Revolt against European soccer super league – With insights from The Wall Street Journal

Sometimes capitalists get it badly wrong. And from everything we can see thus far, the decision by England's biggest football clubs to join a European Football league with Spanish and Italian counterparts is one of these sometimes. It's interesting that German clubs, which by law are 51% supporter-owned, have not joined in. Neither are there any French, Portuguese or other European clubs in the mix. UK fans have pointed to the fact that all but one of their six involved clubs are owned by foreigners. English soccer fans from the prime minister to the future king, and league officials believe the threatened action by the clubs will irreparably damage the world's premier domestic soccer competition which of late has become increasingly competitive. Critics also point to the timing of the proposed football monopoly coinciding with three of the six English clubs no longer automatic candidates for the existing and lucrative European Champion's League. Here's the latest from our partners at The Wall Street Journal. – Alec Hogg.Use Spotify? Access BizNews podcasts here..Use Apple Podcasts? Access BizNews podcasts here..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Soccer's Breakaway Super League Leaves Legions of Fans Super Distraught.Protests erupt over plans by the sport's most successful professional teams to form their own elite and lucrative circuit, upending long-held tradition.By Joshua Robinson of The Wall Street Journal.April 19, 2021 5:23 pm ET.Tim Payton isn't sure when the pandemic will allow him to attend his next soccer match at Arsenal's home stadium in London. But he can tell you for sure that he won't be wearing the team's red-and-white jersey.."I imagine going dressed in funeral clothes," said Mr. Payton, a season ticket-holder for more than 35 years and a board member of the club's supporters' trust. "I imagine going to lay a wreath outside.".To be clear, no one is dead. Yet fans of 12 of Europe's most ancient, storied and successful soccer teams, including Arsenal, are in a state of bewildered mourning this week, following the unveiling of a lavishly funded Super League that would irrevocably alter the landscape of the sport.These supporters have unleashed a tsunami of anger at their own teams—even though those clubs would be the direct beneficiaries of the proposed league.Under the new plan, a small group of elite teams from England, Spain, and Italy—already some of the wealthiest sports enterprises in the world—would compete in a new circuit that would only enrich them further. Opponents say that would undermine the integrity of wildly popular national competitions, like the English Premier League and the main pan-European competition, the UEFA Champions League."I don't want to call them the Dirty Dozen," said Aleksander Ceferin, the president of European soccer's governing body, known as UEFA. "But UEFA is about developing football…and some people don't understand it."The most controversial point is that 15 of the 20 teams in the Super League (three teams will be added later to the initial 12) would be installed there forever, raking in huge payouts instead of qualifying on merit, season after season. In other words, the group of 12, which brings together the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester United, Liverpool and Juventus, is effectively hoping to set up what is effectively a league closed to outsiders, akin to the National Football League or Major League Baseball. (The other teams inside the velvet rope are Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, AC Milan and Internazionale.)"Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans," Real Madrid president and Super League chairman Florentino Perez said. "And our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires."Divining the desires of any four billion people is hard, except perhaps in this case. The backlash from die-hard fans was so sudden and so searing that it instantly became one issue even the most belligerent soccer supporters could agree on. With teams entrenched in communities for more than a century, often wrapping together social and political identities, the sport's traditional order isn't something they take lightly."Every fan I've spoken to felt it was a betrayal of the history of the club," said Duncan Drasdo, the head of the Manchester United Supporters' Trust. "People have managed to take our football clubs for profit instead of being custodians of cultural institutions."On Monday, the sidewalk outside United's Old Trafford home became the site of an impromptu protest. Fans held up a sheet bemoaning the Glazer family, owners of Man United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Their club, it said, had been "created by the poor, stolen by the rich."Many fans said they weren't even sure they would return to the stadium when pandemic restrictions were lifted. One United fan—who almost certainly won't be back—went viral with a video of herself taking a pair of scissors to her season ticket. Although a close inspection revealed meager sacrifice: The pass was for the 2019-20 season.Less than 40 miles away in Liverpool, supporters were mounting their own demonstration outside Liverpool Football Club's historic Anfield stadium. Their signs read "LFC Fans Against European Super League" and "Shame On You RIP LFC 1892-2021." As they installed flags of protest outside, they demanded their flags of support be removed from inside the stadium.That the club once trademarked the phrase "This Means More"— a profession of faith between the team and the city of Liverpool—makes the situation more awkward than most. Particularly when it found itself having to explain the Super League move to a group of supporters who felt uniquely insulted: Liverpool's own employees."We know that this announcement has provoked strong feelings within the game and elsewhere," Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan wrote in all-staff note viewed by The Wall Street Journal. "But we believe this decision is in the best long-term interests of Liverpool Football Club."Soccer's governing bodies now face an existential decision about how to handle the rebel teams. UEFA on Monday announced that any players participating in the Super League, which hopes to open in 2022, would be barred from such major tournaments as the European Championship and the World Cup. The organization also was studying the legalities of suspending the clubs themselves "as soon as possible," Mr. Ceferin said.For supporters of non-super clubs shut out of the Super League, the impending sanctions raise a tantalizing possibility.In east London, West Ham fans are calling for widespread bans not only to preserve the traditions of English soccer, but because they have spotted an upside. The Hammers are having their best season in years and sit fourth in the standings. After Sunday night's news, they began circulating tables of what the standings would look like if the six super-clubs were ejected and their games vacated. It turns out West Ham would be nine points ahead in first place with just four games to play.More surprising still for fans of the blue-collar club is that they have an unlikely ally in the aristocratic president of the English Football Association."I share the concerns of fans about the proposed Super League," Prince William tweeted, "and the damage it risks causing to the game we love."It is worth noting that the prince is an Aston Villa supporter. That club wasn't invited to the Super League, either.Write to Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.comCopyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8Appeared in the April 20, 2021, print edition as 'Super Fans Confront Super League.'

Revolt against European soccer super league – With insights from The Wall Street Journal

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