Super League Football (Soccer)

It seems the first battle has been won, but it’s only the first of many in a long bloody war to come. Steve Parish put it well; that the greedy pigs in this scenario actually gave fans a gift by massively overplaying their hand and hubristically exposing their own soft underbelly. But the advantage must be taken and pushed.

As Souness says, we kid ourselves thinking money-men or foreign investors care a whit for the common grassroots fan—even the season-ticket holder. As long as British football clubs have major shareholders on the global stock market, and players are traded on that market like racehorses, then there will be this corruption. The choice is clear; either fans take ownership of their clubs (the 51% Rule) and thereby assume financial responsibility, or we allow foreign hypercapitalist influence (including American) to destroy the national sport.

There’s also a case to be made for consumers to boycott and tear down the paywall that British football is currently locked behind thanks to Murd0ch/Sky Sports (the employers of Souness, Neville, Carragher...)

Is it mainly American owners that were pushing for the Super League? Were any players attaching themselves to it yet?

Chairman Florentino Pérez Spain President of Real Madrid Vice-chairman Andrea Agnelli Italy Chairman of Juventus Vice-chairman Joel Glazer United States Co-chairman of Manchester United Vice-chairman John W. Henry United States Owner of Liverpool Vice-chairman Stan Kroenke United States Owner of Arsenal

Love that my shameful comp-het crush JT just posted a moody selfie in protest and left it at that lol. Captain my captain.

R2 personally I’ve not heard any players or coaches come out in support of it, but then they wouldn’t admit to supporting it now— not after that public embarrassment. It does seem to be owners alone in favour, maybe a few top-flight players behind closed doors that we’ll never know about.

Bring back Sepp Blatter.

There’s something far bigger at play, here.

If the Big Six really wanted to hoard funding and price out everyone else, then they wouldn’t have transparently announced they were leaving before actually leaving. This threat was merely their bargaining chip to pull on negotiations; obvious given how quickly they dropped it. They knew that there’s no way the rest of the League or indeed the country would allow them to do it, and that gave them power that had been slipping away (thanks to COVID, loss of sponsorships, recent scandals and m poor results/performance). The biggest clubs got what they wanted—-a boardroom landscape where no UEFA/FIFA club will ever be able to threaten pulling out again, and negotiations will be tighter and less fair than before—through blackmail. It’s disgusting and low-down.

John Henry has retracted his support for the time being, and has issued a general apology over social media.

Perez, however, has intimated that the ESL plans are only on hold...

Perez has a net worth of $2.8 billion but that's still not enough apparently.

Of course, Redders has said something neutral if fairly tone-deaf and a bit thick, and the fans have piled on him. He should have learned by now to keep mum.

I love this:

Perez (Spain) was/is chairman; his vice-chairmen were/are - Agnelli (Italy) Glazer (USA) Henry (USA) Kroenke (USA)

I know Boris Johnson was a natural born US citizen (NYC 1964) but he is now going to flay the US owners of English soccer clubs, to the endless satisfaction of the voting English.

Greedy bastards should know better.

R9 the gallows pole isn’t good enough for the likes of him. Same goes for Kroenke and Glazer. Give these creeps an inch, and they’ll take the whole ruler from you.

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You know if they get the Daily Mail treatment then they really are in trouble.

The Germans would have nothing to do with this fuckup. The UK is now looking for a German model of club ownership: that means 51% belongs to the fans. Glazer, Henry and Kroenke are going to be told that soccer is more about participation rather than making vast amounts of money and they are not ever going even to begin to understand what that means.

R11 yep. First thing BoJo has managed not to cock up spectacularly.

[quote] “(America) call it a World Series—but it’s just one country...

Absolute savagery from GNev this last week, and it’s all warranted criticism. Had no idea he could speak with such force, clarity and eloquence on serious subjects. Hats off.

Fearing for his safety a bit, though. What he’s saying and doing here attacks not only elitism and greed in sports, but also the root of global crony capitalism and hyperconsumerism, something that is spreading like a cancer through our world economies. It feels like a dangerous and important statement he’s making, hitting very close to marks under which missiles are buried. I admire his guts, and hope he has protection.

That said, we can’t lose sight of the fact that even Gary himself is complicit in this system, and sat by idly and silently collecting his UEFA/Sky money for the twenty-five years this has been happening...

Still, better late that never, and what he’s done and said this year is more than anyone else has.

R6 honestly. All is forgiven, Sepp mate.

If we only knew in 2010 that those were actually the best of times....

[quote] MailOnline reveals each of the English 'Big Six' have lost £8million by pulling out and face more penalties for breaking their contracts. But by this point the clubs are just glad to escape more fury.

So, someone makes a profit of this scheme even now that it has fallen apart. Is it Agnelli? I mean, that is some "no honor amongst thieves" drama right there.

"If you hated the Super League just wait until you see the new Champions League format"

Obviously this is not going away.

R20 that extra hundred matches stipulation is absolute horseshit.

“[Joel] Glazer’s parked his weasels”😂😂

‘Weasel’ is the right word. Never read a more transparently fake and gloating non-apology in my life, than Joel’s statement from a couple of days ago.

The fans are furious.

I love this. The dumb fans that think the clubs had any loyalty or gave a flying fuck about them have had the rug pulled out from under them. Imagine how betrayed they must feel lol. These guys base their personalities on which club they follow, pathetic. And then they have Gary Neville come out and say that greed is destroying the ‘national sport’? Did he think his totally inflated salary was a result of goodwill of the club or gouging the fans out of their money? Lol all the footballers pretending to be with the ‘man on the street’. It’s a reflection of English culture - foreign investors pretending that the little Englanders matter but only keeping them happy so they can bleed them dry with merch and ticket prices, using their childhood heroes as leverage to do so.

The few take advantage of the many. And the many give willingly, so very willingly. Because they don't know any better.

R24 brutal, but true. Hopefully this is a wake-up call, and fans will feel insulted enough to keelhaul the system voting with their feet and their pounds sterling.

Being that many footie fans are mind-numbingly dim and easily-led, I wouldn’t bank on that change. We can but hope.

[quote] It’s a reflection of English culture - foreign investors pretending that the little Englanders matter but only keeping them happy so they can bleed them dry.

Yes, unfortunately.

Top-level pro sports is often a good barometer of wider society, and in this case it is telling. Not just football, either—in recent decades, the noxious influence of Big Money from Chinese/Saud/American backers also beleagures English tennis, horseracing, and most noticeably snooker.

Taking a leaf from the book of Japanese or Kiwi isolationism couldn’t hurt, though now it may be far too late.

Try darts instead. Or bowls.

Apparently Prince William is the president of the (entirely powerless) F.A. Who knew?

Give them what for, Wellz!

[quote] JOHN BARNES: One man’s corruption is another man’s business.

Barnesy just had a go at us all, and every word of what he said is true. Nihilistic, but true.

Are there any examples of revolutions that actually worked in favour of the common man? Is Bundesliga the only feasible model of profit and power-sharing to exist?

R24 nails it. Neville's speech was stirring indeed, sincere and theatrically good - but a big part of it was fuelled by shame at having done so well via the system which led by greedy degrees to this tone-deaf smug narcissistic new scheme.

Years ago 'The unacceptable face of capitalism' was a phrase, and now here we have again an ugly face which thought itself so cleverly lovely. Neville at least wants to put himself on the right side of history, and be part of the solution. Good luck with that. Beautiful game, terrible industry.

"Is Bundesliga the only feasible model of profit and power-sharing to exist?“

The problem is that the Bundesliga is in trouble, too. And there are constant talks about changing the 51% rule, to make the league more interesting. I mean Bayern are completely dominating the Bundesliga, they won the league now 8 times in a row (!) and are on course to win again this year. They have more than enough money and are just crushing everyone else. Without foreign investors, probably nothing will change for the foreseeable future. Where is the excitement then?

R9 one large incentive for Florentino to back this was a chance to force the transfer of Mbappé & Haaland. He’s even openly admitting it.

Hopefully these lampreys will eat each other in short order.

R32 thanks, that’s very interesting to hear at this juncture.

Bayern are indeed the German version of Man City, essentially—bloated, tumour-ridden, overshadowing and poisoning their respective leagues.

But what can we do? As you say, even 51% supporter ownership isn’t doing enough. Would salary and transfer caps make any difference? Would heritage protection? Would closing transfer windows?

R31 I love your post.

Yes, I agree that Gary is waking up to the reality in a heartfelt way, and also that it his rhetoric does smack of ‘too little too late’ and ‘easy for him to say..’. Kudos to him for speaking out first and so well, at some risk, but let’s keep sight of his privilege and his strategic advantages for so doing. He is motivated at once both by a fervent sincere wish for righteous justice and fairness across the board, and also by his own personal interests (his work at Sky, his chairmanship at Salford, his legacy as part of the UEFA Class Of ‘92 etc.) There are other younger and less privileged people in the game who have also made noise, some many years before Gary Neville, who were ignored until this crisis point.

‘The right side of history’ is definitely becoming clearer all the time, but as the picture sharpens the opportunity to change it quickly fades. These fatcats have been so stealthy, in the manner of Zuck et al., and so we are now faced with what seems an insurmountable and hungry yet swift and invisible Titan of an enemy. Perhaps the only solution is to somehow trick that Titan into destroying himself and his fellows?

And I wish I had a logical and structured idea of how to go about bringing down the industry while doing least harm, and that people in positions to do something also had an idea. Really, the only ones who can do something are people like Gary, who have considerable clout and influence but also sit on boards with the vampiric owners and mogul; caveat that, if they do act, they must be quicker, tougher, smarter and more ruthless than the opponent. This is chess we’re playing now, not footie.

[quote] Leeds owner wouldve bit your hand off for a sniff of Super League and so would Gold, Sullivan, Karen, the Leicester dude and the rest. Absolute shitcunts the lot of them and so are the devils that work with them getting shouted at on Zoom calls for a living. But those Glazers man🤦‍♂️

And yet, it seems, this is not going away.

R37 fucking hell. Not even human, is he?

Andy Burnham has created a mission statement and petition (at the link), FWIW.

Funding for grassroots football should be tied to spending by the PL clubs. PL clubs spent £1.4bn on players in 2020/21, £1.6bn in 2019/20 and £1.5bn in 2018/19. Put a 10% tax on it, even 100% tax on whatever they pay agents (and agents fees should be severely capped, regardless).

You want to talk written binding agreements, Perez? How about the written binding agreement PL made in 1999 to find grassroots football and to favour lower-tier teams to preserve balance in the league?

Also a strong case can be made for allowing coaches and managers to access A licenses and come in to work with the biggest teams, from outside of the bubble. Right now the FA, FIFA and UEFA are all closed shops, albeit less expensive and exclusive ones than the proposed SL.

Some lower league pitches have had the same clubhouses and pitches for fifteen years. Some top-level teams have been unfairly stranded in Leagues One & Two for decades because they can’t get funding and sponsorship enough to compete with a Sheikh’s billions. My local team is good enough from a playing standpoint to make the CL, but I know well they’ll never make it there under this current system.

Reading R37's link: the Big Six have fucked the Premier League and the solidarity payments which flow from it.

I find all of this fascinating because I'm not really an association football fan and don't know much about how it's all structured, run, and governed. Obviously it's the biggest sport in the world and watching all of the drama and emotion is really interesting.

Would you say American sports leagues - though the goal is obviously to make money like any other league - are better run?

Too much kneeling R41.

R41 YMMV but I wouldn’t, no.

They aren’t exactly cognate as games, but in my view U.S. leagues are far less competitive and the style of play is far more limited. As for the way they’re managed and run in the U.S., there seems to be more emphasis on an ownership/sponsorship relationship making all the decisions without consulting a board several times first, as we would do here in Britain.

R43 was cognate really the best word there? Seems over-engineered, while also the actual sentiment is wrong. American and UK ball games are quite clearly related.

Just to be sure, I was talking about the American sports leagues generally, especially the big ones - NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL - not just the MSL soccer league.

I am anti FIFA and UEFA. these are corrupt cunts. If football is really about passion, then why the fuck are they playing the next WC in the desert? And how many people have died building those fucking stadiums? more than 4000!

So don't tell me about greedy owners. Football has always been about MONEY!

Why isn't there a boycott of the next WC?! How can these "woke" players/countries compete in a venue where thousands of slaves died building the stadiums?

they need to get rid of VAR. fucking ruining the whole thing!

I think the fans are stupid too. Don't they want the owners to make more money so they can buy better players?! Just look at spurs, they are never gonna win anything coz they never splash out to buy nobody.

LFC recently won a couple of titles after a long drought...because the owners spent hundreds of millions buying quality players. They gotta be kidding themselves if they think "integrity" is gonna win them any titles.

R5, Wayne Rooney said he was for it.

How is Jamie Carragher still employed? Didn't he spat at a 10 year old kid?! Don't they have moral clauses in employment contracts over there? Standards are so low and I fucking hate his squeaky voice.

Bring back George Best.

R50 dunno how or why most of the current pundits got their jobs, to be honest.

Sky: Souey is an angry dinosaur yelling at clouds, Keano barely talks unless to add something vaguely unhinged and menacing, GNev is a company man desperately pretending he’s not, Carra just wants to talk about everything in relation to LFC, and poor brainless Redders is clearly just there as totty (his fellow Spiceboy Robbie Savage used to do the most howlingly awful colour commentary on Radio 5 Live). We all know how Kelly Cates got her job, and on what merit. Conversely, Alex Scott is quite good, but we barely see any of her and when she does get to speak no-one ever dares to have a healthy debate with her.

BBC: Shearer can’t summon basic intelligent human emotions or language, Wrighty won’t stop boring on about political correctness, Hansen is a bitter drunk (you can practically hear him chug from the bottle during hilight replays) and a grudgeholding prick, Micah’s lisp makes his comments incomprehensible as well as inane, Jenas is a boorish awkward waffler (yet they’re tapping him up to replace Lineker, whyyyy), Sutton is a facile contrarian dimwit, Green is a whinger who obviously hates the modern game and only stayed in football for the money, Ince rides the fence on everything, and the relentlessly-negative Lawro is going senile yet refuses to retire. Letting go of Dixon, Murray, and DJ Nevin back in the late 2000s-early 2010s was a mistake. Kilbane’s alright on the radio, but I wouldn’t put him back on the telly. Lineker is stellar, but most don’t realise this as Auntie Beeb has forced him into a neutral bland role of mediator where he cannot offer his usually-sound opinions. Out of respect for taxpayer money, the network ought to just do Goals On Sunday and their radio coverage, then finally put Match Of The Day out to pasture. Soccer Saturday looks stale and well past it sell by date as well. Though I have to admit, the concept of watching people watch games which you cannot see lost its appeal for me a long time ago....

BT Sport: never watched, so haven’t a clue what they’re like over there. They might be good and worth their weight, I wouldn’t know. Haven’t they got Rio doing some punditry? Bet that’s a laugh.

ITV; not even worth wasting characters on. Shabby as BBC MOTD is, they won the rights fair and square from those useless clowns. Never heard worse footie commentary and punditry in my life than ITV c.2002-4.

Gary’s calling it ‘attempted murder’ now.

The current model is not sustainable, let alone ethical.

Lower player wages, lower agenting fees, lower transfer fees. Owners should only take 20% of profit, tops—the rest must be reinvested.

Starving out the hyenas is the only way, and that is going to take some sacrifice on the part of players and workers involved. Maybe stadiums and kits have to last twenty years. Maybe games are less flash. Maybe new and expensive European players don’t come over every week.

From r37's link

[quote] "Some of them, due to pressure, have said they're leaving. But this project, or one very similar, will move forward and I hope very soon."

The moment a single word (like naming it something other than Super League Football) is changed those contracts are null and void and the teams would have to sign the revised contracts (and they would be incredibly stupid to do so).

TPTB want this fiasco to be James Bond, but really it’s Austin Powers.

That UEFA haven’t put Man City or Chelsea on a 3-year transfer ban or massively fined them is abhorrent. Unsurprising, but abhorrent. ESL or no, these teams are financially doping the PL regardless, and it can’t carry on.

There’s call now for more sanctions, but if UEFA won’t enforce them, then who’s going to? As Gary says, it’s only an impartial Government body that has the power of veto over these big teams now, and sadly even in that instance palms will be greased.

We could do with an asceticism—maximum salary cap £80k p.a. for players, coaches, managers and agents, then see who’s left on the pitch and in the boardroom. Won’t happen, but it would work.

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So now certain PL board members are saying that they feel pressured and powerless to join. Likely story..

Rio has condemned Manchester United’s board of directors.

Then again, that man will condemn anything.

200 MU fans spoke to the manager.

The rich and powerful love to talk about justice—the ‘right to punish’ those we fear… to kill those we hate… And they call it ‘execution’, not ‘murder’.

Is that really justice? Or it is evil?

No one can truly draw the line between just and unjust, good and evil. What you REALLY should fear is your enemy’s idea of justice.

Richard Keys went off on Gaz about the riots in his blog/column, even saying that Sky pundits (except Souey, who was obviously against it from the start) incited violence and endangered lives.

Keys is a foul creepy old bastard, an overrated bloviating commentator, and a misogynist pest (I still haven’t forgiven him for trying to throw Redders under a bus and get the hapless lad fired), but on this occasion I’m inclined to partially agree with his statements on this topic. Going as far as letting Casuals storm pitches and throw flares around truly doesn’t solve anything, and the money-men aren’t affected by ground-level physical agitation.

Hitting these people where it hurts requires no longer giving them money or attention, not buying their merchandise, leaving their stadiums empty, not clicking their websites and unsubscribing from their services/apps—and everybody would have to do this on synchro.

Pre-COVID matchday revenue was worth around 90m. In 2021 MUFC finances only total 90m in actual reserves. Meaning they can last only 1 year as a profitable concern, if most fans decide to not buy tickets or merchandise or pay streaming services/PPV to see matches henceforth. Another 2-3 years of nothing coming in, and they’d be looking at bankruptcy. No billionaire would want the club, after that.

Only thing is, hypocrite fans can’t stand their team to lose and drop points, descend in the tables/relegate, or to be at any disadvantage in the transfer market. You either keep grovelling under the boot of your Evil overlords and carry on buying 150m Spanish players, or you boot out the scum financially raping your sport and learn to like it at 15th in the table scrabbling to make something out of local players.

There’s also the reality that only Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and possibly Spurs have enough chagrin and personal stake to move against their owners. Every other club is happy with the status quo, and won’t go the distance to protest.

Bloody hell. I have to rate John Barnes, now. Of course, I divested away from football about ten years ago. It just got too rich for my blood. Tooo many wankers at all levels. The beckhamisation of it all. Loads of fancy dans, but no Fancy Dan football. John Terry and his racism. Rio Ferdinand and his marital sadism. Ashley "tiny hands" Cole and his closet of pan faced women ( to hide the menz) and the racist Cheryl Whats'ername. The Misogyny, the duncebattery, too much money. After religious nutters, there are no set of people crazier than football/soccer fans. At least religion has people who walk away from it without having paid a small ransom for feeling like they belong. If people know that they can rape you up the arse without lube, they will continue to do so. The average football fan is a voluntarily being raped and expects respect? Listen to John Barnes. He broke it all the way down. I am still shocked. Fans have to leave this too long abusive relationship that the vast majority of them cannot even monetarily afford to be in.

R65 well said, that man. How in this era any half-decent working-middleclass person can stomach unironically following the sport—or any top-level sport—is beyond me.

Barnesy got everything right from the start. He’s the Cassandra of football. You see why everyone who ever played with him or knew him in a professional capacity still speaks of him in awed tones.

Still lots of chat about #GLAZERSOUT, and not before time. Funny though, how most don’t realise that this rot set in long ago; more precisely, when Jack Walker blatantly bought Blackburn the Premier League Championship. No-one had a word to say about that, when it happened. This moment, unbeknownst to fans & communities, established the blueprint for what we see today. The Beckhams & Coles & Giggs of the game are only the unfortunate and embarrassing side-effects of such power moves.

R65 says vividly what needs saying publicly and often, but won't be, due to the embedded Trumpian cult of football. Anyone rightly sharply satirising the industry would be monstered on social media, and unsafe at home, let alone in public. Because it's 'the people's game', you see, and sacrosanct.

Can't recall any time in history when so many ordinary at best young men have earned astonishing fortunes for doing their job, and likewise been worshipped for it. For kicking a leather ball. Night after night this cult is shouted about in sensational terms as the next ball-kicking is broadcast live. Mass hysteria on tap.

Like R65 I've tried to look away for years now because life is too short to waste on this confederacy of dunces. Why am I even posting? Because I used to love watching the game, but no more. It stopped being fun a long time ago.

Life and especially business isn't as simple or clear-cut as ‘right and wrong’, but this is undeniably dodgy. The Glazers are already quids up from their ownership of the club, and they’re getting away with figurative murder to make that money.

£790m cost of buying. £600m borrowed. In the 16years since, Man Utd are £1.1b worse off. The club hadn't been in debt since the 1930s, but in the last 16 years the club has paid the Glazer's debt (to purchase the club)....only that debt is going down so slowly, that conveniently the interest payments are currently total £817m and the debt is still almost £500m. That means the Glazers have taken almost £300m out of the club in dividends for themselves.

These fatcats are spitting in the faces of the hundreds of millions of paying fans, and stealing their hard-earned money. One way or another, that club's money comes from the fans. That’s true of most clubs; Chelsea, Man City, and PSG are exceptions in that the owners put their own money into the clubs, but for most clubs the lion’s share of income is from fans.

Now that there's financial fair play rules preventing owners spending out with the means of the club, Man Utd should be outdoing everyone in the transfer market, but an average of 70 million per year in club profits has gone over to America, to boost the American wealthy elites. That money should've been spent on the squad and upkeep on the stadium. The stadium should have been extended and renovated twice over already, but the Glazers won't even do anything about the colossal leak in the roof let alone anything else. The Old Trafford side of Manchester is slowly rotting and becoming a dangerous rough area, while the Etihad side is flourishing and gentrifying.

It is criminal that the Glazers are legally entitled to do what they're doing. It will be great to see them gone forever, but they shouldn't be allowed to take another 4 billion away with them if and when they do turn tail.

Independent auditors are desperately needed in the sport, to keep away and run off wolves like the Glazers. The uselessness of the FA proves that football cannot self-govern.

Gary’s sit-down with Richard Scudamore on THE OVERLAP goes into detail about how the ESL was allowed to come about. Fantastic chat, very civil but with enough room and emotion for each side to firmly press. Highly recommended as a watch.

Rich makes the astute observation that the gyre of the external free-market becoming out of control has a lot to do with the wealth inequality we are seeing.

Juventus will get run out of Serie A if they don’t withdraw their name from the ESL.

OT, but big congratulations to Leicester City on their first ever FA Cup win. There was no more deserving Prem team than them.

One has got to laugh at all the commentariat and fans screaming “GREED! VANITY! SIN!” about the ESL. Clearly they have forgotten the raison d’ etre of any billionaire/millionaire club owner. Likewise the ‘superstar’ players raking in squillions - available to the highest bidder, through their not so poor agents. And we’re not going to mention the prohibitively obscene cost of season tickets let alone ever changing kits and merch...

Were I a betting man, I wouldn’t mind having a wager that Sky are stoking the coals somewhere in the background. The Prem is quite a nice cherry for them all to suck on. This short lived debacle makes me think of one syndicate mob trying to take over another mob’s patch.

As for those decrying the ‘Closed Shop’— rank hypocrisy, least of all from the F.A. President, Prince Willz. If the Monarchy isn’t the UR example of a closed shop, then I don’t know what is.

I’ll believe things will have changed for the betterment of the fans when they all adopt the Dortmund model. Unthinkable to give the tribe/supporters a democratic style of management of their own beloved club.

Gonna wait for the government to barge in and stop all big business takeovers and hand everything over to punters. Who’ll be the first to be ‘democratised’? Apple? Microsoft? The Asda Brothers....?

Oh, well. If nothing else, the drama gave everyone a mental break from the relentless Corona News.

Oh...worth looking up the salary of Gordon Taylor the so called ‘Players’ Union’ representative. From Auntie Beeb....

[quote] Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, will continue to receive his £2m-a-year salary in full during the coronavirus pandemic. All union staff over the age of 60 will be paid their full wages Taylor confirmed in an interview with the Guardian, with the 75-year-old PFA chief included in that.

This just hit me—shouldn’t they have called this ‘Supra League’ rather than ‘Super’? Grammar Trolls, please advise.

Looks like Neville’s petition for a panel of independent footballing regulators has enough signatures and is headed for Parliament.

Bit hard to take seriously when his own club (Salford) is being bankrolled up to the top and he’s making more money as a pundit than he ever did a player. But it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it..

Gary’s regulation idea has actually come into effect. Impressive work.

Carra recently made the good point that for all this talk of a ‘European’ Super League, what actually took place was a courting by these struggling former titans of Europe of the biggest Premier League teams. These foreign leagues want what Britain have got, and tried to poach it, but dressed the gambit up as the opposite. It just goes to show that when you have the bag, you have to be vigilant about protecting it, because everyone will want a handout from it.

No League can be super without ME.

Loving all the would-be ‘Super League’ defectors from the Prem eating mud during the opening games of the season!

City got battered by Leicester & Spurs in the space of a fortnight, Arsenal lost to fucking Brentford...too bad Palace couldn’t give Chelsea a kicking, but there’s plenty of time for another team to do the honours (Villa, in three weeks time?) If Southampton could obliterate Man United next Sunday lunchtime, that would be ideal.