European Super League: ESL revamp just the latest slap in the face to football fans

it’s back After being sent home by the searing fury of football fans, the 2021 European Super League is dying to tell you why this time is different.

The message obviously wasn’t clear enough before, so the latest murmurs come as a fresh slap in the face to fans who are now routinely ignored by those in power.

With up to 80 teams, multiple divisions and a guaranteed 14 games per season, Bernd Reichart, the managing director of A22 in charge of promoting the ESL, has outlined the framework for a tastier league to the German newspaper The world.

There is a strange assumption that the ESL can save the very foundations of European football, which Reichart claims are “in danger of collapsing”.

Given the exorbitant spending over the past month, English Premier League clubs are evidently vital to the launch of the ESL.

Chelsea’s £323m spending dwarfed the sum of clubs from La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.

Fans turned gray from the game, even the FA Cup, the sport’s oldest competition built on the sheer depth of English football’s unique pyramid, has tested fans’ patience.

FA Cup fourth round matches sent Arsenal and Reading fans to Manchester on Friday and Saturday nights, with West Ham traveling to Derby late on Monday.

The impact of Sky Sports and Green Football Weekend, undoubtedly a noble cause, could have been greater if kick-off times had been planned with fans and the ability to return home by public transport in mind.

Clearly, if ESL is to crack the hard shell of fans towards this desired and drastic change, then removing an aura of invincibility surrounding superclubs is the start.

The lure of a protective buffer for the likes of Barcelona, ​​who are creatively digging their way out of the red, and Juventus, who were beaten by a 15-point penalty in Serie A last week, is clear. If they are to be forever involved regardless of the outcome, A22 can forget to even achieve a thaw for fans’ hostile and skeptical feelings towards the revolutionary idea.

Because an “open competition”, as Reichart puts it, can be interpreted. The ESL can indeed roll the dice and hope that the European Court of Justice will side with them with their final ruling on the case later this year.

The ESL has promised “stability and predictability”, underscored cost-control measures to link spending to annual football-related revenues and rejected “competitive-distorting capital injections”.

Gary Neville has in the past vehemently opposed this attitude and the right of clubs to hasten the process of promotion through the leagues.

Clearly a balance needs to be found as state funded football clubs falsify the sporting integrity of this game while change is vital in an increasingly crowded market.

Just ask the PGA Tour and the sudden way in which the schedule became more attractive after the LIV Golf ambush. Sometimes a threat from outside the bubble sharpens the mind and accelerates positive change.

The ESL has done its homework, nearly 50 European clubs consulted since October have helped develop the ’10 principles’ of the redesigned league.

But some fans, many in fact, are perfectly happy with the product they currently have, and the ESL’s aggressive approach is seen as just another sign that the fans are just an afterthought.