fudbalska govna

Is it possible for an independent fan culture to develop now, or has the whole thing already been co-opted?

It's a rigged game and whether Magnier and McManus, or the Glazers have a genuine interest in football is irrelevant, they have a big chunk of dough to put down and it doesn't matter how they raised it. That's capitalism! I think the clubs only get truly worried by direct action. Everyone gets used in the end. Fan groups such as Spirit Of Shankly do a great job of representing fans’ concerns and issues but they have no real power to influence club policy. Matchgoing fans play an ever decreasing role in any club's bottom line and you can see how the likes of JW Henry and the Glazers can't wait till the boring season is over and they can get on with the real business of far east tours and boosting revenue with huge sponsorship deals. As long as the TV money keeps rolling in then there's no real incentive to actually win competitions any more.

We've had the hooliporn industry – there are a plethora of books and label shops and companies pushing a look – and ideas of class identity have changed along with the economics of the game and the demographic of the crowd. How does all this affect terrace culture?

Hooliporn! I like that. I suppose I'm partly responsible for this myself with Casuals although I still think that it's a book far more about working class culture in general than the aggro at matches. There has obviously been a lot of sentimental nostalgia by those of us who grew up on the terraces during the 60s, 70s and 80s as ‘our’ culture ended and we looked back on the good old bad old days.

Most of the stuff that's come out since has been wildly exaggerated and some of it is laughable. I liked Martin King's Hoolifan and Mickey Francis's Guvnors – two of the first hooligan memoirs – but they started a trend for anyone who'd ever had a fight to launch their own tedious account. For the younger kids, films such as Green Street, The Football Factory and The Firm have presented the past as a sea of Tacchini and Stanley knives with mass brawls on wasteground leading to hundreds of injuries. It was never like that of course but, then again, The Gangs Of New York was stylised and exaggerated.

I think the younger kids coming through now feel as if they've missed out on this golden era and are now trying to recreate it but the whole culture has changed so much in the past 30 years that it feels almost like karaoke posturing.

Where do you see currents such as STAND, supporter unions, Trusts and organisations such as Supporters Direct fitting in to all this? Does terrace culture have to be anti-establishment to be real, or have we changed the game more than we thought?

I organised a debate for a Liverpool literary festival, Writing On The Wall, last May entitled ‘Against Modern Football? Clubs, commerce and community.’ We had Man City fan and Guardian writer David Conn, Liverpool fan and Daily Mirror columnist Brian Reade and singer and Liverpool fan Peter Hooton all talking very passionately about the need for fans to reclaim the game from the corporations.

The Stand AMF movement has gone global or pan-European at least and I think there's definitely a growing resistance movement brewing as more and more fans become disillusioned with how the game is run but we're still dealing with the likes of the FA, UEFA and FIFA. These are administrative monoliths filled with incompetents and corrupt egotists. It makes me laugh when you get someone like Brian Barwick who talked a good game about working class fans and then appointed Prince William as the FA's president based on an alleged allegiance to Aston Villa and er, the fact that he's an aristocrat who they can pimp out to win juicy contracts, which is essentially the role of the royal family, to ho for big business. I don't need Prince fucking William telling me not to be racist when his family enriched themselves from raping Africa and India.

Now the Russians are involved and Gazprom sponsor the Champions League, the circle from old industrialists in 19th century England starting clubs through to spivs controlling the game in the post war years to the oligarchs running the show is complete. It's a gangster's game and always has been.

Daï Djakman Faré wrote:American fans love European football precisely because it isn’t like US sport - Dave Caldwell

Notxor wrote:

First team pitch: pic.twitter.com/lbVGzk9rhl

— Red Issue (@RedIssue) April 22, 2021

Nije ovo gotovo. Najgore je kad "navijači" osete da imaju neku moć.

The president of Uefa to the Associated Press against the Super League clubs: "If they do not renounce, they will not play the next Champions League. Everyone pays the consequences for their own decisions but clearly there is a difference between those who have admitted their mistake and those who continue despite knowing that the project is dead". 
 
English clubs have announced their exit from the Superleague, as have Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid. Something that, at the moment, Juventus, Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona have not yet done. And Ceferin promises sanctions against these four clubs in case they do not give up the project: "It is clear that the clubs will have to decide if they are European or from the Super League - the words of the Uefa president to the Associated Press - If they choose the Super League, then they will not play the Champions League. If they are ready to do so, they can play in their own competition."
"Everyone has to face the consequences of their decisions."

Ceferin confirms that further sanctions are being considered for all clubs involved in the organization of the Superleague, a project announced just hours before the launch of the new Champions League. "We are still waiting for legal expertise and then we will say, but everyone has to face the consequences for their decisions and they know it - Ceferin continues - For me it is a very different situation between the clubs who have admitted their mistake and announced to leave the project and the others, who obviously know that the project is dead but don't want to believe it probably".
 
The UEFA president also confirms that he was taken by surprise by the official announcement of the new Superleague project: "It was in the air, I did not know what was happening but I had begun to sense it. But I kept thinking that people cannot lie so much because, in that case, they would not have attended the ECA meeting on Friday. But they did it in the worst possible way. The worst day was Saturday, because then I realized that it was pure betrayal, that some people had been lying to us for years. It was kind of weird because I didn't know what exactly was going to happen the next day. It was like you knew an announcement was coming soon, but you didn't know what it was. Then I got a phone call from three or four clubs informing me of this. Then on Sunday, when I woke up, I was sure and confident that I was going to deal with this and work it out."

Daï Djakman Faré wrote:mislim nije ovo nemoguce but still

Money from Saudi Arabia, a phone call from the Kremlin

It was by no means only the outcry of football fans that brought down the Super League - but also major world politics. Nevertheless, the idea of a league of their own remains attractive for the top clubs.
By Freddie Röckenhaus

If Aleksander Ceferin, this week's very full-throated president of European governing body Uefa, has his way, football has been saved in recent days from the worst onslaught of capitalism ever. "A few people are trying to kill the beautiful game," the former criminal lawyer lashed out at the initiators of the recently founded Super League at the beginning of the week, "dividends are more important to them than passion", fans are "just consumers". Ceferin sounded like the avenger of the disenfranchised football people, and one could have thought that the Uefa boss had rediscovered a secret Karl Marx library.
When Chelsea FC, owned by Russian oligarch and multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich since 2003, announced its exit from the Super League private circle on Tuesday evening, a few hundred fan demonstrators cheered their club boss' backdown. It was as if their street demonstration in Chelsea, one of the most expensive districts of London's expensive financial metropolis, had forced the owner to rethink. The next day, Liverpool FC owner John W. Henry also apologised to his club's supporters: "I heard you!" And at Manchester United, the resignation of long-time manager Ed Woodward was hastily announced, and he was thus blamed for the misstep. This is how commercial football hypocritically extricated itself from its Super League days.

In fact, it is becoming more and more apparent that the quick turnaround also had to do with fan protests, but only to a limited extent. Especially in England, the land of hopelessly overpriced tickets that real fans can only afford once in a blue moon, people have not been paying much attention to the opinion of hardcore supporters for years. In fact, quite different forces seem to have stopped the hastily publicised Superliga construct for now. For now, at least that's what Real Madrid's president Florentino Pérez said on Spanish television. Only "for now". The project is only in standby mode. And that's right: from a purely legal point of view, none of the twelve founding clubs has withdrawn from the consortium.
But Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is said to have received an unmistakable message from home, from the Kremlin in Moscow, on Monday that the Super League was not in the interests of the fatherland. Gazprom, Russia's largest corporation, predominantly state-owned, is the main sponsor of the Uefa Champions League - and should remain so. In the summer, Saint Petersburg will host matches of the Uefa European Championship, and in the summer of 2022 the final of the Champions League is planned there. Zenit Saint Petersburg, a kind of Bayern Munich of Russia, is practically Gazprom's factory team; the club wants to keep access to the Champions League, which is at least halfway open. So here - and not only here - big world politics suddenly played in: Abramovich has no desire to stress with President Putin. He just wants to have fun.
It is estimated that the group of twelve has already spent 50 million euros on start-up costs.
Manchester City, the second drop-out, is said to have received a call from Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi United Group owns the club. Apparently, they quickly found out that the billions for the Super League were not really coming from the New York bank JP Morgan, but that the initial investment was actually coming from Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi is not exactly at enmity with the rulers in Riyadh, as its neighbours from Qatar are, but it attaches importance to an emphatically liberal, cosmopolitan image and therefore does not want to be caught in the same back room with Saudi Arabia. Ferran Sorriano, City's CEO, and the powerful coach-manager Pep Guardiola are also said to have been rather sceptical from the start.
After the - also politically motivated - exits of Chelsea and City, it was then clear that the pressure on the remaining phalanx of other Premier League clubs was becoming too great. The British government, otherwise always particularly at cross purposes with President Putin and the Kremlin, also built up a threatening backdrop. A weakening of the Premier League, the special pride of Brexit England, did not suit Boris Johnson and his people. Drastic repression was used. Even the non-English owners of the clubs then found it too confusing.
From the outset, Paris Saint-Germain was not among the renegades - because PSG finances itself with the millions from Qatar. PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi wanted nothing to do with the Saudi-controlled money from JP Morgan. His country had to live with a blockade by Saudi Arabia because of accusations of supporting terrorist Islamism.
Why is the Super League project not buried yet? Insiders estimate that the group of twelve has already shelled out start-up costs of around 50 million euros, for example for the fancy marketing concept or for the legal fees for the 179-page contract for the rival league. Real Madrid's boss Pérez, a billionaire building contractor in civilian life, does not want to be left holding the bag. On Spanish television on Wednesday, he complained that Real Madrid needed to earn 900 million euros per season to be in the black at all, but currently had 300 million euros less - partly due to Corona. That can be converted into a corresponding annual loss, if you believe Pérez's figures.
The idea of a closed league remains fundamentally attractive for all top clubs
Last year, the Times of London reported that Pérez had been awarded the contract to build the Quiddiya entertainment centre planned in Saudi Arabia for 6.5 billion euros, a kind of Las Vegas but for Muslim-friendly entertainment. As a side effect, 150 million euros had been offered to Real - for the promotionally effective appearance of four players from the star squad. Real's shirt sponsor is already the airline Emirates from the Gulf state of Dubai, for the European record sum of 69 million euros. Allegedly, Pérez's Saudi Arabian business contacts were also an entry point for the now founded Super League. The boss of which, of course, is also Florentino Pérez.
Perez has already announced that the other clubs will not be able to leave the new league so easily. This may be the incipient senile stubbornness of a 74-year-old, but in principle the idea of a closed league with more planning security remains attractive for all concerned. Many of the twelve (supposedly) top clubs are groaning under losses and debts. Despite all the millions they have reliably earned in the Champions League for years.
Tottenham Hotspur is said to have buried around 1.2 billion euros in a new stadium, Manchester United has been carrying around 650 million euros in old debts for years, which the Glazer family of owners simply merged into United immediately after buying the club. Barcelona's debts have been out of control for several years. United and Barça have apparently been trying to pay off large transfer deals in instalments for years. And the rich from the Superliga are in reality only as rich as their owners and financiers want them to be.
And Uefa? It was before President Ceferin's time, but from 2002 onwards the European federation has made a good living from making the permanent guests in the Champions League richer and richer. It almost seems like Baron Frankenstein's laboratory, wondering why his assembled monsters are not quite right in the head, break out of the laboratory and behave like monsters.
The word from Switzerland is that Uefa wants to strike back. Team AG, the Uefa subsidiary that for years has negotiated the lucrative contracts from which the Champions League millions come, is said to be negotiating an alternative deal with the London investment firm Centricus Assets. There, as much as six billion euros in money is said to be possible, i.e. considerably more than the JP Morgan sum rumoured for the Super League. Of course, that would be a completely different deal, but once again the big clubs would get the lion's share. Perhaps the idea of giving football back to the people was not that serious after all.
The downer could be that a good part of the money from Centricus, headed by long-time Deutsche Bank investment banker Nizar Al-Bassam, allegedly comes from Saudi Arabia again. However, then purified by flowing through Uefa. So there is no need to worry about Ceferin's convictions. Marx plays no role there, at most a little more down-to-earthness. But the accumulation of capital continues.

rumbeando wrote:English clubs have announced their exit from the Superleague, as have Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid. Something that, at the moment, Juventus, Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona have not yet done. And Ceferin promises sanctions against these four clubs in case they do not give up the project