Tactics and Transfers: The Super League news after Chelsea’s FA Cup win

Editor’s Note: This article was written shortly after the Super League announcement by Chelsea and other clubs. It is entirely likely that, by the time this piece is published, that things will have changed or become clearer. We are choosing to release this article as it is to reflect the integrity of the moment it was written.

Following Chelsea’s surprising and yet delightful win over Manchester City in the Grande Old Dame of English sporting competitions, the FA Cup, football fans around the world were disappointed to learn that Chelsea among others were planning a European Super League. The values in football are changing for the worse.

Players are more concerned with immediacy than they are with earning a long term legacy at a club. Teams are the same. Managers aren’t allowed to build true lasting cultures and instead agents and chairmen move them around without any interest in footballing values, principles, growth or the grassroots value of the game which is perhaps the most insulted part of modern day football. The supporters. The value of the game itself is the supporters and their cultures and families, lives and histories that they have imbued the sport itself with.

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Time and time again the supporters, the very people who fundamentally make football what it is are insulted.  They are treated like little ATM machines who can limitlessly pass more money into the hands of the already super-rich and it is to the disgrace of football that things are treated this way.

Football without the songs in the terrace and the bustle in the pubs will just be a series of sedentary super malls with athletics performed at the center of them.

The issue is that though the idea of a Super League refuses to go away into the night like it should Chelsea have little choice but to keep their hat in the ring should it happen.  If the Super League is the future then being a part of it is the future as well. If you want to make money at the top level and compete for the best players in the best competition then teams will need to be a part of the league.

The rules have not been ironed out yet and whether or not the league is completely closed is unknown.  It looks like FIFA and UEFA will be able to stop this Frankenstein-like immoral monster of a thing from happening but the smart thing for Chelsea to do would be to toe the line. It seems impossible for the league to happen without each of the teams leaving their domestic leagues and the Champions League forever and that doesn’t seem like the sort of deal that anyone is going to sign up for.

What would be more likely and in many ways more hilarious because of the amount of moaning and complaining that teams do about the already high level of matches they are forced to play for generational wealth, fame and recognition is that they try to just add even more games for the players to play in.

If it was just a fifth competition that would be even more games and even less time off that might work for everyone. The rich get richer like they want. UEFA get to hold onto their sense of entitlement and self importance. Everyone wins. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world though then would it?

If the Super League simply functions as a non-Cup type Champions League but with more teams making it in through qualification in their own domestic leagues that could even, dare I say it, be interesting.

We have long wondered what it would be like if Celtic and Rangers played in the Premier League. Are Real Madrid and Barcelona really that good or do they spend most of their time beating up on teams that don’t deserve to be treated that way? How much satisfaction would there be in looking those Barca-FIFA fanboys in the eye when Barcelona finish 9th in the Super League and it turns out they’re not that special and maybe helped by the fact that they can just play Messi in a cup competition run by UEFA? Apologies that got personal.

The juxtaposition of the news that this is likely going to happen against Chelsea’s success in England’s oldest cup competition is interesting.  New age supporters have long talked about the death of the FA Cup as some obvious conclusion. Older supporters talk about the majestic nature of it. That some Blue Square North side could end up playing Manchester United and maybe even win and how important even the idea of that type of match is important to the magic of football.

Football should be about hope. It should at the very top level be about the best possible version of that game we all fell in love with on schoolyard at lunch. I very often remark to my friend Stephen on whether or not I like a player based on whether they represent the same feelings we played with in the yard. “Are they prepared to live or die to win the way we were?” I’ll say “No, and that’s why AC isn’t for me mate”. And then he’ll roll his eyes. That’s often how the conversations go at least theoretically.

The FA Cup is about hope and the magical possibility of what might happen.  The European Super League is about the days that the bullies win and certainty. The big fish were tired of losing out to the smaller ones. Manchester United and their owners who have run the club so terribly without Sir Alex to save them were tired of missing out on Champions League money to clubs like Leicester who represented the magic of what football can really, truly be.

The FA Cup is wealth re-distribution when some small side gets a full stadium and real revenue for the first time in years, the television money of a big six side visiting and the whole town lights up in the pubs, the kebab shops and street stalls for just that one, maybe, possibly, special evening in which dreams can be made true by men.

The European Super League is about money. Which does matter. Pretending it doesn’t is for the born-rich, the ignorant and those in between. That said football does seem to be forgetting that other things matter too and all of a sudden Rugby is seeming a lot more appealing.

We should be celebrating Chelsea beating Manchester City and stopping them from pulling off the quadruple but the European Super League what it means for the future of the game and more so what it says about the minds of the people at the front of it is a shame.