The reaction to the formation of the new European Super League has been quite astounding, really.
Every man and their dog has expressed outrage – ex-players, pundits, bloggers, supporters, radio stations, fans groups… the list goes on. But it strikes me that people are being outraged without understanding what is actually happening.
Which is some of Europe’s biggest teams have decided to start their own competition. That’s literally it.
They haven’t said they would leave their domestic leagues (in our case the Premier League) so what’s the problem? That Arsenal might not participate in the FA Cup? Well that hasn’t been decided yet has it? People are completely freaking out for no reason!
This is a model Arsene Wenger said 11 years ago that would happen “within 10 years”, and as usually Arsene was pretty much on the money.
The argument about greed is just laughable. The boat sailed a long time ago, back in 1992 when the Premier League was formed. Did anyone care about the negative affect it would have on lower leagues? No. Did they care that the extra money used to buy foreign talent would stifle our English youth? No. The hypocrisy is real.
The bottom line is the Premier League and UEFA let this happen with the way they behaved, and a European Super League should be no surprise – Arsene Wenger knew this would happen over a decade ago!
The Premier League let clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City have owners that had questionable backgrounds come in and splash obscene amounts of money so that they could get the best players and increase the viewership worldwide. You realise the PL make insane money from worldwide TV rights don’t you?
And UEFA? They pretended to implemented FFP (Financial Fair Play) but let the richest clubs (Manchester City, PSG, etc.) break these rules time and time again without punishment.
Why? Because UEFA are corrupt and again, all they want is the best players so they have the highest viewing figures possible.
This is something which has been on the cards for a long long time, and the hypocrisy and outrage from these so called pundits is laughable.