First and foremost, let me highlight that this IS NOT another thread debating the merits of a European Super League. There are plenty of threads open already where fans can discuss the respective pro's and con's of the proposed breakaway league. I'm not going to offer ANY opinion on the ESL in this thread, the purpose of this thread is solely to talk about the disgusting hypocrisy of Sky Sports and the Premier League.
Now, what am I hoping to achieve by creating this thread? Well, if nothing else, I am finding typing out these words therapeutic! Since the announcement yesterday I have sat and watched with increasing disgust as Sky and the PL have scrambled like they have never scrambled before. Admittedly, I am going to focus my ire predominantly on Sky, mainly because they have led the condemnation of the proposed ESL and because they are owned by one of the world's largest media outlets, which gives them a very large platform from which to shout! However, it's worth noting in all of this that the Premier League have blood on their hands and are as guilty as any party in allowing this to happen.
Being 31, I am too young to remember the breakaway of the Premier League from the Football League, however, by simply Googling old news stories and from chatting to older football fans, the parallels between what happened then and now are striking. Now, granted, before anybody jumps in, this wasn't quite the 'closed shop' that the ESL sounds like it may be. Of course, clubs are relegated from and promoted into the Premier League every season. However, the same concerns were raised at the time about how smaller clubs could hope to survive and what true competition we would be left with if the clubs at the top of the pyramid earned 50 times what the clubs at the bottom earnt. In reality, these fears HAVE been borne out, in the sense
that SIX founding clubs have never been relegated from the Premier League. Sure, you can argue it's possible, but in reality, the chances of any of those six actually being relegated is slim to none. Add in the new-money clubs like City (and to a certain extent the likes of Wolves and Leicester under their new ownership) and it's clear that it is becoming increasingly unlikely that any of the 'elite' clubs will be relegated and it is increasingly difficult for promoted clubs to establish themselves in the Premier League. Even the few that do manage to earn promotion and stay in the Premier League for a few seasons seem to scrap tooth and nail between 20th and 10th before eventually being relegated when their luck runs out. Burnley, for example, have done an absolutely outstanding job and have been in the PL for 6/7 season now. However, during this period their highest league finish has been 7th, which is admittedly a remarkable achievement...but is that really 'competition', when we're lauding teams for somehow achieving an 'impossible' 7th-placed finish? Of course, Burnley have recently been bought out by Americans themselves, so ultimately the bit of success they have had as come at the inevitable cost of having their club ripped away from the local community and into the hands of the uber-capitalists who, slowly but surely, will try to take the club away from the fans.
In addition to it becoming increasingly difficult to break into the PL,
only SEVEN clubs have won the Premier League in the 30 years the competition has existed. Of those 7, only really Leicester really stand out as a shock, and they themselves have benefitted from foreign investment (though not to the extent of the likes of Blackburn, Chelsea and Manchester City). Perhaps more shockingly (for me) is that
only NINE English clubs have ever qualified for/played in the Champions League. What we are left with then, in reality, is three leagues within a league and the illusion of competition. Of the hundred plus professional football teams in England, only 7 have ever won the Premier League and only 9 have ever qualified for the Champions League. Those numbers would be much smaller if you take Abrahamovich out of Chelsea, Jack Walker out of Blackburn, King Power out of Leicester and Sheikh Mansour out of City. So, my point is, by it's very nature, the PL prevents 'real' competition, or at the very least 'organic' competition. You have perhaps three/four teams capable of winning the title, six/seven teams capable of qualifying for the Champions League and the rest are really playing not to get relegated.
In the first 12 years of it's existence, before foreign ownership, Manchester United and Arsenal won the title 11 times, with the other going to Blackburn who were HEAVILY bankrolled by Jack Walker. Does that sound like an 'open' competition? Does that sound like an egalitarian, level-playing field for all? Of course not! It was only when Roman Abrahamovich came along with his ill-gotten billions that that dominance was broken, but even then after 19 years, only four teams had won the Premier League, two of them bankrolled by super rich individuals (turns out not through benevolent love for the game - shock!). So, what the Premier League and Sky Sports had created was a competition which is was basically only possible to win by investing huge sums of money, and since the clubs at the top earnt the most money, it created a positive feedback loop for those clubs! Again, more money piled in from outside as the TV deals grew larger and larger and more foreign owners came into the league, throwing money around in a hope of grabbing a slice of the action. We saw City have the GDP of a small nation piled into their club to turn them from Championship team into the dominant force in the Premier League. Whispers abound of crooked dealings, backhanders, inflated sponsorship deals and payments off the books. In total, who knows how many billions it has taken to make City competitive? Again, my point is, the Premier League and Sky Sports created this environment! They created a league in which the rewards for success were so insane that it became impossible to break through the glass ceiling organically. Teams with long established histories and large fanbases have fallen by the wayside (Derby, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland etc...) and are sat languishing in the lower divisions, probably never to return. At best, they might hope to scrape into the Premier League for a season or two and/or get bought by some oligarch somewhere who will change their kit, build a new stadium, 'update' the badge and buy 23 players who had never heard of their club previously. It's a joke. Football gave into commercialisation and sold it's soul decades ago. This is just the latest evolution* of a cycle that incentivises greed and crushes organic competition, created by the Premier League and Sky Sports.
*Note: when I say 'evolution', people seem to take that word as a positive...i.e. as a 'change for the better'. What I actually mean by that is that this is a natural progression of the path football chose 30 years ago. We have seen in the global economy that you can't have a 'bit' of Capitalism. As soon as you allow profit to dictate without regulation, Capitalism will eat everything in it's path, whether that's people, the environment, other businesses, local institutions, Governments or a sport, in this case.
Those old enough to remember the formation of the Premier League will, I am sure, confirm that fans were forewarned about this at the time. But who was involved in driving this new, elite competition which threatened the very competitive spirit of the English game? Well that would be none other than Sky Sports. According to Wikipedia - " It (Sky Sports) has played a major role in the increased commercialisation of British sport since 1991, sometimes playing a large role in inducing organisational changes in the sports it broadcasts, most notably when it encouraged the
Premier League to break away from
the Football League in 1992". So, in effect, what happened in 1992 was exactly what is happening now. 'Elite' clubs had their heads turned by the offer of lucrative TV broadcasting deals and decided to breakaway from the old established structure, which promoted much fairer allocation of resources and more even competition.
So again, going back to my point. Why have Sky scrambled to condemn this new ESL with such ferocity? Is it because they care deeply about fans, competition and 'fairness'? Of course it isn't! It's because for a long, long time it is Sky who have created the conditions under which the fans have been ripped off and they see their cash cow disappearing! It was Sky and the Premier League who created the conditions under which fans are charged £50+ for a Match Day ticket, where fans are forced to sign up to automatic cup ticket schemes or lose their STs, where fans are charged £75 for a replica shirts (x3 per season), where semi finals take place at Wembley at great expense to fans, where there are three different TV broadcaster which fans must sign up for if they want to watch as many of their teams games as possible, where foreign billionaires have come into the game in droves to buy up football clubs and siphon out their share of the profits.
The hypocrisy of it all absolutely reeks. We've got Neville, Carragher and every Sky Sports pundit and journalist gnashing their teeth and wailing about how 'it's all so unfair' as if they care! Where were these voices when the fans have pleaded for help over the years? Where were these voices when the Glazers bought Utd, or Roman bought Chelsea, or Sheikh Mansour bought City, or Stan Kroenke bought Arsenal, or FSG bought Liverpool? Where were these voices when the Green & Gold campaign begged for their involvement over the years to raise the profile of their fight to take back football? These voices were conspicuous by their absence. Not one word muttered, in fact, pundits DEFENDED these owners on TV, time and time again. Well, as I have said elsewhere, this is all of their chickens coming home to roost. THEY are responsible for creating these monsters and now it looks like they have finally lost control.
In my opinion, the final nail in the coffin and the deciding factor in emboldening the 'elite 6' was the disastrous PPV shambles. Again, the benevolent, fan-loving Socialists at Sky Sports had a brainwave and decided 'hey...this global pandemic means life-long fans can't get into the stadium and watch their teams...let's monetise that!' Brilliant...taking advantage of a virus to mug fans for more cash! However, in my opinion , this has backfired spectacularly because as we know, it was a massive flop. We can suggest that fans took a principled stance against paying for football, but I believe it was purely down to the fact the teams playing on PPV weren't a big enough draw. I guarantee had they put United vs Liverpool on PPV they would have gotten tens of thousands of buys. At this point, if it wasn't obvious before, I think the owners of the 'elite' clubs realised exactly what the rest of the league was worth without them...and that's a tiny fraction of what it is worth with them. As I said previously, this has emboldened them to the point whereby they know they have the PL and Sky over a barrel. They have an offer on the table for £310m plus a minimum £110m a season, even if they lose every Super League fixture. And, under the current system, why shouldn't they take it? Is this any worse than what has been happening to our game for the last 30 years? These billionaires have been lured in with the promise of a return on their investment and guess what, shock horror, they want to maximise every last cent!
Now, as I said right at the beginning, this is not an argument about the sporting merits of a ESL. I am saying let's really think about who is setting the narrative here. Do I personally want a 'closed shop' European Super League? Not particularly. But do I like this current version of Premier League football, dominated by oil money, plastic clubs and greed? That is equally disgusting and pointless in my opinion. So, by all means let's fight this, but let's not fight it just to return to the status quo created by Sky. The people behind the ESL, the people behind Sky Sports and the people behind the Premier League are two cheeks of the same arse. If we're going to boot these people out of football, let's really take back control of the game and have a real revolution.
We ought to be fighting for fan ownership of clubs, salary caps (whereby profits are reinvested in the game and local communities - not siphoned off by owners), restrictions on stockpiling players, restrictions of poaching young players, restrictions on the number of games, restrictions on the price of tickets, home-grown player rules in the starting XI, transfer caps...that's a true model of fairness and a level-playing field (or as near as it can/should be in competitive sport). If fighting the ESL means a return to the 'Premier League era' then no thanks, I can't be arsed, happy to just let the game go and let the monsters eat each other.
