“My love for this club will never die,” said Liverpool’s world class right back Trent Alexander-Arnold, announcing his decision to leave the club at the end of the season. “I love it so much, that’s why I deliberately allowed my contract to run down so I’ll trouser much of the money that otherwise would have gone to the club I love SO much.” Obviously, I made up the last bit and Trent said no such thing, because he didn’t need to. For many football fans in general and Liverpool fans in particular, it is the end of the innocence.
Do I blame the lad from West Derby for taking the Real Madrid shilling, which of course had nothing to do with his decision to leave the club he joined some 20 years? No, I don’t suppose I do because in the end we all do what we feel is best for us. Footballers are no different. For top footballers, it is slightly different because they are choosing between being paid frankly obscene amounts of money and even more obscene amounts of money, but the principle is virtually the same.
In the old days when I was an active supporter of Bristol Rovers – I am barely an inactive supporter these days, so disillusioned have I become with my only club – I believed that players played for the shirt and if we on the terraces felt they weren’t giving their all, we’d let them no in no uncertain terms that they were not fit to wear it. But I was fooling myself. By experience and getting to know many people who earned a crust in the professional game, the main motivation for players was securing the longest and most lucrative contract they could.
It turned out that footballers were not necessarily fans of the club they played for, but in pretty well all instances they played for professional pride and because they loved playing. Some players were fond of kissing the club’s badge on the shirt but in reality they might as well have kissed the sponsor’s logo for all the loyalty they felt for the club for which they were plying their trade. Sure, fan adulation is to be enjoyed, even treasured, but when it came down to the nitty-gritty, it was really a business transaction between a business and an employee.
All that Trent Alexander-Arnold has done is to once again shatter the illusion that for players it is all about the shirt, it is all about the love for a club and to be fair to the lad he has done nothing wrong. He was an excellent servant (what a stupid word for someone who is paid many millions every year) for 20 years and contributed greatly to the recent run of success at Anfield. It is merely our perception, and it’s certainly mine, that in running down his contract as he has done the dirty on the club he loves, who will gain nothing financially when losing an iconic, unique and world class player who have nurtured, developed and cared for him over two decades. Like in any job, if someone gets a better offer with more money, they take it.
You can say that in football the romance is dead and I will argue that for dreamers, like I used to be, it died many moons ago. Professional football was always a line of work – the clue is in the name: professional football – but in most instances we could relate in some way to our heroes. How, now, do you relate to someone who earns in a week what I earned in 20 years, who is now going to earn something like what I used to earn in 30 or even 40?
Trent now takes his formidable talents to the Bernabéu and apart from Champions League nights (the odds on Real being drawn to play Liverpool in the first game of the new season, please?), behind yet another TV paywall, guaranteed to never finish as low as third place, battering every week uncompetitive La Liga clubs with nothing like the firepower of the two giants of Spanish football. But why should he care?
I’m disappointed because I really like Liverpool FC. I have no familial nor geographical connections with the city, I never go to Liverpool games and have no interest in so doing. Which means I am not a fan and certainly not a supporter. But I’ll get over it, probably before lunchtime, because it simply doesn’t matter. Bloke’s work contract runs out, signs a far more lucrative contract with another business, que sera sera. And the point is it IS just business and, as with many aspects of modern life, it is about the money, money, money.
Someone once said, loyalty is just a word in a dictionary. Well, you could say that about every word in every dictionary, but when it comes to football I think we’re on to something. It doesn’t mean shit these days and maybe it never did. Trent has done what’s best for him, just like we all do, and he’s looking out for number one. Yes, for many, it is the end of the innocence. Mine ended a very long time ago. More’s the pity.