The European Super League, fans and the importance of history

Roger Fagge, Department of History

22 April 2021

The rapid rise and fall of the proposed European Super League (ESL) this week was remarkable, generating passionate arguments in person and online, and dominating the news cycle. Various interventions came from fans, articulate ex-players and commentators. Rather surprisingly the PR campaign for the ESL project was almost non-existent with only Florentino Pérez, the Real Madrid President, raising his head above the parapet. The paucity of arguments in favour of the ESL, was matched by a sense that the proponents didn’t think they would have or need to defend their plan. Perhaps the riches of a suggested 3.5 billion euros to each club joining the ESL, and a 20 year non-negotiable presence in the league, blinded the organisers to the importance of fans, their opinions, and the history of football.

The football league of 1888 established promotion and relegation within the football pyramid, and became the blueprint for the sport in many parts of the world. The ability of teams to rise and fall in the pyramid (often more hoped for than achieved in the case of the former) became part of the structure and culture of football. Football also grew from elite and non-elite origins to become the sport of the mass industrial working class in the C19 and early C20. When fans protesting the ESL held up homemade banners arguing, ‘Made by the Working Class, Stolen by the Rich’, they were making a valid point. Football in Britain was popular enough to sustain enough teams in the pyramid, and this was generally the case in Europe and Latin America. However, promotion and relegation is not as inscribed in the culture of sport in other contexts. For example, Major League Soccer (MLS) founded in 1993 doesn’t have relegation or promotion. Furthermore, in February 2021 Premiership Rugby Union ended promotion and relegation, ostensibly over problems related to the pandemic, but suggested this may last longer. It was decided that promotion would only be reinstated where minimum standards were met ‘on and off the field.’ There was little or no protest from fans of Rugby Union about this.

Promotion and relegation as part of the culture of football is one thing to bear in mind, but there is also the issue of fans as consumers, and the identity of local clubs. It is significant that AC Milan, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and in part Spurs, all have US owners, where franchises operate and football is less important in mainstream culture (and called of course, ‘soccer’). However, the US owners and their European partners (who should have known better), seriously underestimated the significance of long suffering football fans who have watched their game increasingly taken away from them. The dismissive talk of people who attended the games as ‘legacy’ fans was nearly as misguided as the suggestion that 90 minutes may be too long for matches. The ESL was also part of a longer term alienation of fans. The advent of the Premier League in 1992, saw the values of neo-liberalism seep into football, with the movement of overseas owners and players into the Premier League and pots of money to be made. Sky TV were very important in this regard, paying ever increasing amounts for football rights, and have been joined by BT and more recently Amazon. The 2018 deal for 2019-22 involved Sky and BT paying £4.46 billion for 160 Premier League games. The Champions League also expanded in this period, and saw more largesse accruing to clubs who were able to qualify. Money poured into the top clubs, into players wages, new stadia, and into the owners’ pockets. The pandemic has problematised this to some extent, and the next tv deal may be less generous.

The Premier League weakened the financial links within the football pyramid, and was designed to put power and wealth into the hands of bigger clubs. Promotion and relegation remained, but it became even harder for clubs to scale the pyramid, and even dream of winning the title or qualifying for Europe. Divisions opened up within the Premier League, and between the Premier League and the Football League. In addition fans saw ticket prices increase dramatically, games moved to Monday evenings and Sunday afternoons at short notice, and having to pay £60 for a synthetic replica shirt with a betting logo across it. Terminology shifted from fans to consumers, and stadia whist genuinely improved, safer and more inclusive, often lacked atmosphere and charged large amounts for low quality food and drink. There had been rumblings of complaint from movements like ‘Against Modern Football’ in the 1990s and early 2000s, and some gravitated towards non-league including when in 2005, Manchester United fans unhappy with the Glazer’s ownership of their club, set up FC United of Manchester. More recently the introduction of VAR irritated fans, who found they couldn’t even celebrate goals without one eye on the dreaded technology disallowing it because a player’s toe was deemed offside. And finally there was the pandemic which had meant that fans weren’t able to see their teams for over a year. The chaotic announcement of the ESL, whilst not unexpected, was always going to generate a cry of rage against it, and the 30 years of greed and commercialistion which have shaped modern football. If they had understood the sport better, the owners would have seen it coming.

So the ESL is dead, for now at least. Football fans are realistic enough to see that this doesn’t change the bigger picture. The German ownership model of 50 +1 and similar types of fan ownership are back on the cards, but it’s difficult to see how this will happen, in the short term at least. The anger this week, will need to translate into a wider movement, and make links with politics. Corbyn’s Labour wanted to rein in the owners and give fans more rights, and the current Labour leadership need to pick up on this. Meanwhile the new version of the Champions League agreed by UEFA this week, which will come into force in 2024, will see more matches and money. And two places will go to teams with established tournament history, even if they don’t qualify in their leagues. So, football still faces a difficult future, especially as we move out of the pandemic. But let’s just enjoy the fact that this week football fans used an awareness of the history of their sport to give a bloody nose to arrogant owners trying to pull a fast one. Football did come home.