And now the briefing games begin. Manchester City were fast out of the blocks.
The fact that we did not expect any better of Man City underlines the club under it’s current owners.
The Super League is now floating face down, bloated, in a puddle of its’ own hubris. Like The Death Star, it looked ominous and impregnable, but these twats also designed it with a fatal flaw – the infamous exhaust port.
With The Super League, the fatal flaw was that none of the owners and their lackeys actually bothered asking real-life people if blowing up football as we know it, for the sake of enriching themselves, was a good idea.
It is rare to see such an exhaustive queue of people lining up on one side against such a cartoon villain idea. The Death Star was blown to hell by a chain reaction of revulsion, mobilisation, social media torrents and the cowardice of those that had put it together.
What we now have are executives and owners crawling from the hulking wreckage and a scramble for face- and job-saving.
Over the past 14 hours, England’s alleged ‘Big Six’ have all released statements of some shape or form. Liverpool and Manchester United have been short and sweet, with no attributed quotes from those that were behind the rebel league.
The 2020 champions have at least put John W Henry in front of a camera to read an apology from a prompter. That’s something, at least. Don’t epect likewise from United’s co-chairmen, Joel and Avram Glazer.
Tottenham and Arsenal have at least apologised for causing their fans distress while Chelsea followed the United and Liverpool route. Less is less.
Manchester City, meanwhile, have been busy reaching out to media contacts to get their side of the story out. In truth, all six English clubs will be doing likewise. City were just fastest out of the blocks.
The narrative is thus: They were reluctant from the get-go and concerned about what implications the breakaway Super League could have on the wider football community. Sure, they went along with it but they just did not want to be cut adrift after striving for so long to be at the big table.
Club sources have also let it be known that City chairman Sheikh Mansour was the first to pull his team’s participation from the league.
“They were caught in a difficult situation,” said Sky Sports’ Ben Ransom as he stood outside the same Etihad Stadium that had been the scene for protests by City fans on Tuesday night, as the league was starting to implode.
🗣"They were caught in a difficult situation." @BenRansomSky gives the latest from Manchester City after the fallout of the 'European Super League' pic.twitter.com/MRppHJjOxk
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) April 21, 2021
If it is heroes you are looking for, keep looking.
First club off the sinking ship. First club into the life-boats.
First club to distance itself from an utter, contemptuous mess and fire shots on the way out.
If you are looking for people to get behind, look to the ones at the English clubs that spoke out against the concept while the Super League was still a tangible [if distasteful] reality.
Jürgen Klopp doubled down on his 2019 comments, which criticised such an elitist proposal, when he faced the Sky Sports cameras on Monday night. James Milner came out with his personal view – “I don’t like it and I hope that it doesn’t happen.”
Then we had Pep Guardiola willing to answer any tough question to the best of his ability, and knowledge of the matter, after being given ‘very few info’ by those at City and shoved out to face the media.
Having represented Barcelona as a player and now into his fifth season as City boss, he spoke openly about how such an idea of a ring-fenced Super League – with cherry-picked clubs and no relegation for the 15 founder members – was alien to everything he loved about football.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CN45JWwqszQ/
At the end of this sorry mess, very few involved in these clubs have come out looking well. The players and coaches have taken a lot of flak for something they never wanted and were vehemently against. The owners – if the can even be bothered – sent out a recorded message and wash their hands of it all.
City, and their reluctant billionaire owners, will now try and focus on making a big deal about their club going for the very competitions – League Cup, Premier League and Champions League – that they took only 48 hours before deciding to devalue them completely.
Maybe if they win a first Champions League, next month, the cool kids will finally like them.
Who would have thought many of us would end up rooting for Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League?
What a messed up plane football exists on right now.
