Sometimes the irony of a moment grabs you with memorable intensity. I had been interviewing over Zoom for a part-time warehouse manager for a food bank of which I am a trustee. We were discussing a minimum wage job and the applicants were outlining how sad it was that the position existed in the first place.
Meanwhile in a parallel, incomparably richer universe FIFA were looking to mount a major power grab which would see them form an 18 team European Super League.
As the banner headline flashed across my screen, aside from the irony that two such disparate worlds exist I wondered if this was the end of supporting Arsenal as we know it.
Five English teams are allegedly in talks to join the league. The first four are fairly obvious and the fifth will almost certainly be either Arsenal or their historically significantly less successful rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, who have always struck me as impostors in any ‘Big Six’ of English football. At this stage it throws up a conundrum. Despite reservations about what this might mean for the experience of supporting Arsenal how would we feel to be excluded for eternity from the richest bonanza in European sport? Especially if our place was usurped by S***s a team who have never won the Premier League and who haven’t won the top division for almost sixty years, as the clock on this website will tell you.
A consortium of banks led by J.P Morgan are supposedly putting together a package worth around £4.6 billion and offering untold riches to those taking part. If you are included Champions League qualification is a given. Fail to be included and you must labour (if you are lucky) in the Europa League at the very best. Forget any chance of signing or retaining world-class players or ever dining at the top table of European or English football again because the gap between the super-rich and the rest will be huge and will increase year on year.
Expect legal battles that will consume years of hostile posturing, provide gigantic legal fees and which will tear the structure of football apart. UEFA will not let FIFA, an organisation that I thought had been discredited beyond measure under Blatter, make an uncontested power grab that would render them impotent and immeasurably poorer.
There will be grave and understandable concerns that this is all about money and the future of the game will be scarred beyond recognition. But honestly what did you expect as big organisations like the Fenway Sports Group, the Glazer Family Foundation, and of course KSE have entered the English game?
Altruism and a desire to see English football flourishing for its own sake was never on their agenda, and for those who bemoan that imagine if you are not able to compete financially because your backers can’t or won’t compete with the very biggest boys. How frustrated would you feel then? It is highly likely that with this on the table KSE were prompted to write big cheques for Aubameyang’s new contract and the release clause for Thomas Partey.
But imagine if Daniel Levy with his new super stadium with its echoingly empty trophy room is rebuffed. Do you expect him and all the other clubs slipping off the really mouth-watering gravy train to go quietly? Cue legal arguments that will tie up clubs all over the Premier League for years.
I will look at Arsenal‘s situation in more detail in a second but imagine if you are, say, Leicester. You never expected to be part of a power cartel dominating English football did you? But you might expect to be involved in European second-tier football on a regular basis. Is that a fate they might accept? But would Everton, Wolves, Aston Villa, West Ham and Leeds United accept it? With some of the best players in the world in the Premier League it is likely that the competition will be highly lucrative and glamorous but without the carrot for all but the lucky five of top European football. How could they keep their best players?
What might this mean for Arsenal?
Firstly, which side of the great divide will we be on? Given the European links that Dein and a bloke called Wenger, who is a major player at FIFA now, have forged in the past, and add Arsenal’s international support to the third most successful playing record in English football history…it is highly likely that if we are talking about five English teams we will be one of the five. If it is four then we will definitely miss out to four richer and more recently-successful English clubs.
If we are in a European Super League expect sky high admission prices (imagine the cost of around fifteen European games!). It is hard to see how a full Super League could be accommodated in the time available for a feasible season, plus a number of Premier League games! Would there be time for the FA Cup and would anyone in the big five play their first team in it?
Possibly the Premier League might shrink but it won’t shrink much (cue more legal battles) so the season might be extended and the Big Five will probably need much bigger squads which they could clearly afford .
Would there begin to be pressure on the Premier League? Might the European Super League try to tempt members to make it a full League and persuade them to ignore their domestic leagues or play a shadow squad in that league? (unlikely if the Premier League retains high grossing TV deals but the real big bucks for TV will come with involvement in the ESL).
The knock-on effects that were predicted for the EFL during the recent putative takeaway ‘Project Big Picture’ will again be a matter of debate. Will the small clubs become increasingly marginalised or…might people who really like football decide that they and teams below them in the pyramid represent the true beating heart of football? Might this be a necessity if top football clubs court the corporate pound and price out the less affluent fan?
These are huge questions but answers are harder to give when facts and an awareness of how far negotiations have progressed are difficult to come by.
For us as fans it is so hard to take a clear position. When I thought that the formation of the European Super League might mean that we would substitute games with Wolves and Everton for PSG and Bayern Munich (which we might very well lose!) I felt as did others on this blog that we would find domestic football more meaningful and accessible. Remember, if we do make the ESL we might languish towards the bottom of such a League.
But would we make that conservative choice if we are unable to compete to sign stars like Partey or Aubameyang or if we find that Bukayo Saka and his ilk will not extend their contracts because they want to play in the ESL? While the ESL exists you want and need to be in it. If the plans are scuppered we could imagine a decent future without it but money of this magnitude provides a momentum that is irresistible. The genie is out of the bottle as far as reorganisation of European football is concerned and the money men will not be denied.
For those who care deeply about the soul of English football (and this includes me) this is a sad day even if it is a day that provides a possible profitable watershed in Arsenal football history. And if we are not part of the plans that will reshape the game, our great club will be marginalised, possibly for ever.
Excellent analysis, TTG. You sum it up well. The lawyers will certainly be amongst the major beneficiaries. Cue a riposte from UEFA. If it comes to pass, be there (for 20 years without relegation, at least) or be nowhere.
There are few on this blog (and certainly not me) who can take a mid afternoon breaking news story and turn it into an early evening blog piece. I also think it’s our first breaking news story. Congratulations TTG on an excellent piece of work. Most of me recoils with horror at everything that is here. But if it does happen and we were out and Sp*rs were in, I would be bereft. As Bath says, this will certainly end up in the arms of Sue, Grabbit and Runne.
Look what they’ve done to my game Ma, look what they’ve done to my game.
Cheers TTG! loving your work
Great piece TTG. You’ve covered
it masterfully at short notice.
I didn’t know when I was waffling
about The Reformation in the previous
drinks that JP Morgan were already
nailing the 95 theses to the UEFA door!
But it’s been obvious for some time
that something had to give and now
the marbles have been thrown in the
air. Equally obviously this was all well-
known while Big Picture was being
presented.
As you say we are a far bigger draw
than Spuds and a place is ours if we
want it – though I also think nothing
is really set in stone regarding
participants in this plan. The only
non-negotiable is everyone gets
obscene amounts of money.
Top drawer, TTG, both as a piece of news analysis and for the sentiments about what this will do to the game.
A couple of guidelines for continuing analysis: Follow the money, and always ask what FIFA’s ulterior motive is. Spoiler alert: the latter is to marginalise UEFA and European football’s grip on the game, control club as well as international football, and establish continental super leagues as a way of doing that.
We we gambling folk at Castle Ned, our money would be on the European super league going down the same route as lead to the Premier League: a threatened breakaway by the top clubs resulting in a compromise that left it top of the heap, but still connected to it.
Thank you TTG. Insightful, incisive and informed. The division between the 11 or so “founder clubs” and the others makes we wonder why they are not looking to keep it at 12 clubs in the super league. There would be no shame in being the 13th top club in Europe in any case, but giving the ultra rich this permanent ultra rich status is absurd. The status quo in domestic football is the way I like it. Among the European elite the rich I say, if they turn out to merit relegation one day.
The Europa League has been fun for me being novel but Champions League had become a bore fest, and the super league looks to me like an effort to expand the bore fest. I haven’t watched more than 2 or 3 Champions League games since Arsenal dropped out of it, and this does nothing to revive my interest.
…relegate the rich I say …
TTG – 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Not sure how you managed that in so little time, but a great analysis if not a very heartwarming one.
It is no surprise that owners from Russia, the Wild West and the Middle and Far East, with no quality league of their own, would want to hijack ours and others in Europe as the pound of flesh for their huge investments.
A guaranteed place in front of their own home audiences for a couple of decades – what’s not to like ?
The Premier League and it’s European neighbours have grown from the histories of great clubs over a hundred years or more. The glories and hardships, the trophies and relegations, the years of travelling in all weathers up and down the country, the passionate, not to say hateful, rivalries are the ingredients that generate the atmosphere and passion that have made our league irresistible to football fans around the world.
Replace that with an endless round of glamour ties devoid of the threat of relegation that generates the fighting spirit of the best and worst alike, and what have you got ? Risk free games of Super-Rich versus Super-Super-Rich which most of us have neither the time or money to travel to ?
No thanks.
Impressive journalism there TTG. New broke and within a few hours we have you covering not only a succinct analysis of news-behind-the-news but also capturing the prevailing mood of your audience. Bravo!
I am much less decisive about what this may or may not mean to Football in general and Arsenal in particular. To begin with, I don’t think we really know the full extent of the plan. Or if this really is a plan or just testing the water? An effort to gauge the reactions and then react appropriately in a more solid plan? Can an eventual arrangement of things really ignore the traditional national leagues of football blatantly and yet maintain the high quality and preserve the appeal of different styles and schools? So maybe even if there is an European super league it will not be so decoupled from the rest of the football as our worst fears may have us ponder at this time.
My — and like many other Arsenal fans around the world — Arsenal supporting days had started after the introduction of PL (and in many cases around or shortly after the 97-98 season, or 01-02 season, or the 03-04 season) , and the current popularity of PL teams (and the league itself) around the world is an example even when financially motivated decisions are made the overall impact may not be as negative as we think. By all accounts PL hasn’t preserved many of the wonderful historical idiosyncrasies of old English league, but surely that loss of character has been somewhat compensated by the increase in quality, and an universal appeal, with so many stylistic variations, and a joyous internationalist event unfolding every weekend with players from all over the world.
An European super league may lead to more innovation on tactical and sports science fronts, may have much better officiating, may improve the financials of lower division national leagues by connecting them to the super league player recruitment systems, may get rid of the absurd player salaries and agent fees by normalizing them all to a ceiling across all countries.
I am not saying those will happen. But they can. Nothing is forever. Everything changes. This change is inevitable, has been in the makings for a while, maybe the upcoming negotiation processes toward implementing these changes can actually lead to some of these improvements. Maybe Arsenal can and will take part in positively influencing the shape of the league.
Dr Faustus’s view is, as always, interesting, because it is the view of the far flung fan. Not an ex pat who used to live in Islington or someone who lives within a short journey of London and regularly goes to games. There are millions like him, all over the US and China and Far East. It’s been debated before but I have no doubt that these fans are as passionate and committed to the cause as anybody else. The enthusiasm for a match against Blackpool, or Preston North End, or Bournemouth, or Wigan, or Sunderland, all away games I have attended in recent years, will probably not be shared by a fan in Oklahoma City, Seoul, or Lagos who would find the game on TV humdrum and would rather see us take on Inter Milan or Atletico Madrid.
I am passionate about these games because I get to go to an unfamiliar ground, revel in the atmosphere of fellow Gooners and have an adventure. They are why I don’t want the League Cup to go. I go to every home game. The European games provide a different atmosphere and usually a different type of away fan. It’s a nice balance. I very rarely go away to a European game because it costs a fortune, both in money and time, especially as the airlines jack up the prices when Arsenal play away in Europe. I fully realise my privilege when it comes to watching The Arsenal. That finely balanced ecosystem is threatened by these and other proposals. So I am Luddite about them. But I realise that others who do not share my privilege and only get to watch games on TV, albeit in the middle of the night, may not share them. And they are far more numerous than those like me and their views are equally valid.
It may be that I am destined to be checking out the prices of season tickets at Cambridge United in the future.
‘Tis but a short step to the franchise system if this goes through.
Structures, Fuctures.
Wealth has always underpinned success in football. It always will. With eye-wateringly high global revenues available to shrewd investors there is little likelihood that the current structure of global football will remain. It’s inevitable that some will fall by the wayside.
It is unlikely that the extent of future change will be limited to the European continent and at some stage and sooner than times of Star Wars, someone will finance an all-conquering team(s) in the USA to compete in a northern hemisphere competition that will be hyped to the skies and foster massive revenues driven in descending order by television, sponsorship, merchandise, licensing and ticket sales.
While ‘bums on seats’ can still provide up to a third of annual income at successful clubs, television and commercial sources already provide the lion’s share. Any new structure will ensure revenues are higher and even more reliant on a global TV audience keen to buy merchandise and susceptible to purchasing products advertised with a linkage to their favourite team.
In all of this, the portion of players’ salaries paid by match day tickets will decrease and the voice of the fan currently going to games will diminish as a consequence. And that’s not to say that people won’t buy tickets. They will. And a portion of the global fan base will very willingly pay very richly for the privilege of buying a live seat. Few of those will be familiar with the heritage of Accrington Stanley or even the great Dark Blues.
While heritage, history, experiences of hiking across country in thunderstorms to feed our love affair with the game lies deep within many of us, the majority of today’s viewing fans, even in this country, have never paid to enter a stadium. Four times a week, right now, the game at the very top is proving it can still afford to lavish multi-millions on transfer fees and salaries without a single fan in the stadium. Decisions on the future, including the price of seats, beers and foot long sausages in the stadium will be taken way, way, way above our heads.
Sad but, I think, true.
I wrote much on this kind of slant many years ago for Dave concluding that a likely option for me was a default to my local to watch Arsenal in high-def with surround sound and visit Bishops Stortford for live action. It wasn’t particularly popular then……..
TTG, can Arsenal afford not to participate in whatever innovations occur? No.
Kronke is running the club as a business. No business with any aspirations of a financially successful future can afford to pass on the opportunity to compete in the richest part of the fishing grounds, wherever they may lie.
Ah, Countryman, we crossed. Further discussion is merited. Over a pint sometime soon perhaps?
Sounds like a plan BtM!
Great post @10 C100.
A sensible suggestion from AISA:
AISA supports #CharityNotPPV At AISA we believe that football is nothing without the fans and while we welcome efforts to allow us be able to watch our team live on TV we think that at £14.95 a match the price is too high. We urge clubs and broadcasters to recognise these are hard economic times and consider reducing the cost.
We support the efforts of
other fans groups, led by the example of Newcastle United?s Fans Food Bank and @ToonPolls, to boycott this version of PPV and donate to charity instead. For Gooners who want to send their hard-earned cash may we suggest a donation of £15 (or less if you can’t afford £15) to the Islington Food Bank here:
https://islingtonfoodbank.enthuse.com/#!
Enough is enough
C100@10: There is only one Dr F.
Some thoughtful comments and opinions above, which perhaps boil down to the only thing worse than being in a European super league, would be not to be in it.
FIFA told Bloomberg that ‘institutional structures and regulatory frameworks are well in place’ that would allow a European super league to operate, which seems to undercut La Liga President Javier Tebas’s statement that the proposed league would not be official.
Bloomberg also reported that a formal announcement could come by the end of the month, and that the 2022-23 season is a possible target date.
c100@10, you’re certainly right about brentford away in the league cup not being an attraction for the arsenal supporter in the hinterlands (not talking about herts.), especially compared with bayern away, or juventus. but i hazard that could be said about many long-standing (thus long standing) supporters who live in islington. i, for one, catch every game i can, live or recorded, and i don’t think i’ve missed but a few games in all competitions in a season the past few seasons.
beyond wanting to watch my beloved arsenal i love seeing the small clubs, how they play, where they play (the stadium), and the shots of the crowd…nothing humdrum about it. i even love, so long as arsenal play well, when they rise to the challenge, hopefully to just fail. and i pay for the privilege, in early morning risings, drives at sparrowfart to my supporters’ club bar, as well as money (though that’s often mitigated by streams and small change found watching behind the couch).
so maybe your brush needn’t paint *so* broadly, i think you mischaracterise a whole section of the nonlocal gooner tribe…
Nice piece on Sokratis
http://m.email3.telegraph.co.uk/nl/jsp/m.jsp?c=%40DBNJ9GC5wkC%2BZVBKluDAyR1Xqx7U%2FL98T0ghLQPmpKY%3D&WT.mc_id=e_DM1298344&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_Ars_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_Ars_New20201021&utm_campaign=DM1298344
I appreciated the kind comments on a hastily cobbled together piece which owed much to Scruz’s proofreading . Many thanks Scruz , an unfailingly polite and patient editor .
The topicality of the piece was a change in approach by our blog and my piece was written in ignorance of many of the facts….but then so are so many of my pieces!
I was fascinated by the treatment given to this story by the Times today which dismissed it as virtually a non-story . Strange because it is part of the Murdoch stable and Sky broke the original story and it was very clearly a contrived leak. This has legs and has not come this far without there being substance to it. Mischief is afoot!
Today’s Times got under my skin and had me emailing Lord Finkelstein about what I considered a poorly argued piece on Covid Strategy . In my reply I put his pessimism down to his being a Spurs fan. His first comment by immediate reply was that he supported Chelsea. I apologised for the unwarranted slur and we parted friends.
I did in fact meet him a few years ago when he spoke at a dinner He’s very interesting company and a behavioural economist, an area which intrigues and simultaneously baffles me . But his taste in football is poor
Fair enough Scruz, though I think it’s true for many and even some regulars in this bar have said they’d be happy enough to bin off the league cup. But no disrespect was meant to those, like you, who love the quirky history of English football.
I used to play cricket in West London. I’d love to be planning a trip to Brentford away.
TTG. All credit to you for taking Danny Finkelstein to task, although as a Times subscriber I usually enjoy his pieces. But all credit to him for his courteous and immediate reply.
Ozil has lashed out at Arsenal for lack of loyalty. It’s nice to see he cares tbh.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/oct/21/mesut-ozil-disappointed-arsenal-squad-snub-says-loyalty-not-reciprocated?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
TTG @21, it’s hardly surprising that the Times is taking a different tack from Sky. Sky is no longer in the Murdoch stable and has not been for several years. Hence ShyNews’ shift towards a CNN-Light editorial stance on its news reporting.
I also thought Fink was a Spud. He does write well and is always a thoughtful analyst.
C100 @23, I have three final observations to make on our German ghost. Loyalty is a two way street and not getting with the coach’s programme and not playing the martyr with the fans is a funny way of showing it. If all Özil wanted to do was to play football he would have taken one of several opportunities to do so that were offered to him this year without any loss of income. I do not agree with his assesment of how well he played in the 10 games he played for MA8.
Arsenal Supporters’ Trust are recommending another Islington charity if you want to send your hard-earned cash to a more deserving cause than Sky Box Office for watching the Lesta game in the UK and Ireland.
“AST continues campaign against £14.95 PPV (pay per view) charges
Option for fans to consider boycotting the Arsenal v Leicester PPV charge and make a donation to the ‘Islington Cares’ charity instead
“The AST is continuing to campaign against the introduction of a £14.95 pay per view charge for Premier League games not covered within the existing broadcast arrangements.
“The price of £14.95 is exorbitant and an extra burden on supporters during a national pandemic.
“These arrangements have also made no consideration for those who would normally be at the games and cannot attend due to Covid-19 restrictions. Arsenal have made no provision for season ticket holders, who have hundreds of pounds sitting with Arsenal as an ‘initial payment’, to be given free access to these matches. Similarly, Silver Members who have paid £59 for membership that gives access to tickets are being asked to pay again.
“This week we have been in direct contact with the Arsenal’s Chief Executive and Sky Sport’s Managing Director to reiterate the views of our members and other Arsenal fans. We made it clear the strength of opposition and called for changes when the arrangement is reviewed in November.
“Our discussions have included giving them the results of a poll we undertook on Twitter, which had 5,550 responses. The results were:
“6% said they would pay the £14.95 to watch
19% said they would not pay and not watch
69% said they would watch a stream
6% said they would watch with friends or in a pub
“We would support a more reasonable charging arrangement that recognises that many supporters are already paying towards existing broadcast subscriptions, club memberships and holding payments for season tickets.
“Thought also needs to be given to how often a club appears on a pay-per-view basis. It will be totally unfair if some clubs’ supporters have to pay this fee 15 times this season and others only five.
“Already other Supporter Groups have campaigned against this fee and had success in asking their fans to boycott the charge and instead make a donation to charity. You can read more about that here.
“We applaud these efforts and ask that any Arsenal fans considering a charity donation might like to support Islington Cares using the following link.
“Members may recall that the AST donated to the same charity at the start of the pandemic. They work closely with local organisations to address poverty and inequality in Islington. They and the people they support would be grateful for donations of any size.”
TTG @21, it’s hardly surprising that the Times is taking a different tack from Sky. Sky is no longer in the Murdoch stable and has not been for several years. Hence ShyNews’ shift towards a CNN-Light editorial stance on its news reporting.
Bath thank you for refreshing my memory on Sky, I had completely forgotten that. My father remembered when he met Murdoch after he took over the Times he asked Dad what his job was. He said he was Publisher of the Times . ‘ No you’re fucking not ‘ said Rupert , ‘ I’m the fucking publisher ‘. A nice way to greet someone who served the paper for forty eight years.
Cent
Thinking of you and all Nigerians tonight. Stay safe mate.
Hear hear Esso.
Cent,
Thoughts are with you and your countrymen. Wishing you peace and justice
end SARS. peacefully. that’s on you, nigerian government. cent, i hope you and yours are safe, and continue to be.
What Esso said. Stay safe Cent.
TTG @27, an unsurprising lack of dignity from the Australian. If you haven’t seen it, you might recognise similar behaviour in Succession. A truly marvellous series.
I am not sure why, TTG, but your @21 made me want to say ‘Capital! Capital!’ like some Jane Austin or Dickens character.
Bath has beaten me to it in reminding you that Sky and The Times are no longer in the same stable. Even when they were, they were different horses for different courses. Murdoch sold his controlling stake in Sky Group, which operates Sky Sport, to Comcast, the US media behemoth that owns NBC Universal, in 2019. Let me also jog you into recalling that Sky Sport has previous when it comes to league breakaways. It was a votary for the creation of the Premier League back at the start of the 1990s.
Rupert Murdoch is now 89. None of his children want to carry on running the business. The influence of that dynasty is disappearing. I read a lot of newspapers online. None are perfect, but the Times is the best of the bunch.
Real Madrid beaten again. First Getafe now a weakened Shaktar Donetsk in the Bernabeau.
Will they be allowed into the European League? 🧐🤓
Just to remind everyone that our game vs Rapid Vienna tomorrow kicks off at 5.55pm UK time.
To echo others – stay safe, Cent.
Are you actually in Nigeria at the moment – don’t think you were last time we heard from you ? The message remains the same though.
Thank you all for all the messages and kind words. I’m not in Nigeria at the moment but my parents and siblings are all there. Somehow, we have been extremely lucky and none of them has been caught up in these incidents of state-sponsored violence(yes, that’s exactly what is happening) I don’t know how long that will continue to be the case but, to be honest, I’m numb at this point. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Thanks once again, for your concerns. We will overcome. They can’t kill us all.
Sounds frightening. All the best to you Cent and to your family and country.
hang in there, cent. here’s hoping sanity and humane ideals prevail.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>