The Sunday Evening the World’s Biggest Club Owners Bit off More Than They Could Chew

Normally after a good old helping of football over the weekend, I like to digest games and decipher what has caught my eye.  It was almost impossible however to avoid the decadent predicament that all who love the game faced in a breathtaking 72 hours from the announcement on Sunday at midnight, to what now looks like the attempted coup of a breakaway European Superleague quickly being dispelled like a forgetful first date.

I forget there was actual football played this past weekend, firmly put on the back burner, since the astonishing announcement made by the ‘leading’ 12 clubs of Europe, that pulled the trigger on the announcement they have been flirting with for years that they intend to make their own ‘Super League’ amidst the alluring swathes of financial gain they could be set to make. It shook the game to its core, making headline news around the world.

We know the culprits by now, six English clubs (Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea) three Spanish clubs (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid) and three Italian clubs (Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan) intended to make their own more self-serving (as if they didn’t have the biggest slice of the pie already) version of the Champions League, where there would be no relegation and founding members would automatically compete in the league every year. 

The reasons for their downright money-grubbing, now comical, attempt at a breakaway league was their delusional answer to how to deal with the effects of the pandemic as clubs had lost match day revenue operating without fans, not just on match days but other revenue streams, like stadium tours and hospitality. The clubs were set to split an eye-watering 3.2 billion pounds and in the midst of a pandemic where clubs are struggling to stay afloat in the lower leagues around Europe the move from the clubs was and is abhorrent.