Football’s Week of Reckoning

Photo: AFP

Last week, a group of self-serving businessman and oil barons with detrimental delusions of grandeur, finally unveiled their arrogant foresight competition that they worryingly believed would “save football.”

“The European Super League” they called it; an annual league intended to challenge the status quo of European football and bring the sport into a new “post-pandemic” era of success. In reality, what they carried out was the “attempted murder of English football” (as Gary Neville so eloquently phrased it) and a means to further line their own pockets.

Frustratingly, the powers that be behind my own team were one of the “big six” clubs to agree to join the facade, albeit one of the last. They claimed to join a fast-moving train in fear of being left behind, but what wonders why they weren’t resolute in standing by their club and remaining behind at the station. While we were the first to pull out and profess to seeing the error of our ways, the whole thing still leaves a sour taste in the mouth, such is my passion for this club (read An Ode to a Hero for more musings).

Even those uninterested by the comings and goings of modern sport were pulled into this tirade as protesters swarmed outside the gates of their respective clubs’ stadiums and politicians took to the media to announce their intentions of combatting what was to come. Aside from the ethical issues of disregarding social distancing guidelines, it was a sight to behold, and, were it not for the global pandemic still sweeping our planet, this would surely be considered one of the biggest and most controversial cultural events this year.

But, aside from all the negative backlash and talk of foreign invasion and the still-raging issues with club ownership, talk of the European Super League has managed to relatively subside for now. In reflection, what I feel is a more earnest way to view this whole debacle is by focusing on what we were able to achieve, rather than what was almost lost.

We, the fans, exercised our law-abiding right to protest and demonstrate our views, morals and beliefs, and we able to stop harmful and potentially irreparable change by doing so. We reimposed the significance and magnitude of the fans and the football community in a season where our absence in stadiums has been, frankly, devastating and glaringly obvious.

Essentially, this is a David and Goliath story in all its essence. The common people (as we were likely viewed by those leading the charge) were united under shared and passionately profound principles. Consequently, we found ourselves able to overthrow the powers that be (for now at least) and that is a hard achieved result we should be immensely proud of.

To their own detriment, the “founders” of the European Super League grossly misunderstood the context of football in this country and just how much competitive sport means to so many of us. In the grips of an often unsettling pandemic, its moments of triumph such as these remind us of the power of the human spirit and just what we can achieve when we all pull together for a worthwhile cause.