As promised, I didn’t watch the first leg of the UEFA Champions League (UCL) semi-final between Real Madrid and Chelsea and tomorrow I won’t watch PSG versus Manchester City. Why would I? I don’t support either club, I don’t like either club. If I tuned in, it would only be to want the club I hated least to win. That, even by my standards, is a step too low.
Take Chelsea and Real Madrid. Please. The former, entirely bankrolled by a Russian oligarch who is accountable to no one and never does interviews with anyone, and the latter, supposedly supporter owned at the same time as being the best part of €1 billion in debt. Chelsea, then, Russian owned with largely overseas players. What’s to love? I wanted both teams to lose, so I didn’t watch any of it.
Tomorrow, it’s Qatar’s Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani owned Paris Saint-
Last week, you may recall, the European Super League (ESL) was strangled at birth and now, instead, we can enjoy the UCL in all its glory, with the four clubs who would in all likelihood dominate the ESL, dominating that tournament instead. I look at the UCL and see the ESL in all but name. The same old clubs reach the final stages, year in and year out, and because of the way. money has been siphoned towards the top of the game, it will not change. Even a smaller club like Leicester City, who are owned by people who ‘only’ have a few billion to their name, won’t compete with the big boys in the end.
Sour grapes because the club I like, but don’t support (someone who doesn’t attend games is neither a fan or a supporter), Liverpool are looking at a season of relative failure? Possibly, but it won’t keep me awake at night.
The UCL, as we know it today, appeals only to the supporters of the big clubs and the small army of armchair subscribers who see football as a means of entertainment and not on the basis of actually being a supporter. In other words, with few exceptions, it is hard to watch a professional game where you don’t have a vested interest by way of emotion because if you really love football, you probably have passion for your team. Sitting on the couch with a few cans of Carling and a tin of Pringles doesn’t equal passion to me. But if that person is you, the future of football is yours. And it is football. But not as we know it.
