The unanimity of outrage that led football fans on to the streets to protest against a seditious, self-serving European Super League has been the signature achievement for a sporting community normally defined by tribalism. But, less than two weeks later, that unity is already under threat.
The briefing from the usual suspects is underway. The imposition of severe sanctions against football clubs that covertly signed up to a uniquely damaging venture should be resisted, say those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, since it would indirectly punish their supporters.
Such a disingenuous argument could almost have been framed to incite a return to bickering based on false equivalence. It subverts the mythology of football as the people’s game.
As the initial surge of emotion dissipates, some supporters will inevitably succumb to misguided gratitude and a sense of denial about the greed or geopolitical intent of their club’s owners. Others will revert to type, and be distracted by the gaudy sideshow of transfer speculation.
How Arsenal’s ownership sums up what’s wrong
Headlines are perhaps the only things in football that can be secured cheaply. Following reports that he would consider buying Arsenal, Daniel Ek – no stranger to an arguably exploitative business model as the founder of Spotify – was hailed as “the type of guy we want running our club” by the YouTubers of Arsenal Fan TV, based on the flimsiest of evidence that he is an obsessive like themselves.
Meet our potential new boss. Not quite the same as the old boss, but still a billionaire adept at maximising the value of his brand while, it seems to me, not worrying too much about the possible iniquities of the process.
In reality, it seems Ek’s attempt to buy the North London club – sprinkled with the stardust of support from former players of the stature of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Denis Bergkamp – had the superficiality of an artfully conceived publicity stunt.
Arsenal’s current owners, Kroenke Sports Entertainment, announced on Wednesday they had no intention of selling a stake in the club. They insisted they had received no offer, and would not countenance one if it emerged. Stan Kroenke, the patrician of an acquisitive family business, had no incentive to cash in on another clinical investment.
His personal fortune of £6bn has been accumulated through the acquisition of seven sports franchises, two e-sport franchises, four major stadia, four TV stations and four radio stations. Under him, in a post-shame society, Arsenal has a stagnant mid-table team, the highest season-ticket prices and little apparent inclination to pay agency staff the London Living Wage.
He is despised by fans, but as someone who blithely moved an NFL franchise from St Louis to Los Angeles, he is apparently deaf to public opinion and blind to civic responsibility.
He seems to have no conception of football as a source of collective pride or individual identity. Such emotional detachment, to a club’s heritage and hinterland, represents the biggest threat to a game that has enriched me, personally and professionally, since childhood. It’s time for action, to protect something so spiritually important to so many people.
Will this moment for change be used?
Football will not seize a unique chance to reset unless and until legislation enshrines clubs as community assets – instead of trinkets to be flaunted by the American aggressive capitalists, Russian oligarchs and nation states who reflect the Premier League’s founding free-market philosophy, through which a future Super League remains a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The overwhelming impression is of a defective, introspective sport, in which everyone mistrusts anyone with whom they come into contact. Despite the formative innocence of a fan’s allegiance, the game is currently being viewed through a cracked mirror of conflicting interests, hypocrisy and mendacity.
Speaking of which, trusting Boris Johnson’s Government to treat football’s plight as anything other than a convenient lifebelt on which to cling through the perfect storm of sleaze allegations and political intrigue is the equivalent of hoping your team will score twice in injury time to secure an improbable comeback win.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is where political careers go to die. Many ministers seem to be a succession of invertebrates who leave little legacy beyond opportunist photo-shoots, empty populist gestures and vacuous mission statements that are rarely followed through effectively by bureaucratic funding agencies.
At least the supposed fan-led review of football, announced with revealing haste, will be led by Tracey Crouch, one of the few Sports Ministers of recent times who understood the complexity and social significance of her brief. She must be bold, collaborative, transparent and tenacious. There is goodwill towards her.
There are also encouraging signs of maturity in the activism of individual club fan groups, which have the potential to stimulate fundamental change by acting in concert with the Football Supporters’ Association, which is urging the government to fund reforms through a £400m trust.
Fans have the right to demand a degree of influence in the culture and strategic management of their clubs, such as the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust calling for their club’s executive board to resign and include elected fan representatives in future.
What actions could make a real difference?
But this is not a one-issue debate. Football is broken. It can only be repaired through the appointment of an independent regulator, charged with aligning the game’s constituent parts.
A wealth tax should be applied, initially to the Super League plotters, and redistributed down the pyramid, primarily in Leagues One and Two, where clubs, by their very nature, are more responsive to local issues and needs. Finances are unsustainable, and can only be alleviated by the sort of salary cap that is ideologically offensive to a right-wing Tory party.
The current fit and proper person test for directors – introduced in 2004 and rebranded in 2011 as the “Owners’ and Directors’ Test”, removing any implication of moral judgement – is not worth the paper on which it is written. It must be renewed, with particular attention given to community commitment.
Player welfare must improve. The Premier League needs to be reconstituted, so those clubs outside the self-appointed ‘big six’ cannot be held continually to ransom.
On a macro level, the regional and global governing bodies, Uefa and Fifa, must be challenged remorselessly, since they cannot be allowed to act simultaneously as commercial entities and supposedly independent regulators.
On a micro level, lessons from the development of “phoenix clubs” such as AFC Wimbledon – formed after Wimbledon FC was unilaterally moved from south London by its owner in 2004 to become Milton Keynes Dons FC – and the impact of conscience-driven clubs like Lewes – which is 100 per cent fan-owned and operates on a not-for-profit basis – should be absorbed.
There is scope for equality, innovation and meaningful interaction, but only if everyone involved acts on the assumption they are united by more than that which divides them.
Football does not belong to plutocrats, potentates or closet politicians. It belongs to children with a sense of wonder, and grandparents with a lifetime’s memories. It’s not about profit and loss, but flesh and blood. It’s ours, and it matters.
Michael Calvin is the author of Whose Game Is It Anyway? (£19.99, Pitch Publishing), out now
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3t0twY0
Post a Comment