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Don’t let the Billionaires destroy our game with their European Super League!

ArsenalKroenke

I’ve written on this subject on a number of occasions. However I feel so strongly about this I phoned the club to tell them exactly how I felt about the prospect of a European Super League (ESL) and all that entails.

I know that call means nothing to Arsenal Football Club and I was only talking to a staff member – not Stan Kroenke. But I just had to get it it off my chest. The person I spoke to said ‘take it with a pinch of salt’. But this subject keeps rearing its ugly head. There is no smoke without fire and there’s a lot of smoke just recently.

This isn’t going away.

A small number of powerful greedy billionaires are at the gates trying to batter them down. The American billionaire owners think the Premier League is hugely undervalued and want its full price. This is the end game. It’s not just the owners of Premier League clubs either. The Italian, Spanish, French and German Leagues are envious of the Premier League’s riches. There are a handful of clubs dominating those leagues and they want what the Premier League has and the best way of achieving that aim is a European Super League.

The formation of an ESL would have dire consequences on all the domestic leagues and cups in Europe. The broadcasters would demand the prime time weekend slots for the ESL and the PL would become a midweek league; because of this it would attract less revenue from broadcasters and sponsors.

The Carabao Cup would cease to exist for the ESL clubs and the FA Cup would become a midweek competition, further diluting the attractiveness of both cups. To accommodate the 30 ESL league matches the PL would have to be cut to 18 clubs. It’s been mooted that to protect themselves, the biggest clubs in the ESL would insist on being immune from relegation for 20 years – and it will be almost impossible for any smaller clubs to break into it. The ESL will remove competition and ruin the integrity of every league and cup in Europe.

royal arsenal 1888

Royal Arsenal 1888 (Image Credit: Arsenal)

Football in this country has evolved over 150 years into the worldwide spectacle it has become today: from the amateur game, played on the playing fields of Eaton, to the professional game and the Football League formed of 12 northern and midland clubs. The league expanded and eventually Arsenal became the first southern professional club.

Don’t let a few greedy, power-mad billionaires take a sledgehammer to that and destroy the game we all love, which was handed down to us from generation to generation. Have no doubts about this: the day of reckoning is coming.

Let’s fight them all the way.

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4 Responses to Don’t let the Billionaires destroy our game with their European Super League!

  1. [email protected] October 21, 2020 at 8:47 am #

    Like it or not it is probably going to happen. Best we can all hope for is to mitigate the effect on the PL and to make sure it is a proper competitive league with relegation and promotion. If there is no relegation then it will become boring very quickly, imagine the PL with no relegation, over by Christina’s for 12 or more clubs.

  2. Al Gooner October 21, 2020 at 9:16 am #

    It looks inevitable. Every time we shout “splash the cash” to our owners we take a step closer to a super league as we as fans see spending money as success. We can probably only stop it by voting with our wallets and not subscribe to watch the super league, but I fear we will just get replaced with worldwide TV fans who are happy to watch meaningless “exhibition “ matches.

  3. allezkev October 21, 2020 at 11:27 pm #

    I agree with with your sentiments Gary but the horse bolted when Sky bought the rights to the Premier League and this is just the next logical step. I’m a traditionalist so I’ll hate it, but many fans both here and abroad will be seduced by the razzmatazz and buy into it, nobody cares what we think.

    I do worry about the effects on our domestic game, I’ve heard that the Super League will actually be midweek and probably I suspect spread over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to maximise viewing figures so our weekends will be safe, but those weekends aren’t the same anymore are they, we can get Premier League games from Friday through to Monday and how many of us still subscribe to Sky, BT and Amazon (is it?).

    FIFA would love to usurp UEFA just as the FA usurped the Football League when they took over the Premier League and what does it say about the top clubs in Europe if they’re happy to have a bunch of criminals like FIFA run the competition? It stinks but it’s out of our hands I’m afraid, the Americans and the rest don’t care, they didn’t become billionaires by having a conscience or by respecting tradition. Im afraid as with a lot of American companies they’re just a bunch of disrupters.

  4. Victor Thompson October 23, 2020 at 12:05 am #

    Gary, I have read your article and I fully support it. I am afraid that for a 74,yr old, The changes are happening all too fast for me. When I first supported Arsenal, I was 12 years old and I just worshipped their kit with the blazing red shirts and gleaming white sleeves. There was no other team in the league which was so striking a kit. At that time, it was an elite club with an air about it that our little cousins on the seven sisters road always envied. When the Munich aircrash happened it was a tragedy for up and coming Man Utd. and TV which was new then broadcast all about the terrible tragedy which the whole world mourned and it put United`s name on the global conscience. They gained a lot of fans and they became an elite club. Liverpool has always been a working mans club and their ground was always full so they too were an elite club. Wolves were big, Aston Villa too but Chelsea, West Ham and Man City were free gifts for 4 points every season ( wins only gave teams 2 points ). Our neighbours were the best team in the league in the years 1961 – 1963.

    It was the highlight of the week to support your team. Clubs had nick-names and they and their clubs had auras about them. The last 50 years have flown by but in my view, the game is too commercial and fans see their team on TV for almost the same times as you get for a season ticket. Sadly, even though the fans are the life blood of the clubs, Greed has taken it away from the love a genuine fan brought to his team. It is sad and I hope this conglamorate of Vultures does not destroy the club I love and I think most fans would agree. People might say, ” what does that old fart know about football now” and I would say that they missed the privilege of living through a time when FA cups were fought for just as much as the league. It was really something for your team to lift the FA Cup at Wembley and their fans would boast about it for a year, There was the Stanley Matthews final the one where Bert Trautman ( a former Prisoner of War ) broke his neck and played on. Len Shakleton played for Sunderland at a time when they were called “The Bank of England team” and he was known as the “prince of football” He packed the grounds because he was able run and dribble the old leather ball as if it was a present one. His famed trick was to dribble around the full back and he would leave him behind. Len would then sit on the ball and beckon his victim to come and try it again.

    Fond memories and there are many more but too much to describe. I feel sorry for anyone who didn`t see the real football funded not by Billionairs or Speculators who don`t care that they are destroying the game and robbing the fans of the “In the Blood” loyalty and delight when their club wins.

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