By Tony Attwood
So the richest people in football want to form a super league of their own, beyond the realms of Fifa. What could possibly be wrong with that?
“Everything,” scream the people who currently make money out of football – Fifa, the media…
Which when you come to think of it is a bit odd, because suddenly, out of nowhere Fifa and the media have become the good guys, opposing the theft of “our” game. And that is so odd, surely it is worth pausing to consider. How did Fifa become the good guys?
The fact is that there is a huge amount wrong with football at the moment. So much I can’t possibly cover it all, but we might consider just five things that are so utterly wrong just now
First, Fifa, surely the most corrupt sporting organisation on the planet.
Second the UK media with its abject refusal to cover certain topics, its innuendo accusations, its endless stream of factual inaccuracies, the way it kowtows to the PGMO – and Fifa,
Third the way that multi-billionaires can take over clubs and ensure that they come to dominate football.
Fourth the way refereeing is run in the Premier League – a way quite different from refereeing elsewhere and the way it has persuaded the media never to discuss its activities.
Fifth the way important causes are manipulated. Yes Black Lives Matter, oh but Pakistani lives don’t when they are lost building stadia for the next world cup, because well, its the world cup and it’s ok for our players to go to the world cup, even though immigrant workers were treated appallingly in the building of the stadia.
But now, in this fight between the mega rich club owners and the rest, suddenly Fifa and the media are presenting themselves as the good guys, the protectors of our game, the ones who will save our game for us. Forget Black Lives Matter – now it is FIFA MATTERS.
All you have to do is pause for one second and just think of this. Fifa is being presented as the saviour of the game. Fifa, an organisation so corrupt that the US cavalry once stormed its building and took away a load of its fat cats. An organisation so inept that even though a little group of fans running Untold Arsenal predicted exactly how, where and when the FBI were going to invade Fifa’s HQ, and got it totally right, Fifa still didn’t know it was going to happen!
What we are seeing at the moment with the denouncement by Fifa and the media of the new super league is one of the most clever bits of PR in the history of football. Fifa, the most corrupt and appalling organisation in the entire history of sport, are the good guys!
Don’t take any of this to mean that I’m in favour of the super league run by the super rich – of course not. If it comes to pass, refereeing under PGMO rules will look like heaven, Fifa will be cast as the guys running a really tight ship, and the media will forget about their objections as soon as the first transfer stories are invented.
It is tempting of course to say that if it comes to pass there will be some good bits come out of that. Fifa will be cast low, the media will wake up to what is really happening on the pitch… but no. Can you imagine the media not covering this new league fully, just as it covers the Premier League?
And most likely the new league will open its own TV channel – a channel that will make Sky and BT look balanced!
Can you imagine the new refereeing association that runs the control of the new super league being not open to corruption? It will make PGMO look like the good guys!
Can you imagine the Court for Arbitration in Sport not having anything to do with it? No, they’ll be in there like a shot with their wild and wacky re-writing of reality in utter secret.
Can you imagine the media boycotting the games? Of course not. They’ll be all over it. A new Fifa will be set up to run international games involving players who play for clubs in the super league – probably worse than the current Fifa. A new refereeing association too – and you can be certain the media won’t say a word about any decision any referee makes. I mean if they haven’t so far, why would they start now.
In short, we are in this mess because the media have refused to take on the real enemies of football. In the UK the media won’t expose Fifa’s corruption, won’t criticise the ineptness of the FA, won’t investigate PGMO… and now as Super League comes along they are trying to get us to defend the status quo!!!
Indeed so all pervading is this situation even a highly reputable scientific magazine will take the story that there is no change in the way home and away results are panning out this season (a key issue in proving that there is a lot wrong with refereeing in the PL) and print utterly false data to back up the view all is right. That’s how bad the situation has got.
But with this approach refereeing in the new super league will be just as corrupt. New Fifa will be worse than old Fifa. Media coverage will be even more biased than it is now. Topics that should be discussed will be just as universally ignored as they are now.
Yet there is worse: if the Super League is defeated, it will be seen as a triumph. The current journalism, the current refereeing, the current FA, the current Fifa – all retained stronger than ever! Argh!!!!!
Whatever happens we, the fans, are going to lose, because the real reforms that are needed in the Premier League, and in Fifa, and in PGMO and in the media are ever less likely to happen. Indeed it is curious that just as we edge closer to showing all that is wrong with football and the media that covers it, we have the threat of sweeping it all away and replacing it with something just like it.
The outcome will be that the super league won’t happen and this will be seen as a triumph for football. And that triumph will be the retention of Fifa, the monocular vision of the media, and the right of clubs like Manchester City to march through football spending the wealth of a nation to ensure eternal victory, the same blinkered media, the continuation of PGMO….
And that will be the victory of those who oppose Super League.
Gaslighting: how refereeing in the Premier League is manipulated, and why the media never speak about it.
- 1: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it?
- 2: How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media
- 3: Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed
- 4: How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4
- 5: Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the credibility of the Premier League
- 6: Revealed: PL referees are not 98% accurate but actually just 75% accurate
(Footnote: the first ever mention of gaslighting in connection with football appeared in the media – six weeks after the launch of the above series on Untold)
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The best thing that could happen to football is this Super League proposal. The fact that a few want to create a pedastal for themselves shows where the owners hearts (pockets of these heartless bastards)are. All football clubs should be owned by the fans as members of the club and shareholding should be limited to UK nationals.
Foreign ownership is an abuse of the sport and has brought the game into disrepute, specially with the implementation of PGMOL as the Gods of officiating.
It is time for our clubs fans to collectively change the face of ownership by boycotting the game for a fortnight at the start of the next season.
My first reaction was that getting away from the pigmob would make it all worthwhile. Can any refereeing be worse than the blatant fixing from the FU-lham game yesterday? Nanometer offside decisions are exactly why clubs are looking elsewhere. I wish the volume around this was applied to our VAFarce and the disregard of application of the rules in a consistent manner to all clubs at all times. I am not sure how the spuds got into a group of big European clubs and wonder if this indicates that it is very early days for the idea or with their inclusion some late April fool’s day. I understand how many of the points above can be proposed but hope it is an attempt to wake up football authorities from their money laundering and migrant worker death activities. There is much wrong with football as a sport at the moment so perhaps now is the time to find some actual, qualified Journalists who have greater ambitions in life other than getting into games without paying to give less impression of the events of a match than would be given by a group of penguins in the Antarctic.
Jeez Tony, anybody would think you weren’t a fan of FIFA, the UK media or PGMOL?
This hijack is an existential threat to Arsenal and indeed football as we’ve come to know it. Don’t know if indeed The Special one has been sacked or for what reason. I hope he has and I hope it’s because he won’t go along with this new league disgrace. High profile figures need to stand up and say no to this and refuse to be involved with it. Fans certainly don’t count, they can be replaced by global streaming service, the players and managers are the cast of this pantomime and the most essential part of the recipe, they need to stand up and show how serious they are when they kiss the badge and go on about missing the fans so much.
Over to you Captain Auba.
If this comes to pass , FIFA , UEFA , the various FAs as well as the rest of the clowns will be out . Is that bad ?
I for one will pay good money to watch real football , and not this WWE like crap now.
So these players will be banned from national teams and international tournments, so what?
I have hated the UEFA and World Cups ad nauseam. A bloated travesty , at best.
This is going to be an interesting summer !
Real football?
With no promotion and no relegation the same dozen teams playing each other over and over? I suspect Arsenal would currently be at or near the bottom of that ‘league’. A plastic, fabricated pantomime. Zero evidence that the standard of officiating would be better, on the contrary, it would in all likelihood be subject to the whims of the corporate owners. Whatever theatrics they deem most profitable would supersede any notion of true sport. All image, no substance, no soul.
I’ve supported Arsenal for 51 years now, never dreamed I’d wake to a day when I didn’t. If this ever comes into being that day will dawn.
Dunno Dec >
Probably highly inflated salary caps and squad drafting each season will see it all evened up so that the chosen few can milk the Tv Companies for as long as possible .
Currently 5 Premier clubs have American owners 2 of which are excluded , None of the 3 Chinese owners are in , and already the Saudis that were negotiating with Ashley for Newcastle are casting doubts.
How long before these people throw their clubs under the bus when there is no dream to follow ?
There are only 4 teams currently with English owners (and Newcastle with whom Ashley could be eternally stuck with ))
Not so good the state of the Peoples game is it ?
For me this is the best thing that could ever happen in football. FIFA and UEFA complaining about the greed’ of others while ignoring what they have been doing for aeons to keep themselves only in the feeding trough of football. Football is big business, like it or not. Until there is fair referring in matches a cartel will always try to create its own empire.
Commercial interests aside where is the concern for the average fan of all the clubs. The whiners have benefited for so long from the status quo that they would fight back to retain it. If this move should succeed in anything it should be in the way that football is being administered and managed at all levels. The PigMob should be the first fatality followed by the corrupt overseeing organization of football worldwide.
The ESL may not be a perfect response to all the ills in football administration but it is a right step in fighting the corruption in football.
How can you guys not see a different measure with a new Super League? No points in this league just prizes!! Million per match 60% to the winner 20% to the loser and the rest to pay for officials, man of the match, pass of the game, best dribble etc. No promotion or relegation just loadsa money!!
There are several ways of attracting fans and sponsors and allof it screws football as we know it. It will be like IPL in football.
You are confusing FIFA with UEFA.
The European super league is a result of the “GOD” complex that PGMOL, Football association, FIFA and the media clowns. What did they think was going to happen? All the people want is a fair and level playing field, not patronised by media and football authorities.