Easily fooled

As with politicians with posh accents, it seems the public and football fans can be fooled by multi-billionaire football club owners into believeing the clubs they support know what they're doing.

To describe last night's collapse of the European Super League (ESL) as a shambles would be too kind.

It seems that little thought had been given to something as basic as media partners, and pressed ahead apparently that everyone would just be fine that current TV deals with the Premier League, Champions and Europa League would just fail, and TV companies would come crawling to their door to beg for the rights.

Two clubs, Chelsea and Manchester City, joined late last week in order not to be left behind, but when it became clear how strong the backlash was, and how little of an actual plan there was, they bailed. In a made few hours last night, important news seemed to be breaking every few minutes.

By 20:00 Chelski and Citeh had announced they were in the process of withdrawing. And at 23:00 the remaining four English teams also pulled out. Some with grace, one, and I'm looking at you LIverpool, failed to appologise to the dameage done to relations with fans and players.

Football governance has been in chaos for years, decades, COVID on amplified that. Barca were €1.4 billion in debt before COVID. Juventus is in deep, deep trouble, which is why their chairman was the prime mover in the ESL. Increases in player wages of 15% year on year was always unsustainable, that the clubs did not see this as telling. And rather than fix their business models they chose to try to destroy football for everyone else.

The fallout in the days and weeks to come will be very interesting to see, and I can forsee one or more club going out of business.

What hurts the rest of the game is that football seemed to have come together in the last year, but it seems that some of the rebel 12 were plotting behind the scenes all along, ready to wreck the game the day before EUFA announced the revamped Champions League that all 12 signed up to.

It was suggested that key parts of the game could be changed, including the length of playing time being less than 90 minutes, as something like kids these days don't have attention spans. Or something.

And now, the morning after, the ESL is still releasing statements that the league should go ahead as football is, apparently, broken. This as another member is preparing to leave the infamous five alone. I really don't think they get it, that they had their one chance, and blew it. No one will listen to them now, not FIFA, no EUFA not their fans.

This went ahead by the owners and their chief executives failing to consult with the rest of the club, their team's managers, the players, the fans, broadcasters; and they will wonder why it failed?