Hacker News Reader

Comment by m4tthumphrey | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately it does seem like this is the direction football is taking. A World Cup every 2 years, some sort of exclusive Super League, etc etc. Football is a trillion dollar market with no cap in site. The fans are slowly being left behind whilst the "new money" of the Middle East and co are doing their best to takeover. They still don't seem to realise however, that football is 0 without fans.

View on HN

New money in Middle East and Asia is exactly the reason for the proposed "Super League". Why should Manchester City play Watford on a regular Tuesday and Wolverhampton on Sunday. No one cares except fans from Manchester (and some smaller countries in Europe). If they instead could play against Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern every weekend there would be a wave of money coming from the Middle East and Asia where the fans don't know or care about football culture or history or the importance of the home league and cup. No disrespect to those fans at all, I'm just pointing out that it is a wholly commercial endeavor. Top tier football is business and I'm just glad I don't follow any of the big clubs in Europe. Give it a few years and they will start playing Super League (or whatever) matches in Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Fans at home left behind, but they don't care as the new fanbase in ME and Asia pumps a lot more money into the business.

I do hope that the European Union and the UK government step up should the situation ever get so dystopian. The fact that there was quick and brutal condemnation for the "Super League" plans from politics, the UEFA and the national leagues was a good sign.

Especially given the current de-globalization and nationalist sentiments in politics and the importance of football for politics as "panem et circenses", I expect anti-trust and even confiscation-scale action against oil sheik and Russian mob owners, should they attempt such a radical transformation of how football is played.

> Give it a few years and they will start playing Super League (or whatever) matches in Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

At least there would be less corruption in the match played in Singapore..

Reply on news.ycombinator.com