The European Super League
By Daniel Doffman
With many of the best football clubs struggling financially with the ever growing competition, Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez, proposed a highly profitable competition which is meant to see Europe's elite, compete against each other in a highly profitable tournament to counter act the vast debts they where facing.
From the perspective of football owners and chairman, the European Super League was of mass interest and would allow for money to be the last of their problems, but this came with many consequences. Fans across the world where disgusted by the proposition and held protests to prevent the lucrative competition from happening. From the outside looking in, it seemed that the pitch was a 'money grab' and had no regard for the proud histories these clubs had amassed.
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Liverpool legend, Bill Shankly stated, "At a football club, there's a holy trinity, the players, the manager and the supporters", with this being said, was the competition aimed at any of the above or was it a way for owners to cover their debts?
With fans having very limited knowledge of the operations of a football club behind the scenes, they have to believe and trust in their owners and chairman. With big clubs such as Rangers FC going into administration, maybe that could be the reality with other big clubs and this was their way of combatting this from happening. With price tags for talent across Europe constantly rising, this caused club debts to rapidly increase with the need to keep up with opposition. The European Super League would have allowed for clubs to forget their financial worries whilst competing against other teams considered in Europe's elite.
From a non-football fans perspective, this initiative looked faultless, but fans from across Europe believed the idea to be disrespectful due to the disregard for the clubs history in order to amass money, which ultimately wouldn't have been funded back into the club. Many fans where also outraged by the lack of communication which caused riots and pandemonium from the fans.
Was the European Super League a genuine way of solving debts or was it a way for owners and chairmen to gain a quick 'cash grab' at the expense of European football?
