As tens became hundreds that became thousands around the streets that encircle the Emirates Stadium last Friday, all Arsenal supporters shared a righteous anger at their treatment by American owner Stan Kroenke.
But within their number, at least three camps were present. Some just wanted to make their feelings clear without realistic hope for retribution, protest as a form of therapy. Others simply wanted Kroenke to sell; that was the thrust of the banners held high.
But for some, this protest represented something more existential. They believe that the European Super League, that great misjudgement of our sporting age, was the final straw. They wish to recapture a long-lost power, seizing back control and ownership from the rich and infamous. And they hope that legislative intervention may make it possible. The German 50+1 model of club ownership is touted as a potential saviour.
The best these billionaires can hope for is acquiesce through eventual silence: cries of crisis from the masses eventually becoming a trickle of diehard dissenters whose voices are lost in the general noise. Much like a dictatorial or authoritarian government, control and – ultimately – coercion is achieved through the gradual spread of communal hopelessness – things will never change anyway so there’s no point even trying.
A concerted PR campaign has already begun. Chelsea have announced the postponement of a proposed rise in season ticket prices (during a global pandemic and likely financial crisis, how could they even consider it?). The summer transfer window will be the perfect stage on which to claw back goodwill. It’s a little like buying flowers and chocolates after an argument; the point is not that we don’t appreciate the gesture, but we want you to avoid the missteps that provoked it.
But you can see how this strategy works. Fans of all six clubs probably have a mental shopping list for the positions within the squad that must be improved. As supporters, we have been warped into magpies, perennially distracted by shiny new toys and increasingly obsessed by the transfer market soap opera that trades them. We are also typically poor at unified protest (although hopefully the last fortnight has persuaded us otherwise).
At that point, the European Super League becomes a useful distraction for owners. That was never their aim; the notion that this was all a ruse loses its weight when you understand their initial commitment to the project and witnessed the fallout from it. But if removing the looming spectre of a breakaway league is the whole of our intention, it merely reinforces our submergence in the status quo.
For real change, for these owners to be truly held to account, we require unity. Every faction or clique within a fanbase makes retributive justice less likely. And yet unity is incredibly hard to pull off. We have been walked so far, and so fast, down the road of football’s rampant capitalism that scaling back from it feels Sisyphean. How do we persuade someone paying £1,000 for a season ticket and wearing a replica shirt with the name of a £50m signing on the back to embrace a simpler, perhaps even archaic, future?
Committing to a more egalitarian model of ownership, making this a landmark moment for modern football, requires supporters to actively embrace circumstances that they are predisposed to mistrust. It creates a distinct paradox: your club may be less successful and may win fewer trophies, at least in the medium-term, but you cannot care. Those clubs that keep their billionaire owners will continue to hoover up the trophies, but you cannot be jealous. Your club is operating on a higher plane because it is yours, and that whitewashes over all else. That sounds blissful in theory; the reality is far harder.
Supporters of those clubs now face an internal reckoning about what they really want it to be and want it to mean and whether those two things can co-exist in harmony. Those fans must cling onto an intangible dream in the face of tangible backwards steps. In a consumerist society, they have to break all their hardwired instincts. And there are very few acceptable half-solutions here: a new omnipotent billionaire owner is still an omnipotent billionaire owner.
But it is the only way. If the failed ESL breakaway did anything at all, it put a group of billionaire owners simultaneously on the back foot for the first time. They are not used to hearing the word “no”.
Their immediate retreat was fuelled by an ignorance of the public reaction to their plans. That ignorance is itself damning, but it only counts for anything at all if we exploit their position of relative beleaguerment to push wholeheartedly for a different future. For once, we have forced the window open a crack to let in some fresh air. It won’t stay that way for long.
Will it work? Probably not. The excitement from some Arsenal supporters about Spotify owner Daniel Ek buying the club suggests that replacing one billionaire for another is viewed as a victory. If your club signs Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé or AN Other Next Big Thing, does that buy back your trust? If so, the owners walk away scot free. And we’ll dance this same old dance the next time they consider the game itself to be subservient to their greed.
Daniel Storey’s i football column is published in print and online on Friday mornings. You can follow him on Twitter @danielstorey85
More from Daniel Storey
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- The FA should punish Covid rule-breakers – apologies are not enough
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