I trust you are looking forward, much as I am, to the creation of the most boring football league in the history of the sport. A league that would make even the Scottish Premiership seem interesting.
Representatives from England’s “Big Five” Premier League clubs met in London last week to discuss the possibility of forming a European Super League which would, naturellement, comprise themselves — plus Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and so on.
When I say “Big Five” I mean, of course, this season’s Premier League also-rans. Arsenal, the two Manchester clubs, Chelsea and mid-table Liverpool. Of the five it is just about possible, if unlikely, that three of them will qualify for the Champions League this season. And none of them look likely to finish first (though that may be wishful thinking on my part).
Perhaps that meeting in London was at least partly prompted by the fact that, with the greater dispersal of money within the English top tier, these supposed top clubs are not having it all their own way.
It is the Leicester Effect: how on earth is it allowable that those ghastly East Midlands urchins might take one of the Champions League places that is ours, by birth-right? And, of course, the £40m minimum that comes with inclusion in the Champions League — thus levelling the playing field still further. No, we need a league which is much more boring than that and which maximises our profits.
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Again, when I say “Big Five”, I do not quite mean the best supported clubs, either — although Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City have good claims in that regard. Liverpool? Newcastle United draw bigger crowds. And Chelsea are below even Sunderland in the attendance league table.
They are “Big”, then, largely in the sense that they think they are big. Of those five, only Manchester United and Arsenal are unequivocally “big”. Liverpool have not been terribly “big” for quite a while, whereas Manchester City and Chelsea are comparative arrivistes to this notion of “bigness”.
Anyway, the panjandrums of these Big Five met in London with a man called Bob Greed. No, sorry — my shorthand has let me down again — it was Charlie Stillitano, an American radio presenter and businessman who owns a company called Relevent (his spelling) Sports. Charlie likes the US franchise model and he is not terribly keen on promotion or relegation.
Immediately after The Sun revealed that the meeting had taken place, two of the clubs denied they had been discussing any such thing. But Charlie let the cat out of the bag and cheerfully announced they had been talking about “restructuring” the Champions League.
“These grasping monkeys are missing is how stultifying, how dull, such a Super League would be
Louis van Gaal and Arsène Wenger poured scorn on the idea of a Super League — but then they don’t matter, in the scheme of things, and you might argue that it is doubtful if either will be managing their present clubs a year from now. Nor do the players matter, or the fans. It is solely about money.
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What one suspects these grasping monkeys are missing is how stultifying, how dull, such a super league would be. By about November 5 it would be evident that Barcelona or Bayern Munich would win it. And then, what is there left to play for? There would be no relegation battle. Nor could there be, by definition, the consolation of a Champions League spot (or a Europa League place).
Would fans turn out to see a mid-table clash between Manchester City and Chelsea, knowing that the result would be utterly meaningless? And how super will the super league appear if its teams are nowhere near good enough to win their domestic leagues? Do supporters want a never-ending round of fixtures against teams with whom they are wholly familiar to the point of abject boredom?
Such a league would be in stark contrast to the current Premier League, which has become rather thrilling. We are now in March, and at least 15 clubs either have realistic aspirations of a top-five finish or eminently sensible terrors of being dragged into a relegation battle.
This state of affairs has been occasioned partly by the wider dispersal of cash, partly by the league having been reduced in size and partly by the fact that 20 teams are contesting eight definitive places – Champions League, Europa League, relegation. The truth is that the “Big Five” fear their “bigness” may be all too ephemeral.
Meanwhile, as this lot hanker for a super league, so the idea of an “Atlantic League” has been disinterred. Treat the word “Atlantic” with some caution – this league would involve teams from countries such as Greece, for example. The Atlantic League was mooted to provide succour for countries where there are, perennially, only two or three big teams – Scotland, Holland, Greece, Belgium, Portugal and so on.
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It makes a lot more sense than a super league, at least on paper, though it would always be another also-rans league: the Europa Cup under a different name.
