The biggest heist in football history is underway and the more you look at it, the more you speak to people in the game, the more you realise the reason there’s no PR counter-point is the clubs don’t need one.
It’s happening. You’ll have to suck it up. There are very few options available to anyone.
Rich people get away with bad things because money solves most problems. All manner of shady owners get a pass from fans if there’s an investment on the pitch. This Super League is the future clubs have been looking at since the David Dein era. The big owners hope you’ll forget when you see the riches it reaps on your team every season.
I spent most of my day speaking to people in the game. Most are thinking about this very differently to you or I. They see this as an inevitable next step in a game that hasn’t been for the people for 30 years. The thread of conversations generally had three points.
- Clubs don’t make much money out of the game.
- The pandemic fucked their average business models and they want control back.
- UEFA has massively under-valued the value of the ‘content’ the big clubs produce, this is the consequence of their negligence
The big owners don’t make any money from it. Everything is hoovered up in wages and average business models. You are doing well if you turn a profit. Those profits are pitiful by big biz standards.
The pandemic exacerbated this issue. No fans. No say over TV rights. No control over schedules. No ability to move fixtures. No control over survival. It was a nightmare that hit everyone hard.
The big push is that they feel their content is massively undervalued. Their numbers show that their ‘brands’ drive the most eyeballs and value. They are business people who care about nothing else bar profit and growth, and to their minds, the piece of pie they are getting isn’t big enough.
UEFA haven’t helped themselves. Look at the money they’ve left on the table.
Champions League winner gets £74m (if they win all their games)
Just the signing on fee for the Super League is £310m.
Minimum prize money each season is £130m up to £213m.
Clubs have to win 6 Champions League medals to make the cash delivered in year one of Super League.
Gary Neville, fan appointed slayer of this idea, to people in football, is a laughing stock. The guy that played for the richest club in England, lecturing them whilst he financially dopes a League 2 club, doesn’t fly with them.
The notion of competition to a lot of people I spoke to is also in question. How have things worked over the last decade in Italy, Greece, France, Germany and Spain? In the European Cup right now, 97% of the tournaments have been won by founding members. Is the competition good content before the quarter-finals?
It’s all quite elitist and grim to listen to if you are a romantic like most people who read blogs and listen to podcasts are.
However, as Matt on our latest pod points out (below). How did you feel after we became the best club in Europe at Highbury, only to have our hopes and dreams dashed by Russian blood money? We weren’t left behind based on merit, it was because billionaire backers swept the board in the Premier League and financially doped.
UEFA was supposed to rescue Arsenal and they didn’t. FFP was not the great hope Ivan G promised. Now they’ve been fucked because they let this get out of control.
There is also a belief that this deal is going to work out better for everyone. A stronger Premier League, because we have even better players, will make the Premier League even more appealing. That’ll raise the revenue of other teams in our collective bargain. It’ll also create a load more tax, that British clubs pay, to support a better grassroots system.
This also won’t be the last big shift. There will be a better second-tier competition, that will likely take the elitist approach of making sure there aren’t filler games with bland teams. It’ll focus on quality, because clubs can’t afford to be left behind.
That’s the thinking anyway.
What makes all the above worse is all roads point to this being pushed through without much resistance. Below are some questions I had answered by various people on the potential roadblocks being discussed.
WE’LL BAN PLAYERS FROM INTERNATIONALS
Firstly, we just lost our captain to malaria, I’m not sure clubs care too much for the schedule that ruins their talent. Secondly, UEFA and FIFA simply can’t do it. International duty is an honour, but it doesn’t put food on the table. There is no situation where the 500 best players in the world are not invited to the international tournaments, why? Because there’s no product unless the best players are there.
Imagine the options.
$500k p/w at Arsenal. No World Cup.
$100k p/w at Crystal Palace. Average Europe if you are lucky. World Cup.
No brainer.
PREMIER LEAGUE WILL EJECT BIG 6
A lovely thought, but Sky are not going to have that. It takes more than 14 votes to make a decision at Premier League level. Also, the other clubs don’t want it. The absolute last thing Steve Parish needs is the gravy train of the big 6 exiting the league. No one is paying to watch a top of the table clash between Leicester and Crystal Palace.
There’s also an alternative if they did do a madness. The Premier League is a separate entity from the Championship. The Big 6 could join forces with them and maybe the SPL. They would absolutely jump at the chance.
PLAYERS WILL PROTEST
Highly doubtful. Players will know this new deal means more money if you make it to the top. They will also soon learn that better players in the Premier League mean a bigger TV deal which means more money for them. Remember when it was an actual conversation whether players would go to shit clubs with no history for money? If you don’t, it was a real conversation.
Super League means a bigger retirement fund for everyone. Players aren’t going to vote for something that lowers their earnings potential.
REBEL TEAMS WILL BE BANNED FROM EUROPE THIS FRIDAY
How can you cancel the Champions League? How can you make the Europa League spectacle Roma vs Villareal?
Moves like that wouldn’t fly with TV or sponsors. They would also push clubs right into the Super League. UEFA and FIFA need to negotiate, they’d be foolish to go nuclear on this season.
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
This sounded like a good idea to me yesterday morning. It’s a populist move, it could be politically advantageous for someone like Boris who courts the working-class vote. However, it’d be quite the move for democratic nations to tell private business what they can do. It’d also be problematic to demand less money come into the country via payroll tax. Every nation is reeling, they need to pay loans back, footballer revenue is a big, big contributor.
MURDOCH INTERVENTION
This Super League move is an attack on his empire. You’ve seen the seething pundits he’s rolling out. Every newspaper in his portfolio will rally against this. He is the darkest of media moguls. I read a piece about his relationship with Zuck. He basically told him to course-correct on media payments or he’d go after him. His relentless attacks wear the powerful down, his channels make you nightly news, his sycophants get airtime on his shows parroting corrosive talking points over and over. If he gets his teeth into this, he could use the basic premise of populism to create a divide between fans and their clubs. How much stomach do CEOs have for his crew rummaging in the metaphorical bins of the past? Vinai didn’t have the stomach for a fan Q&A Sunday.
FAN POWER
This is a legitimate form of action that could be interesting. Fans could protest. They could activate social media. They could clog switchboards. They could be a real pain in the arse.
Problem? CEO Daniel Levey isn’t driving this move. CEO Vinai isn’t the decision-maker. It’s Stan, who is sitting in a £100m ranch in Colorado. You know what he’s thinking? £12 billion over 23 seasons, minimum.
There are rumours some British clubs are losing their nerve, so let’s see… but my point stands, owners of these mega clubs make the decisions. They aren’t in the stands or on twitter. They reside in palaces, ranches, and mansions where the rabble cannot bother them. Bottling it after 2 days would be a surprise.
FOOTBALL FILLIBUSTERING
The biggest weapon against all of this is time. CEOs and owners know this. If they can’t get this agreed for next season, the weight of the fans, the media, and government might be too much. Someone has to find a big wrench and slow the momentum. If you can give the fighters of this battle the weapon of time, it might be stopped.
They’re trying to go warp speed on this because once it’s done, fans in the stadium can’t do much about it. It’ll be as effective as Green & Gold or the Wenger Out protests. But clog it up, target a weak owner, and who knows?
THE GERMANY EFFECT
PSG are not committing yet, but let’s be real, no team needs this like them. However, Germany has been quiet. They are fan-owned. This is not a fan-owned vibe. Germany is not a country that readily indulges the big man taking away from the little man. A strong statement of rejection from Bayern and Dortmund would add real pressure to the other clubs.
So to conclude. This is a desperate time for those of us that believe in football the way it’s currently shaped. The meritocratic nature of the game that we love has become a squashed business model impediment. We’re now on the path to something far more stable and controlled. I don’t like it. It’s a miserable end to a journey we all knew we were on for years.
Football looks like a WWE drama from the 90s, but less fun. We’re looked at as a category of content, not a community institution. We cater to the globe, not the faithful. We now represent the worst of privilege and entrenched power.
Rooting for UEFA or FIFA is like choosing a root canal or an eye infection. Hoping a media mogul that has divided the world comes to our rescue is literally doing a deal with the devil. Praying fan action will do anything after watching it fail over and over again feels naive.
This is not the game I fell in love with, but it’s the game I love. What do you do?
Let’s see where the drama takes us.
P.S. We dropped a spicy podcast about the touchiest subject we’ve ever covered on The Arsenal Opinion. Johnny, Matt and myself were joined by Venture Capitalist, Daniel Cardenas (long-suffering Gooner).
Trask
No way Stan does anything to devalue the club’s financial viability and lose money as a consequence.
He’s more likely to want to scrape the ton of egg left on his face and invest more to make improvements.
Our brand will have taken a nasty hit, so Stan will need to lessen repercussive losses in brand income.
Stan has got a lot of fires to put out and sponsors to placate.
Ahh, what a lovely day.
ESL is dead, Mou is gone; personally I don’t care if Arsenal win-lose-draw for the rest of the season. I am just contented and relaxed about things.
Tony I just dont see how that happens with the whole protests of kicking Kroenke out which would be made even more unpalatable when fans come back. Why should he invest in a club he probably has to sell within a year or two. This is no long term thing I’m talking about. I can just see him milking the club for every last bit of dollar before he sells off. I guess I just dont see KSE doing things to appease the fans and bring AFC to the elite because that would require major investments. I could be wrong… Read more »
Arsenal is overvalued, it only worth the real estate, and real estate isnt doing well at the moment.
Dangote will not be buying Arsenal
You can take it to the bank!
Wengaball Exactly my thoughts. Where was this alarm and outrage when anyone could just buy a club and throw money at it . Wenger was ridiculed for it. Where were the fans when all this was happening (and still is). Where were/are the protests against the governing bodies? Because every fan would like some of that sugar daddy business that’s why. Selfishness! Champions league format has just been made garbage, I bet no one will talk about that as well. Football is really going to the shitter. Beat to just support some players you like and cheer for them and… Read more »
It never too late to learn @Tony, hear is a fact,
kcuf her like a erohw she will come back for more,
The soft mushy stuff is overrated.
Let that sink in!
Trask Businessmen don’t destroy their assets they preserve at a minimum and increase their worth at best. Kroenke will have a difficult time in the coming months, so is very unlikely to compound the wrongs and strip assets, such as selling Gunnersaurus and antagonizing the protesters more. If Kroenke has had enough, he’ll want the club to look pretty for potential buyers or new sponsors if he’s in for the long fight. That said, Stan and the board have a history of belittling our fans as not relevant or of little relevance. I would imagine Stan and the club are… Read more »
It’s the hypocrisy for me with Pep talking about “competition” when he has a bench that is more expensive than 2/3 bottom clubs çombined or the Chelsea fans in the street yesterday who wouldn’t be relevant were it not for Russian money. I mean don’t get me wrong the ESL sounded like a bad idea but i was pretty much in the wait and see section of it but al of the folks who’ve pretty much benefited from the current state of affiars literally have no moral legs to stand on. Hope fans also protest that ridiculously profit oriented Champions… Read more »
And no, more football is not the answer, competitions like the Nations league and the African Super league are pretty much money grubbing ventures.
I mean the CAF champions league is still played over 2 legs if I’m not mistaken and even then asides the North African teams and certain South African teams, you’d be hard pressed getting full stadiums at said finals and yet somehow creating an African Super league is seen a priority or even option
Oh and i hope the Kroenke out protests are not a one off thing like United fans do ever few months on social media with their #Glazersout campaigns lol like they haven’t benefited massively from a broken system. The protests have to be regular and louder for any of it to mean anything at all.
#Kroenkeout too by the way, the miserly American dud
Batistuta
It might be so. But if not for Pep taking this straight up publicly against his boss, I am not sure if things would have happened so quickly.
Remember the old “Georgy Graham’s magic” song to the tune of my old man’s a dustman?
Well here’s an adaptation to sing on Friday night…
Kroenke is a wanker
He wears a wanker’s wig
He flirted with the esl
He’s a greedy fucking pig! Ohhhh…. (and repeat)
Lol Sid you are a fruitcake
The apology from the club reads as a load of bullshit to me. Oh so gracious and ticking the boxes that we the fans want to hear but there’s a dirty undertone to it.
To me it reads that they dont have a spine, they didn’t want to be left behind, they were protecting the club etc etc. It’s clear we dont have leaders or people that know what theyre doing. If the other clubs didnt pull out of the ESL then they wouldve carried on. Make no mistake about it, we have a bunch of cunts running our club
China1April 21, 2021 07:29:55
Lol Sid you are a fruitcake
I know….. but im also right
Tony Hiya mate. Some typically good stuff from you overnight. Mrs K has her own hobbies such as constantly assigning me DIY jobs (which I endeavour to do as ineptly as possible so she stops – it never works). So our ying and yang equilibrium is restored. What a fucking palaver eh? I was saddened to read about your younger. days and how you seldom got to enjoy going to football. My mum and dad were estranged very early and he’d assuage his guilt by occasionally taking my brother and I to games. That early chapter in Hornby’s Fever Pitch… Read more »
Rich
It’s the 1980s. Imagine this message coming out of a crackly tannoy system in the Norwegian national football stadium as it empties of jubilant supporters.
Rich…. Can you hear me?…. Can you hear me over there in England?… Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch, The Barclay Brothers, Stan and Josh Kroenke, Tim Lewis, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair(!) YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING!
Come over to the light side nouveau Rich! It’s a well known fact that lefties have more fun.
As I have said from the off there was no coincidence about the timing of all this . Far too many crocodile tears for me because no matter what Club be it one of the 6 or the other 14 every club is looking after themselves. For all this about sporting fairness that’s hogwash. The rich are the rich are 99% of the time they will win the league, qualify for the CL and get richer. It is these clubs that generate the bigger commercial deals and it is them that will go away lick their wounds but two things… Read more »
The ironic thing is that the ESL project contained a lot of measures from the FFP that those clubs did not want at the time. ManCity did its level best to bypass those when they originated from UEFA. It used an army of lawyers to strip all the strong measures until all that was left was an empty shell. But they were willing to commit to all the strict rules of the ESL. If those clubs had been willing to have strong UEFA regulations, they would not be in such financial mess. Their business model could not work, because even… Read more »
Self sustainable model is the way to go. Most Arsenal fans rail against Stan and in the same vein bat and wish for Dangote to take over which is quite ironical. Dangote at best could become our own Roman Abrahmovic but still like Chelsea fate of Arsenal will still be in the hands of one individual. I hope the ESL episode pushes all clubs to Bayern Munich model and makes them realise that self sustainable model is the only way out. When a club such as Barcelona which has had immense success can get themselves sucked in to a debt… Read more »
Trask Kroenke doesn’t take money out of the club as far as I’m aware. The only way he can ‘milk us fir every dollar’ is to sell at our highest value. Milking the club for what little revenue we make now and selling a spent club would lose him 100’s of millions probably. The only question is were we brought to make Stan money or are we just his sporting hobby. If it’s the latter then we really are fucked because it’s obviously a hobby he doesn’t like to take an interest in and as long as he has the… Read more »
TR7,
A non negligible chunk of the debt that both Barcelona and Real Madrid have is against other football entity. If that debt is not repaid in full, UEFA can ban them from European competition and that would top them over the edge.
I hope that UEFA uses their position of strength to push through a real powerful FFP. With that in place, the mad financial position of the Spanish and Italian clubs could be avoided in the future.
We have to put our hopes onto a floppy haired blonde git who opens his legs for billionaires on the regular and hope he can create some piece of legislation that takes power away from the billionaires and gives it to the people.
My friends, we’re fucked.
Can only hope we are forcibly relegated and subsequent seasons spent floundering in the lower leagues depreciates our value so much that Kronke decides to sell.
It’s a longshot but it’s all we’ve got.
#KroenkeOut
According to Karl Henry ex professional footballer many of those that were opposed to the ESL was due to them being “xenophobic”.
As retweeted by Matt Kandela from Pedro’s podcast.
A lot of what we see prior to this ESL in football was distasteful in terms of greed.
But what you don’t do is double down on this distastefulness with the ESL.
https://youtu.be/LwxHaosKjgY
Just after reading Arseblog. One of the best writeups on Arsenal I have seen in a long time. And Like Ian Wright Arseblog is well and truly off the fence and @kronkeout 😀
If Liverpool fans want Fenway Sports Group out after this despite them winning a league title and Champions League under their ownership which seems to be the over-riding case then Arsenal fans should not only want Kroenke out but also his head put on a stick therafter.
Track / Wengerball I have always wondered why so many in the modern era get wound up when rich individuals turned up and bought clubs. It’s been like that since day one. Ok the sort of money the likes RA put into Chelsea was colossal but if you look at Chelsea now he’s put in about two years worth of their current turnover and with a squad that even in this deflated market worth about 50% of that cash injection and if he were to sell the current valuation of Chelsea is worth about double the sum he has put… Read more »
I used to like Matt Kandela on Pedro’s podcast Wig.
He came across well to me when he used to guest and of course this latest stance by him doesn’t make him a complete devil reincarnate overall but safe to say many would have been now put off him after this episode.
Came across as just complete selfish and just pure tribalism from him.
No beating about the bush by Arseblog… read their latest post. It will be good for you. He clearly didn’t decide to sell out… despite being one of the most influential, if not, the most influential Arsenal blog.
“Remember who you are and what you represent.”
Yeah fair play to Arseblog on this one.
Right from the start he made his opinion known on this and never waivered one inch,
Oh now he wanted to protect Arsenal and its future and not his children’s heirloom……..did this SOB actually sign off on that pretentious flattering bullshit………it’s full throttle Kroenke Out now. Ashamed for any fan who gave this chicanery of a project even a lukewarm support.
Valentin ‘ Amazon became successful, because it morph itself into a technology and logistics company. Nowaday, most of its revenue and profit comes not from its retail activity, but from its AWS, logistics and fulfillment.’ That’s not true Amazon’s share of the US e-commerce is about 37% The size of e-commerce in America is about $600 billion As many as 15 million households subscribe to amazon prime, that an average of $125 Amazon just makes money off it’s sheer size and monopolies that’s it’s creating, the tech business is profitable all right but doesn’t come anywhere what they make off… Read more »
I had hope from the likes of Klopp, Pep, Wenger and Fergie that they would take the wind out of ESL’s sail, really glad they voiced their concerns and didn’t mince their words.
Arsene Wenger 2ndays ago.
“I would say that it’s a bad idea,” Wenger told talkSPORT. “Football has to stay united. That is the most important thing and based on sporting merits and overall to respect the history of European football.
I believe personally that this idea will not go far”
Spot on as per usual.
In the summer before we brought in Nico Pepe, we asked a question of the Kronkes… “We care do you?” Remember that? Well this week, they have given us a clear definitive response. They don’t care about this club or us the fans. Despite what their pathetic press release apology states, they don’t care about this club, our traditions or our history. Us joining the ESL wasn’t about protecting our club’s future, it was all about protecting theirs. I suspect, had Arsene been in charge of the club, we would have avoided this mess. I disagreed with a lot of… Read more »
Now that we are moving back to reality it will be very interesting to see how the transfer market will operate this summer. It should be clear to all concerned that all the major clubs have incurred significant losses during the pandemic including Real Madrid and Barcelona at the top of the tree. Most of the clubs including Arsenal are going to need to cut their cloth to cover these losses. So my expectation is that there are unlikely to be many mega transfers concluded this summer. Arsenal’s situation may well be determined by whether we can win the Europa… Read more »
Leedsgunner
“Arteta hasn’t said a peep.”
tbf to Arteta silence on this matter was probably the best thing.
Compared to other managers who spoke out he doesn’t have the clout in football at this time as he is just a junior in comparison and doesn’t have that sense of strength of his own position like the others do.
For those of you interested, Pedro’s latest flip flop is now available on a new post!
Emirates
Before sales we probably looking at 20 m transfer kitty . With our debt failure to qualify for Europe at the end of the season and fail the following season ( which we will under arteta ) and we looking at having to sell saka which is the reality
Kroekephobe It’s amazing how universal the ‘wife’s’ language is. I would venture all ‘husbands’ are still mortified by the “I have a job for you’ darling. As if darling means anything. Then you get I meant on the other wall sweetheart. That’s really a good one and gets me every time. Before I retired I always had that timeless reply taught by our caring fathers: I would love nothing more than to do it, but I’m too busy with work right now.’ Can you get people in to do it? Now I’m retired I have taken over the task of… Read more »
I agree Valentin. Wenger warned this would happen, he was a pretty lone voice and was laughed at when he talked about clubs going bust & sustainable models. He was ridiculed but he was right. The pandemic exposed the reality,of the situation.. Nobody in their right minds thinks a £200m transfer fee or £200k per week salaries are sensible, it’s gone way too far. Football has allowed the likes of foreign oil states to own football clubs which should really be owned by their local communities. There needs to be a great reset, football needs an overhaul & legislative measures… Read more »
Ishola
Yes. How ironic that we have Pep talking about football having to be competitive when his own club is in reality Abu Dhabi’s national team. It is clubs like Man City that have artificially inflates wages and transfer fees, while Real & Barcelona have incurred ridiculous levels of debt trying to keep up. Unless there are changes, there will definitely be bankruptcies because football is unsustainable
.
The big question is how do you do that, what measures need to be introduced?
@Dis, Valentine is generally right, Amazon online stores are the slowest growing segment of their business although their foundation.
Their other business segments combined make more and are growing faster. Comissions, shipping, advertising,
One thing that this European Stupor League debacle has confirmed is that our owners regard Arsenal as a brand to be sold and exploited at will. It is like a long established independent family brewery producing award winning beers being taken over by a multi-national conglomerate; the brewery is closed, workers made redundant and brewing moved to a mega keg brewery in Europe. The beer names still appear on the pump clips but it is a very different, inferior product. Welcome to the new Arsenal! Cheers!