The European Super League blew a fuse amongst a lot of supporters, which I personally found quite bewildering as many supporters are quite straightforwardly ruthless when it comes to rivalry and wanting their team to be as successful as possible.
I’d also question how representative of the fanbase the fans that broke into Old Trafford and nearly blinded a policeman (image above) were of the club as a whole? Lots of noise was made by supporter’s clubs, but these groups only ever represent a fraction of the global fanbase of the club.
We also had lads outside the Tottenham stadium throwing beer and singing songs about holding a party after Daniel Levy’s death, who were they representing? It wasn’t me.
For all the recent blustering outrage, football changed in 1992 and these days it is all about making money. Just ask Levy, he actually demolished White Hart Lane in order to make more money.
It now emerges that the ‘through gritted teeth’ apologies fans got from clubs after the ESL scheme was announced were merely that, and that the infrastructure behind the plan remains intact. According to Voz Populi the project is merely on hold.
The US investment bank JP Morgan signed a loan of up to €4,000 million euros on April 17th. That was the funding in place.
The Court of Justice of the European Union has yet to decide the legitimacy of UEFA’s desire to rid the world of the ESL, and until then, JP Morgan’s money is said to remain in situ.
So at this moment, all that has happened is that some thugs have encouraged some clubs to publicly admit that they made a mistake.
I take a view that this proposition will return, and it would be naive to believe otherwise.
I totally agree that the ESL isn’t going away, but this will not guarantee Spurs will start to win trophies when it finally comes to fruition. I have written countless times about the NY Knicks and Dallas Cowboys being amongst the world’s biggest sporting clubs in generating revenue, but neither has won the respective Finals for quite some time (Knicks: 1973 and Cowboys: 1995). Levy and Lewis want to make money, not win trophies. We all know that. Is it better to be a part of this even if we won’t win anything? I suppose playing Barcelona, Juve, PSG and Bayern is better than Palace, Burnley, Brentford and Southampton.
Doesn’t it just! And eventually contaminates and spoils everything it comes into contact with.
Yes, Levy probably has to do this, though it would be nice if a really big club spoke out against it. Unfortunately, football clubs now are often run by people who just want to make money and even the football fans among them, denying the true concept of sport, want a stonewall guarantee of success or, at least, failure that is very minimal.But these people usually get to the top by ruthlessly exploiting others, so you can hardly expect them to hold any Corinthian ideals about sport.
Of course, in a world with any justice, owners who can get a club like Real Madrid into such a financial mess should be bunged into prison and the keys thrown away!
Talking of judges and their rulings on sport (and often their lack of understanding of it), there was the instance of Casey Adams being allowed to use a cart on the PGA tour (John Daly has since been allowed to), due to a judge’s ruling that walking wasn’t an essential part of playing golf and that riding around in a cart didn’t give a golfer a competitive advantage over those not using them. Jack Nicklaus said that he’d like to take such judges for a round of golf and see if their opinion was the same afterwards! Boris Becker, on playing golf for the first time and thinking it would be a doddle, was apparently surprised by how tiring it could be.
However, if Spurs – sans HK – are languishing in 13th place in the premiership, will they definitely be invited to join an ESL on the basis that they have a world class stadium with the fastest beer pumps in the west! Mind you, other participants may want an also ran or two that they can reasonably expect to trounce on a regular basis.
Football, in my view, changed for the worse in 1992. Agree with you, Harry that the plans for ESL are merely on hold, unfortunately. It will be back. Judges (or idiots in wigs who don’t understand the nature of sport) will make the ruling that Uefa trying to stop an ESL is restraint of trade!
Taking uefa to court maybe.
“give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws”
Mayer Rothschild. The mob who THFC are into.
The Morgans unsurprisingly chucking the money up for this, like the Rothschild’s and others, this banking ‘family’ have been funding chaos and the dismantling of communitys for years.
The sport in this country has been under attack since 89, a slow stranglation of all that made it vital. These reptiles are putting millions into Super Leagues and our non league can’t even get on the pitch to play a match or finish their season. They’re desperate waiting for Boris the animal to wave them on…..desperately waiting for a “freedom day” that won’t come. 21st June?? Summer solstice?? (Of course)
Not happening.
I agree. Its amazing that Spurs were part of it, so for that hats off to Levy!
It’s been this way in numerous Rugby and Cricket competitions for a while now — which is why I can’t believe that the EU courts could realistically block it.
Money is king for this sort of thing unfortunately, but in the long run I’d rather us being on the inside looking out (hopefully not thumbing our noses) than on the outside hoping to get in, so no, I don’t believe this to be one of the worst sins of ENIC.
I wouldn’t be overly surprised to see it return, but a little more in the vein of the Rugby Super League where new slots are bid for and voted against by the existing members every few years.
I think we’ll get a real view of where this is going when UEFA announce how they are going to punish Real, Barca & Juve – seeing as they are all publicly still involved.
100% agree with you here Matt. If we had missed the boat on this our fans would be rabid.
Better to be inside looking out then outside looking in.
The fact that Madrid, Barca and Juve still haven’t officially pulled out tells me something will happen sooner rather than later.
I disagree. If the ESL was to go ahead and Levy had the chance to join but didn’t….. that would be the biggest mistake.
Exactly. If Real Madrid and Barcelona don’t find a way of increasing revenue soon then they are in seriously deep trouble. They will start struggling compete with the English clubs. So they will drive this ESL idea forward. This will give the other clubs in other European leagues no option but to take part.
Harry, do see a possible scenario where a “lesser” British club took an ESL type spot and was able to buy enough name mercenaries to make a success of this over 2 or 3 years?
Fully agree that it is on hold. With overseas owners which for the most part care more about money which is their right, it is surely a matter of time before an ESL scheme is put in place. Players will go with the money and in a sense for players it is a guaranteed CL . Owners don’t have any allegiance to promotion relegation or Derby games. Real are broke, Spurs urgently need cash flow and a mega TV deal which ESL will provide.
The trick for the non-English owners is to be in it and get their hands on JP Morgan’s loot asap.
Well they got Al Capone on tax evasion. Whatever opportunity to throw dung at levy should be encouraged. He’s got away with too much up till now
It will return in some form no doubt about it. And it does irritate me when people blame Levy for this. If the ESL was to be a reality then I would much rather Spurs be in it than not! Of all the things people should be angry at Levy for, the ESL is absolutely not one of them.
Morally and ethically repulsive, but nothing new.
Although fans want the best for their team… most (even more of the aggressive or noisy sort) also have a ‘base sense of fairness’… and a league where no one gets demoted based on performance kind of goes against that. Even a mindless hooligan generally doesn’t bring a gun to a fist fight.
Money talks …. So ESL within 2 years IMO.