The most heartening thing about the end of one of the craziest weeks in the history of modern football was the reminder that fans actually matter and can effect positive change.
Whatever reputation Florentino Perez once had as Real Madrid’s president, it now lies in ruins on the back of one of the most catastrophically misjudged coup attempts in recent memory.
Perez was the ringleader of the 12 breakaway clubs attempting to form a European Super League, and along with Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli, it’s hard to see how either of those two come away from this grubby affair with their dignity intact.
Some of Perez’s comments in the wake of the fiasco are mind-boggling. His claim that a Super League is necessary because young people no longer have the attention spans to watch domestic football should provoke some honest discussion around his mental acuity.
THOMAS: A European Super League is elitist, arrogant and criminal
It’s the sort of comment you’d expect a child to make – not the 74-year-old leader of one of Europe’s greatest clubs.
But when guys like him start talking nonsense, it’s because it sounds better than reality.
Like the fact that under Perez, Real Madrid have now racked up debts of more than 900 million euros.
Not content with being one of the world’s most wasteful spenders in the transfer market, in 2017 Perez rubber-stamped a 525-million euro renovation of the club’s Santiago Bernabeu home that doesn’t add a single seat to the stadium’s capacity.
The club claims it will make the stadium a year-round tourist attraction, but what they fail to mention is that they desperately need those tourists to plug the holes in their finances left by years of overspending on transfer fees and player wages.
By the time the renovations are finished – in a post-COVID world, no less – Real Madrid are just as likely to be bankrupt as they are the continental kings of Europe.
And it’s not like they’re the only one of these 12 clubs to have betrayed their own heritage.
It was more than 50 years ago that Barcelona first called themselves “more than a club,” but the words mean nothing now.
“You’ll never walk alone?” That’s probably because Liverpool’s owners are busy walking arm-in-arm with 11 other owners desperate to destroy the sanctity of European football.
How did it come to this? Let’s blame TV money for starters.
For the past 20 years, the broadcast fees handed down to UEFA Champions League participants has damaged domestic leagues almost beyond repair.
It’s the number one reason clubs like Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain win their own competitions year after year.
But it’s also created a transfer-based arms race between clubs which sees the likes of Real Madrid try to outspend their domestic rivals Barcelona on headline-grabbing signings.
No longer content to produce their own players, for years the 12 Super League ‘founders’ have used transfers as a means of drumming up publicity.
Real Madrid. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
That has in turn attracted some of the worst elements of the business world to try and use football clubs – with their global fan-bases – as a form of venture capitalism.
Foreign-owned clubs like Inter Milan, Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal have lost touch with their homegrown fan-bases.
Having squeezed the locals dry, the dream switched to selling millions of jerseys – and lucrative TV rights – in the far-flung reaches of Asia, Africa and even Australia years ago.
It was no surprise that when Liverpool owner John Henry was asked to comment on the Super League last week, he was at a Boston Red Sox game.
And we should be under no illusion the idea of a European Super League is dead and buried.
However, the best thing about last week’s three-day meltdown was the reaction of fans. For the first time in a long time, the money-grubbing opportunists who’ve tried to steal football from the people were put back in their place.
That’s a lesson fans across the globe would do well to heed. Because as sure as day follows night, these thieves will be back.
Dangersphere 10
Roar Rookie
Well put and thank goodness there are still some reasonable football fans around. All these people lining up to take shots at Perez and the super league clubs, not realising greed of the worst kind has already infiltrated and destroyed football in the form of plastic oil clubs such as City or PSG. These clubs have helped to destroyed the transfer market and re-shape players contracts to the point were other traditional powerhouse clubs can no longer keep up. They have ensured a future of plastic club domination, as we see the CL further diluted with the recent changes. Football is on its last legs, and won't be recognisable in 10 years time.
Rodger King
Roar Rookie
@ Roberto - I understand what you are saying mate, but to just discard any of the A League clubs as something other than what they are, is just unfair, it isn't accurate. Definitions of a club:- an organization constituted to play matches in a particular sport. "a football club" According to the Cambridge Dictionary:- a team: The Orioles are an exciting club this year. Stockport County Football Club So regardless of the ownership structure of the A League clubs, they are as much a club as any of the community based organisations playing in each of the various state leagues.
jbinnie
Guest
Buddy - There is another idea that has been flaunted many times and that of course is that of a "British' league which has as it's basis the best supported clubs in Britain forming their own exclusive comp. It has always been thought that due to the massive support generated by Rangers and Celtic in Scotland allied to the same potential support available in Cardiff and Swansea, not to forget Belfast, that if a comp was set up with potential support as a main criteria, then financial success would almost be guaranteed. This "idea" has never actually taken root .no doubt because the elected men of the administrative bodies no doubt saw an end to their "charmed" life at the top of the football pyramid. So we have seen this much more attainable idea replaced with an even bigger and far reaching notion, a European Super League. So what is new? jb.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
Liking your comment is not endorsing the idea, btw.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
I assume you mean with West Asia having their own tournament. If so, would you have a Superbowl-esque final between the East and West Asia winners, or keep them fully separate?
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
The momentum is building, first time I have seen a news report on football in between programs for maybe 5 years, Rockdale Suns and Sydney United.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
The travel would be too much to do on a weekly basis or every couple of days.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
We don't need a fourth club within walking distance of AAMI Park. Let's not follow the Melbourne CBD AFL model with A League.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
Well said. I find it strange that people think money has nothing to do with sport. Also why do people draw the line at super league but cheer their players that are on millions of dollars a week. Also it's easy to say a club president should do X when they have never been close to making decisions on that level.
Micko
Roar Rookie
THAT is why we should have an expanded FFA CUP with several standalone rounds for Roberto. It's not realistic that old ethnic NSL clubs become fully pro clubs (remember how the NSL was dying?), but a well run FFA Cup (FA Cup? what is it going to be called?) will have plenty of annual games of old rivalries renewed, and a chance for old NSL clubs to have a regular crack at A League clubs. :thumbup: :football:
Micko
Roar Rookie
Accrington..."refused to be relegated". That's hilarious! :laughing: :thumbup:
Micko
Roar Rookie
The yanks have an exotic sports system, where the majority of the country has town/regional sport rivalry & tribalism manifested through the “college” system: university sport in various cities and states that don’t have many (official) pro sports sides. They have some college gridiron games that draw larger crowds than some NFL games!
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Rodger Are they clubs? Charlesworth sells the license, and somebody else buys it and has a right to put a team in the A-League, and decides to place that team in North Sydney, for example. Charlesworth then sells off the land which is owned by him or his private company - there is no club. South Melbourne is actually a club. They are barred from playing in the top tier, but they and Melbourne Croatia and others continue to play, continue to put out teams at all levels, because that's their primary purpose, they are football clubs. They can be plonked into the bottom tier of football and they would continue to exist as football clubs. If an A-League club owner hands in their license, that can actually signal the end of that team - because there is actually no club. There is merely a right for a club owner to put a team in the A-League - that's what the license fee is for.
Rodger King
Roar Rookie
I should make it known that the following information was taken from a less than well known website http://www.football-stadiums.co.uk A famous old English footballing name. But not one of the originals, if I’m not mistaken – Aston Villa, Everton, Stoke (who would later become Stoke City), Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End, Accrington, – they were dissolved 8 years after the first season as they refused to be relegated. Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Notts County, Derby County, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Just a point for everyone. Not one BIG 6 amongst them. Further more if anyone is really interested the first season/match took place on the 8th of September 1888. However the FA has a different picture and I lean towards that.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Wasn’t that long ago that Accrington Stanley were non league and virtually bankrupt! When I was growing up in the uk, many coach companies didn’t want to be associated with football clubs as there was a tendency to “brick them” - definitely if your team lost, but sometimes for no reason.
jamesb
Roar Guru
I would actually prefer the ACL to be done in a tournament format over a month rather than the scattered scheduling over the course of a calendar year.
pacman
Roar Rookie
From my observations on occasional visits to the UK, many clubs have their own luxury coach (bus) and, yes, overnight accommodation is often featured. When clubs such as Accrington Stanley have a luxury coach the envy of most bus travellers throughout the world, well, you get the picture. A different world indeed!
Waz
Roar Rookie
Talking of “out of touch” ... in the wake of this debacle Tony Sage goes and floats the idea on a SE Asia “Super League” again .... :unhappy:
Buddy
Roar Rookie
JB - I suppose you could say that the beginning of euro competitions was in fct very similar to the idea of some kind of Super League so in effect, the pushing and shoving has gone on for much longer than I mentioned. What I was getting at though was that even though before the advent of EPL, when you were in the lowest division in the league you knew you were in division four, not League 2 - we had three European competitions that catered for league champions, domestic cup winners, and a mixture of League cup winners, higher placed teams in division and even as a prize for fair play! However, none of that was seen as enough and I clearly remember so many arguments raging back from early 80’s onwards. In the UK in those days, Liverpool was the only team that was being touted. For all. Manchester United’s worth as a business, their football did not warrant an invite but the whole thing was on a smaller scale and was never announced as a viable concern. What it did do was to begin the change in thinking, in prize money, revenue from television etc and then ultimately the format. Not sure that any of it has been an improvement on what we had though. At least when it was the European Cup you knew the champions were domestic and euro champions and had a chance to be world champion club side too. These days, it is somewhat meaningless. Maybe the champions League should be renamed “the European super league” - now there’s an idea!
NoMates
Roar Rookie
Asia should have a super league with west Asia's being omitted, include Oceania teams and it could be the next big thing.