- Football conspiracy theories: How the media are trying to mislead us
- What do so many top money transfers turn out to be flops?
By Tony Attwood
So now we know: Uefa and Fifa were wrong, as they almost certainly knew all the way through: Super League was legit, and Uefa and Fifa have, as in all things, persistenty been over-reaching their legitimate powers.
Of course the media don’t want to know this for they all have long term TV, radio and print media rights to cover Fifa and Uefa games, giving their journalists wonderful long expenses-paid trips around Europe in return for endless sycophantic writings which ignore Fifa’s corruption via the abuse of power, migrant workers and anyone else who causes a fuss, each time new stadia are built in third world and oil rich countries.
That Uefa and Fifa have been abusing their dominant position has never been in doubt. That the British media supports them in this regard is likewise not in doubt.
But that many, many supporters have been led to believe that somehow Uefa and Fifa running the show is better than any other alternative is harder to understand, but there it is.
Quite possibly it was the clever manipulation by Fifa and Uefa of the notion that clubs having power would mean mega rich crooks running football which got them what they wanted. The fact however was the other way round. When it comes to dodgy deals, Fifa and Uefa are the masters. Want to see a final run under the the control of Uefa: just think back to Paris.
So there will be a new Super League, and unless the Premier League clubs break free from the power that the UK media seems to hold over them, the PL clubs won’t be part of it.
But then football in Europe quite often goes on without English clubs. English clubs refused to be part of the competition when the Eurpean Cup started. Then having come in they were thrown out again after Liverpool fans rioted in 1985. Now it seems with a new competition being initiated English clubs will once again refuse to take part. If history repeats itself, they will then go back and beg for admittance, although there is always a chance that the rest of Europe this time will have had enough by then and simply say no.
If the new super league really does get some momentum, it will reduce the pull of the Champions League, leaving English clubs and those of other countries, a free run. Lots more trophies for English clubs then, with the media knocking those funny foreigners who are playing in some other competition the the English will have nothing to do with.
The revised Super League looks like having two divisions and it would appear a lot of Europe will join in. The refusal of English clubs to join, if that continues, will take us back to the early days of the Euoropean Cup when then as now, England turned up its noses at johnny foreigner and his new fangled ideas. Eventually when 1st Division clubs did want to join they had to beg for a place at the table.
There is of course an issue promoted bhy the media that the new league needs the English teams more than the English teams need the League, but there is always a chance that this is not true. It is of course true that crowd trouble now exists in many parts of Europe, but there is no doubt that many Europea clubs feel that visiting English crowds are the worst of the lot Having no English clubs in the new league will be seen as a bonus by some – indeed let us not forget that the England team was threatened with expulsion from Euro 2000 because of the poor behaviour of fans. Not having to think about the security issues (real or imaginary) is going to be something the clus in the Super League will be rather pleased with.
And there is another point for the European Court of Justice has said that it is legal and appropriate for competitions to be set up away from existing competitioins. No one can claim a monpoly. There is nothing to stop 16 clubs setting up a West European League and it looks as if any attempt by an existing competitiion to stop this, would be unlawful. And of course the City Group can have their own league too (see below for membership).
Indeed it is rather poor form for the Premier League to complain. After all, the clubs broke away from the Football League when they felt their fortunes would be better looked after if the clubs branched out on their own. The Football League was, as I recall, rather upset at the time. But for all their bluster there was nothing they could do to stop it.
But there is one thing. Consider the Spanish League, as we have several times of late…
Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Real Madrid | 18 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 39 | 11 | 28 | 45 | |
2 | Girona | 18 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 42 | 21 | 21 | 45 | |
3 | Barcelona | 18 | 11 | 5 | 2 | 34 | 21 | 13 | 38 | |
4 | Atletico Madrid | 17 | 11 | 2 | 4 | 35 | 19 | 16 | 35 |
Now imagine that Super League starts up and Girona are not invited. Their average attendance is around 12,500 so there’s a good reason for them not to be. What will they do?
Their owners – the City Football Group that owns Manchester City etc, might accept the position and be pleased for their new club to win the Spanish leage season after season. But also they might feel they have earned a rightful place in the new Super League. What then?
Well with the idea of clubs forming their own leagues now established the City Group might well set up their own league made up entirely of their own clubs. After all they own quite a few… One more would make a 12 team league of their own.
- Manchester City
- New York City
- Yokohama F. Marinos
- Montevideo City
- Girona
- Sichuan Jiuniu
- Mumbai City
- Lommel
- Troyes
- Palermo
- Bahia
Not only the british press are making a barrage against the ESL. In Switzerland for example, same story.
And it is not like there would be many clubs from Switzerland in an ESL.
Then again, the Swiss Football League is all part of UEFA, so what do you expect ?
Just defending their beef. And the immediacy of it just smells like organised campaign accross the continent.
Arsenal, they ought to join the ESL with their B team -as the U23s/U21s play in the PL…. wtf, it would give fans a chance to see more games, support the youth movement, create a revenue stream even with cheaper tickets and play the A team in the ESL far from PGMOL. The only issue at hand may be that the turf at the Emirates may need more care….
How would that be ? Would the fans be so totally against it, really ?
And if the new setup becomes as corrupt as the present what then?
It could work if the FA cup and League Cup was sacrificed for teams playing both the new super league and European league. That would mean if for example Arsenal and say Liverpool was playing in both the New Super League and The existing European League thet would have to forfeit the entrance to the FA cup and League Cup. With the new super league games played on Cup days. This should make all parties happy, but it would slightly devalue the FA cup competition, a smaller price to pay.
when I bought my beeper in 1997 I thought it was the bees’ knees. Then I graduated to a flip phone and had to pay for texting over a limited number of characters. Son-of-a-bitch!
Now I can send a video for free to the other side of the world and speak to my friends in Brazzaville in real time. Things fall apart. Things change. We’ll get used to it.