As Manchester United’s owners, the Glazer family, haggle — even among themselves — over history’s highest fee (about GBP5 billion, or $8.2 billion) for a sporting institution, the English Premier League’s (EPL) GBP130 million offer to the lower divisions is dubbed “crumbs from the rich man’s table”. It seems pertinent to ask: Is football closing in on its “let them eat cake” moment?
The so-called people’s game is now in the hands of people who make Marie Antoinette look like a pitchfork-wielding Marxist. The chasms between haves and hoi polloi might soon be measured in units of the best-paid player’s salary: GBP260,000 per day, GBP10,800 per hour and so on. No matter how sliced, Cristiano Ronaldo (now in Saudi Arabia) picks up more weekly than most world leaders earn in a year.
Mammon is the new god of football, and the two most powerful governing bodies — Fifa and Uefa — are zealous disciples. Instead of standing for the good of the game, they are locked in an “arms race” to enlarge their tournaments and maximise profit. The only leadership they show is setting the pace in a head-long rush towards gigantism and greed.
The impending sale of United is seen as a potential landmark in football’s transformation. Once a simple game for the masses, it is now a powerful cultural — and coming political — force. Late, great UK sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney called the club “a national institution with an almost spiritual dimension”. Much of that was lost with the Glazers’ leveraged buyout and wanton neglect of Old Trafford.
Now, the family isn’t sure about selling at all as bids fall short of their rapacious GBP6 billion asking price. The two front runners, who have both offered far in excess of the previous record GBP3.78 billion paid for the Denver Broncos NFL franchise last year, are a Qatari group led by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest men and chairman of the INEOS petrochemical company.
The Qataris stress that they have nothing to do with Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which owns Paris Saint-Germain. But just in case there are quibbles about that in a monocratic country, Uefa is willing to bend the rules against owning more than one club in the same competition. The craven gesture is one that Ratcliffe, who owns Nice FC, may also appreciate.
See also: Manchester United saga ends with US$1.3 billion Ratcliffe deal
At least as a local boy made good, the 70-yearold billionaire won’t be accused of sportswashing, which the Qataris cannot escape from. According to the Arab Times, global unions have reported to Fifa that conditions for migrant workers in Qatar have worsened since the World Cup.
Still, there are United fans, casting an envious eye at what the Abu Dhabi ownership has done for Manchester City across town, who would prefer the Gulf state’s deeper pockets. However, in the greater scheme of things, if the jewel in the crown of English football becomes a tool to polish a dodgy human rights record of a faraway land, it could just be a tipping point.
Nor is it the only outcome that could be a significant trigger. The chances of a swift resolution to the United saga — never high under Glazer stewardship — dimmed when co-chairmen Joel and Avram Glazer tried to buy out their siblings and stay on. For long-suffering United fans, such a denouement would be the point of no return — and could spark another rebellion.
They tried and failed with the Green and Gold Movement more than a dozen years ago, but were prominent in the successful fan-led revolt against the European Super League (ESL).
It is not beyond the realms for angry fans of other clubs to join a collective protest about the way the whole game is being run. They are angry about almost everything. About the obscene amounts of money at the top end and the lack of it elsewhere, extortionate prices, inconvenient kick-off times, having their voices ignored, being treated as mere customers instead of the soul of the club they imagine themselves to be.
There is an overwhelming sense that the game has lost credibility and something has to give. The Independent newspaper asks if football is “on the brink of implosion”, while The Guardian warns “the threat of overkill looms ever larger”.
Football is a huge gleaming edifice but with cracks. The rich have never had it so good. The rest have never had so little: there is not much of a contest between sovereign wealth funds and bucket collections.
Just outside Manchester, two clubs — Bury and Macclesfield — have gone bankrupt in the last three years and “crumbs” would have been unable to save them. According to Niall Couper, CEO of Fair Game, a group of clubs seeking to improve football governance, “The EPL offer was barely enough to cover energy bills.”
Globally, the game is in even more grasping hands. Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who called Qatar the best World Cup ever yet, is revamping the tournament beyond recognition: the 2026 edition in North America will comprise 48 teams, last almost six weeks and require 72 games to reach the knockout stage, 104 in total.
The boredom and fatigue thresholds that rugby and cricket counterparts have endured will be reached before the quarter-finals, but there is no debate, no discussion with experts — it is just foisted upon the game. Nope, there’s no argument when a US$9 billion ($11.9 billion) profit beckons.
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Spain’s La Liga stormed: “There’s total disregard for the club game.” Players’ unions are already warning of health risks, broadcasters of falling viewing figures, coaches of a drop in performance. All this while spreading it over 16 cities in three countries evoked memories of a classic comedy on whistlestop travel: This one might be called, “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Mexico”.
Not to be outdone, from 2024/2025 Uefa’s Champions League (UCL) will also be bloated with 100 extra games. This was the price paid for heading off the ESL — a sop to the big boys of a Super League elite that will also test the stamina of all concerned.
But Fifa is already threatening the UCL by expanding its World Club Cup to 32 teams from 2025. With 12 from Europe, you wonder how many will have time to play in their domestic leagues. It seems that no one in charge has heard about golden eggs.
Almost all the money and power in football is now in the hands of a few whose greed knows no bounds and whose respect for the rules can be selective. Three so-called super clubs are currently being investigated, with Juventus already docked 15 points by the Italian league. Barca have been paying a referee and have mortgaged the family silver.
The trend toward a plutocracy was set late last century with the formation of the EPL and Champions League and a less equitable distribution of revenues. It picked up pace with the broadcasting goldmine and eventually the advent of sportswashing. The victory over the ESL now seems hollow.
If football isn’t careful, any time soon it will be down to an Orwellian trio of three powers fighting it out, the rest nowhere. The once vaunted pyramid of opportunity will become an unscalable peak. If it’s not already.
Bob Holmes is a long-time sportswriter specialising in football
