Is it fitting, or tragic, that European football’s second-tier competition would come to rescue the dismal footballing seasons of Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur? After record-poor domestic campaigns in the Premier League era – United sit 16th and Tottenham 17th in the table – the two contested the Europa League final in Bilbao yesterday (May 21). Beleaguered fans of both had dubbed the encounter – which Spurs won, 1-0 – as “the Battle of Mid”, and even “El Crappico”.
The turgid nature of the match – Spurs’ scrappy goal, United’s long-ball desperation, the endless handbags between Harry Maguire and Cristian Romero – reflected both teams’ seasonal angst. It’s been a long season. And there was a feeling that whoever won in Bilbao would only enjoy a stay of execution, rather than a victory lap. A win for United against one of England’s most patronised clubs would have only provided a minor break in the storm that has covered minority co-owner Jim Ratcliffe’s tenure at the club. And for Spurs, the trophy will do little to arrest the institutional toxicity that binds its fans, board and manager together – exemplified by manager Ange Postecoglou’s assertion in his pre-match presser that “irrespective of [the result], I’m not a clown”.
United and Spurs’ continental pity-playoff aside, it has superficially been a buoyant season for English football. In many respects, it’s been a year for the underdogs: Newcastle United overcame Liverpool to claim the League Cup, while Crystal Palace, a club that has previously flirted with the abyss, beat Manchester City in Saturday’s FA Cup final. As many as eight English clubs could be playing European football next season. Underlined by a host of well-worn slogans – “Magic of the Cup”, etc – an appealing, meritocratic and most importantly, sellable, portrait of English football emerges.
But look deeper and the picture starts to distort. The Premier League is perhaps one of the few British exports that remains the envy of the world: its clubs reported revenues of £5.9bn in 2023, almost double what is generated by the top-flight leagues in Germany and Spain. This produces an irresistible carrot-stick dynamic for the clubs in England’s lower leagues: spend big, make it to the big time – and survive – and you can live off the fatta the lan’. But this invites dodgy owners shooting for the moon, and well-meaning ones spending beyond their means. And it also invites the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Tom Brady acquiring significant stakes in teams in locations they couldn’t point to on a map a decade ago.
The failures of such a strategy were best exemplified by Leeds United’s big-spending blitz in the early 2000s, which ultimately culminated in relegation to the Championship in 2004. “Should we have spent so heavily in the past? Probably not – but we lived the dream, we enjoyed the dream!” then Leeds chairman Peter Risdale memorably remarked. But Leeds fans certainly did not enjoy the club’s 16-year wait to return to the top-flight. The dissolution of Bury FC and Macclesfield Town in recent years are casualties of English football’s existential temptations.
The gulf in funding between the Premier League and other 72 clubs in the pyramid – estimated at £3bn – is now forcing the Government to act. The Football Governance Bill, currently making its way through the Commons, will establish an independent regulator for the game. Most controversially, it will have the power to siphon off a greater proportion of the Premier League’s funds to clubs in the lower divisions. Unsurprisingly, the Premier League isn’t happy, arguing such changes would have a “negative impact” on clubs’ “competitiveness… and, above all, the aspiration that drives our global appeal and growth”.
But what the league fails to recognise is that a big part of its “global appeal” is the competitiveness that’s baked into the entire football pyramid. How clubs can shoot up from the lower leagues and compete; and how, in the big league, on any given day, anyone can beat anyone. That Leicester City can be on the brink of relegation from the Premier League the previous season and become champions the next; that people wonder if United and Spurs could really go down; that Forest, Brighton, Brentford and Villa can rise from the Championship and potentially play European football next season.
The idea of shutting out the smaller teams and creating a closed-shop of footballing elites at the pinnacle of the sport was universally rejected by fans when plans for a European Super League emerged in 2021. So while fans of the domestic game will rightly celebrate our current grip on European football, now is not the time for complacency. Doing so will ultimately only mean that England’s football romantics – who ultimately are the game – will have fewer fairy tales to tell and retell.
[See also: The humbling of Pep Guardiola]
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