Tag Archives: European soccer

Soccer and greed…

Well…as you know, I’m a big soccer geek with a great affinity for the Premier League in England, so if you don’t care about soccer, you can wait til later when I do a political one…go ahead, I won’t mind…I really can’t say that I’m sure you’ve heard about this…that the richest teams in Europe tried to create a new league called the super league that would allow them to insulate themselves from competition and the thing that makes the Premier League so cool…that, if you have a bad season, you can be relegated to a lower league and have to fight your way back to the Premier League over the next season to get to the financial windfall that being in the Premier League brings. I would be like if the Detroit Tigers had a bad year (don’t they always?) they would be demoted down to AAA ball and play teams like the Toledo Mud Hens or if they were really terrible, they may even go down to AA ball the next year…and this is what the new Super League was designed to do…to guarantee that the money keeps rolling in no matter what the performance of the team is….and this bastardization of soccer would have ruined the entire league set up across Europe where the seasons would mean nothing if there was no way to qualify for this new league. And, guess who this money grab was engineered by? Of course the American owners of three of the Premier League teams along with a few of the big teams in Spain…this announcement was met with outrage across England where soccer is more than just a game but is a way of life for the fans and they saw this as a betrayal of their support over the years that made them the success they are….fortunately, the outcry of the fans and of soccer organizations across Europe killed this stupid idea before it was two days old…and I share the relief of the English fans since I am a huge fan of Man U and to have them as one of the traitors to the tradition of the league irritated the hell out of me and I was prepared to stop watching them in protest…but, thankfully that won’t need to happen and I can continue to enjoy my game….