The English Premier League will introduce a new “owners’ charter”, forcing owners of football clubs to commit to its “fundamentals”, it was revealed on Monday.
The announcement came as the Football Association, England’s governing body for sport, also unveiled an investigation into the six English clubs which joined the ill-fated European Super League last month.
The leaders of the six – Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham – have been forced to step down from their Premier League advisory roles, while United executive vice-president Ed Woodward has announced that he would resign from his Premier League position. club at the end of the year.
But Woodward’s decision failed to satisfy the thousands of United fans who demonstrated at the club’s famous Old Trafford stadium on Sunday, with hundreds entering the stadium and occupying the pitch. Their action forced the postponement of a game against rivals Liverpool, which was to be broadcast around the world.
It was the latest in a series of fan protests against the “big six” clubs’ escape attempt. Manchester United protesters called on club owners, the Glazer family, to sell, and new owners to ensure fan representation in club governance.
“Over the past few years, we’ve started to see hot spots around the world as a backlash against the excesses of capitalism,” Paul Widdop, senior lecturer in sport business at Manchester Metropolitan University, told Al Jazeera.
“I think the reaction from the fans over the last few weeks is another reaction. In all social movements there must be a tipping point, where protests gain momentum and there is a transition from general unease with the situation to direct action.
David Webber, head of the football studies course at Solent University in Southampton, told Al Jazeera it was a “tipping point”.
“This degree of direct action has changed the parameters of what is possible politically. By disrupting and potentially canceling one of the biggest games in world football, these distinctly local events have gone global. They remind us of how important these local fans and local spaces are – even in the age of global investors and global fans. “
Why are the fans upset?
At Manchester United, discontent has grown since the Glazers took over the club. Their $ 1.5 billion purchase of the club in 2005 was based on securing $ 1.1 billion in loans against the club, immediately plunging the previously deleveraged $ 800 million club into debt.
The Glazers have also paid themselves millions of dollars in dividends each year, in addition to consulting fees. The stadium leaks when it rains. Training facilities, especially those available for junior and reserve teams, are far from world class.
Fans buying tickets and in red shirts in the North West of England and beyond feel like they’ve been subsidizing the billionaire Glazers lifestyle for too long.
“Nobody wants what happened at Old Trafford yesterday to be a regular occurrence,” read an open letter to Joel Glazer of the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust on Monday.
“We are football fans and we want to support our team. We don’t want to spend our days off protesting in front of our football field. But what has happened is the culmination of sixteen years in which your family’s ownership of the club has driven us into debt and decline, and we have felt increasingly sidelined and ignored.
The disconnect stems from the structure of ownership and governance, said Widdop, co-author of Collective Action and Football Fandom: A Relational Sociological Approach.
“Many clubs have foreign ownership, which creates a disconnect between supporters and the ownership structure. However, what we have seen recently is a model of ownership of private equity firms and hedge funds becoming big investors who care very little about heritage or fans unless it can be leveraged for the economic capital.
Days before the local elections in England and the national elections in Wales and Scotland, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a review of football governance by the fans, launched by the government.
Many hope the review will recommend new legislation to secure some form of fan ownership, like the ‘German model’ known as 50 + 1 – i.e. 50% plus a share (a majority) , must be owned by the club. members.
It’s a system that leads to a very different power dynamic in the Bundesliga but is not without its problems – restricting investments from outside the league and increasing the potential for the club’s toxic internal politics.
Club owners who bet on joining the European Super League – and lost – seem to have underestimated the extent of fans’ sense of betrayal.
“ Loyalty is essential to be a fan ”
“My research shows that for ‘hot’ committed fans [as opposed to cool, or casual fans], the football club is one of the most important – if not the most important – things in their lives, ”Stacey Pope, associate professor in the Department of Sports and Exercise Sciences at the University, told Al Jazeera. of Durham.
“The club plays an essential role in everyday life and identities. Some “hot” fans admit to thinking “constantly” about football and their club. The football club also plays a vital role in the local community. Indeed, even in an age of globalization, my research has shown that localism is still an important factor in determining club support. Many fans are locally born or have other local ties to their club. For fans who don’t share those local ties, loyalty is still key to being a fan.
“Therefore, football is not like any other activity. Normally, if you are not satisfied with the service when you buy something, you might consider switching to a different product or brand the next time. But being a football fan means that you stay loyal to a club every day, that is, you don’t change your membership or membership and you switch to a different team. Football has always been a game for the fans; it is “their” club. But the current model of club ownership and running clubs as businesses suggests that the reality is very different. “
However, it remains to be seen whether fan protests could convince club owners to sell.
“These modern owners are sort of a faceless transnational elite,” Widdop said. “As long as money and growth are presented to their shareholders, they probably care very little about the 200 people who are invading Old Trafford grounds.”
The owners of Manchester United have a profitable business. The Stock Exchange (NYSE: MANU) values the club at around $ 2.8 billion.
Any attempt at recovery is therefore likely to surpass this assessment. And anyone willing to spend that kind of money and take on at least another half a billion in debt, might just end up being just as extractive as the Glazers.
“They will only sell if they are offered the selling price; in this world, everything is for sale, ”said Widdop. “They will look to overcome these protests, hire a team of public relations experts and limit the damage.”
A broader conversation?
Mark Turner is an activism and fan movements specialist and researcher at Solent University.
“I think this noise and direct action, if sustained, has more checks and balances than anything we’ve seen in a long time,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Fan ownership models will take center stage in the fan-led review, but it is unclear whether this creates a cohesive strategy. Unless a broader conversation takes place about fan alienation, fan dissatisfaction, which is at the heart of these neoliberal changes in and around the Premier League and its impact over the past 30 years, so I don’t see it changing significantly in the long run. “
Webber, Turner’s colleague in Southampton, agrees: “Glaziers cannot act. They can dig. I would still be surprised if they sold out. They must listen, however. They have to recognize that clubs like Manchester United are rooted locally. These local fans tell the club its story. His identity. And it is this same story and this same identity that the club’s worldwide followers are embracing.
“There is a lesson here for all owners. While lucrative global markets may be their focus, they cannot ignore or take for granted the historical and cultural significance of these local fans. “
Huge amounts of money and foreign investment have been at the heart of the football industry since at least the Premier League’s start – itself a kind of breakaway – in 1992, the same year the competition of the UEFA Champions League was inaugurated with similar financial goals.
“The important question is, how did we get here?” Said Widdop. “As a society, Western Europe has chased away the neoliberal dream and opened up to foreign direct investment; the English Premier League followed the path set by the government and became a free market. We are now witnessing the replication of this strategy. But it’s not just the big clubs. Look in the lower leagues and the same types of businesses are emerging now. It is a very worrying time for football. “
Follow James Brownsell on Twitter: @JamesBrownsell
