Roll Up For The Red Cartel Raiders v The Sky Blue Sportswashers In The Battle For The Game's Future
Liverpool against Manchester City has the makings of an epic match but the owners of these teams want to take the sport in a new direction
IT’S THE Red Cartel Raiders against the Sky Blue Sportwashers. A clash of cultures and philosophies. Don’t miss it on Super Duper Sunday.
There used to be a football match over there.
Actually, Liverpool versus Manchester City should be a compelling game. Arne Slot’s team, confounding the expectations of many, are flying high in the Premier League and Europe.
Pep Guardiola’s City look battered and beaten – literally, in the Catalan’s case. The four-times-in-a-row champions have been in retreat for a month. They have reached the point where an epic stand is needed. Anfield would be the perfect place to lay down a marker.
The bigger issue is that these clubs represent a struggle for the direction of the game.
Whoever invented the term ‘Red Cartel’ is a genius. The phrase is sinister, evocative and completely misleading. What it does do, however, is give a sense of the Premier League’s American owners (and some non-Americans) who would like to impose US-style restrictions and protections (for themselves) on the game.
Fenway Sports Group’s viewpoint is that an ideal business model going forward would be to cap spending across the game, increase profits and – in their dream world – ringfence clubs from the threat of relegation. Their loose collection of allies prefer the certainties of the American sports model to the vagaries of a world with relegation.
City, by contrast, are the sporting arm of an emirate. Their resources are almost limitless, especially as the club’s role is foreign policy by football. They would happily get rid of spending caps. Abu Dhabi doesn’t like being told no.
Whichever way you look at it, both ownership types are keen to take football in a different direction to how the game has evolved. Are they an existential threat to the sport? Yes, in the sense that fans are way down their list of priorities.
Has any club changed more than City? After their 2-1 defeat by Brighton, the phone-ins were buzzing. A Mancunian called in to the BBC and was level headed about Guardiola. He spoke of the journey the team had been on and how much gratitude he held for the manager.
The opposite view was taken by a caller with a southern accent. He demanded Guardiola’s sacking. When Robbie Savage asked who he’d replace him with, the man answered: “Xabi Alonso.”
“That would be the Xabi Alonso who got beat 4-0 at Anfield on Tuesday,” was the presenter’s comeback.
Those calls illustrate City’s metamorphosis: The southern accent, the knee jerk response of a glory hunter as opposed to a diehard who had seen the depressive years. City are on the path to becoming United, everything they despised. The Etihad is so far removed from Maine Road that it’s hard to believe this is the same club.
The shift in perceptions has been sweetened with silverware but there is still an element of culture shock for those who grew up supporting the second team in Manchester. Football culture takes a long time to build but can be swept away quickly.
Liverpool supporters have been fighting to maintain their identity for nearly two decades. In the botched attempt to create a European Super League three years ago, the dangerous phrase ‘legacy fans’ was used – and not in a positive way. Both Liverpool and City were involved in the scheme and ‘legacy fans’ are a millstone for clubs in the new age.
The Etihad and Anfield are at opposite ends of the war for the future of the sport but, never forget, for all the antagonism between boardrooms, the owners have more in common that separates them.
And it could have been different. Two decades ago, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was then the prime minister of Thailand, tried to buy 30 per cent of Liverpool with a view to taking a controlling stake in the future. Three years later, he bought City.
Shinawatra only lasted a year before selling to Abu Dhabi. I asked an individual involved in the sale why Sheikh Mansour had chosen City and they replied, “political considerations.” The emirate was bailing out an ally who’d fallen on hard times.
What if that ally had owned Liverpool? Would Kopites be defending sportswashing? A lot of them would, one suspects. The my-club-right-or-wrong ethos is as strong at Anfield as anywhere.
But for now, the Kop will be electric with hostility towards City. The Merseyside-Manchester rivalry gives the atmosphere an extra edge. City and Liverpool fans often found common ground in their antipathy towards United but the Manc-Scouse divide trumped that unanimity.
It’s still a football match. Thank god. But for how long?