Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why all the outrage over the European Super League?

issue 01 May 2021

Anything been happening in football in the past couple of weeks? No? Moving on then… Hang about though. The doomed relegation-free European Super League may have had a shorter life than the average mayfly but it generated the level of fury produced by poking a stick in a hornets’ nest. How justified was all the outrage?

The idea that clubs such as City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and the rest of the ‘Shameful Six’ are friendly neighbourhood outfits where you could run into Chopper Harris down the pub has long gone. These are huge international businesses run by Arab rulers, Russian billionaires and US hedge funds. They might have backed down for now, but the reasons why the ESL was dreamed up haven’t gone away: the poor quality of a lot of football and the fact that young people are turning away from the game.

The ESL may be off for now, but the reasons why it was dreamed up haven’t gone away

My friend the Chelsea fan switched off the dreary match against Brighton the night the ESL story broke.

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