Football’s Week of Reckoning
Last week, a group of self-serving businessmen and oil barons with detrimental delusions of grandeur finally unveiled the arrogantly conceived 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, my own Chelsea was one of the “big six” clubs to agree to join the facade, albeit one of the last. Abramovich and co claimed to join a fast-moving train in fear of being left behind, and, while we were the first to pull out and profess to seeing the error of our ways, one wonders why they weren’t more resolute in remaining behind at the station. The whole thing has left a sour taste in my mouth, such is my passion for this club.
Even those uninterested in the comings and goings of modern football 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 to oppose such an ill-advised proposal. 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.
Aside from the negative backlash, talk of foreign invasion, and the still-raging issues with club ownership, plans to press on with the European Super League have subsided for the time being. Upon reflection, I feel a more earnest way to regard 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 were able to stop harmful and potentially irreparable change by doing so. We reimposed the significance of the fans and the football community in a season where our absence in stadiums has been, frankly, devastating and glaringly stark.
Essentially, this is a David and Goliath story in its foundations. 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-earned result we should be immensely proud of.
To their 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 an unsettling pandemic, it’s moments of triumph such as these that remind us of the power of the human spirit and just what we can achieve when we all pull together for a worthwhile cause.
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