prince William, has now followed. Our gut reaction, expressed in Sunday’s comments on the Burnley game, has turned out to be the same as almost every fan’s. The only enthusiasts for the plan in Britain seem to be the owners of the Big Six and the leading agents – some of the greediest people in sport.
Not that UEFA and FIFA are perfect, far from it. It’s hard to admire an organisation that is prepared to hand the World Cup to Qatar. No club is spotless, not even United: they allow the shirt, one of their greatest assets, to be used to promote gas-guzzling American cars. And the Champions League can be tedious, when it’s early December and a dead match is being played out between Man City and Nowheregrad. But at least Nowheregrad get that chance.
The Super League stinks because the 15 founder members can’t be dislodged from it. One of them could be relegated from the top division in England, as United were in 1974, and still take their place in the Super League the following season. That is just plain wrong, a crime against the ethos of sport.
Only the other five teams would be there on merit – presumably the highest-placed non-founder-club in each of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France. Where does that leave Ajax or Benfica? Both are among the ten most successful clubs in the history of the Champions League and its predecessor, the European Cup. Ajax stand sixth in that table, with four wins.
When sports lovers look at Ajax, they see total football and a thread of elegant intelligence that runs all the way from Cruyff and Neeskens to Daley Blind and Donny van de Beek. When the Big Six owners look at Ajax, they just see a club that’s not super-rich. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Some have pointed out the parallels with the Kerry Packer affair, which tore international cricket in half in 1977. Well, yes, it too was a breakaway, bitterly resisted by the governing bodies. But the leading players were in on it, for one compelling reason: the governing bodies had been paying them peanuts. That’s not exactly the case in 21st-century football.
The Glazers and Ed Woodward have let everyone down – the fans, the players, the manager, even the official global mattress and pillow partner. Their plan, thankfully, is already half-dead in the water. The next question is likely to be who goes down with it.
With thanks to our latest subscriber, who signed up just to see if we’d said anything about the Super League