- Football fans say they will disown their clubs if plans for a European Super League come to fruition.
- “I will boycott football and not renew my Arsenal membership,” a fan told Insider.
- Another said the plans would make football “insignificant and unimportant”.
- Visit the Insider homepage for more stories.
Football fans have told Insider they will disown their clubs if controversial plans for a European Super League come to fruition.
On Sunday, 12 of Europe’s biggest teams announced they had agreed to join the breakaway league, which will act as a competitor in the UEFA Champions League.
Six Premier League clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham – have announced their entry, alongside FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus.
The clubs involved in the league, which is funded by Wall Street bank JPMorgan, are to receive a fractional cash sum of $ 4.2 billion just for their membership, when they are also expected to make billions in profit in the years to come.
Without relegation or promotion, Super League clubs also won’t have to worry about potential competitors – many of whom still struggle financially amid the coronavirus pandemic – to take their place.
Plans for the league haven’t gone well with large sections of the football community, with a number of fans telling Insider on Monday that they plan to stop supporting their teams if the league goes ahead.
Max Ashley, an Arsenal fan, told Insider he would no longer follow the north London club if the Super League were formed, citing the “greed” involved in shaping the breakaway competition.
“I will boycott football and not renew my Arsenal membership,” he said. “For the first time, I can really say I’m ashamed of my club. It’s pure greed at its best.”
“Vapid and unimportant”
Some Arsenal fans are not happy with their club
Getty / Pool
Jaunté Cole, another Arsenal fan, said: “If this continues I will be happy to be a football fan from north London. It makes football tasteless and unimportant, and I am ashamed of it. ‘Arsenal.”
Outside of London, the feeling is the same. A longtime Manchester United fan who now lives in Sweden told Insider he will no longer spend his own money on the team, and said the league formation is akin to an oligarchy.
“There is a very clear and malicious intent in this push for an elite league,” fan Cameron Thorne said.
“I now think the only tangible way to take a stand is to make sure that none of my own money falls into the club’s hands.”
“This means that I will no longer be a member of the official Manchester United club, no longer buy the shirt, no longer watch games live or pay for MUTV.”
Another Manchester United fan, Aaran Weston, said: “Football would just become irrelevant. It would spoil the game from top to bottom.
“If fewer people watch the Premier League, the lower clubs won’t get the money they are getting now and go bankrupt. It’s a mess. I wouldn’t really care about United anymore.”
In addition to individual supporters fiercely opposed to ESL’s plans, supporters’ associations have also voiced their outrage.
The official Manchester City supporters club on Sunday night posted a statement alongside a cartoon photo of the grim reaper in which he said the new league is “driven by greed”.
We Are 1894, another group of City supporters tweeted, simply saying, “Change your head in shame”, tagging the club’s official account.
—1894 (@ WeAre1894) April 18, 2021
Atlético fans, Atletico Madrid’s largest English-speaking fan group has also expressed its displeasure.
However, not everyone is ready to cancel their support for their teams yet. Hunter Godson, who backs Tottenham, says he will wait and see how things go.
“In truth, I think it is too early to tell,” he said. “We would need to see the sanctions from UEFA.”
In response to Sunday’s announcement, UEFA, the governing body of European football, issued a joint statement alongside the leagues of England, Spain and Italy, condemning the plans.
They also threatened to expel those involved from any other national competition, as well as to ban players from representing their national teams.
“[We] we will remain united in our efforts to stop this cynical project, a project based on the interest of a few clubs at a time when society needs solidarity more than ever “, they said.
“We will examine all the measures available to us, at all levels, both judicial and sporting, to prevent this from happening. Football is based on open competition and sporting merit; it cannot be otherwise.”
