Recent talk about newly proposed European Super League has propped up the decades old question of capitalism and the influence that the richest clubs enjoy in terms of TV rights and revenues.  Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League in 1995 but have sunk like a stone in the last decade, at one point as low as the third tier. Oldham Athletic, founder members of the Premier League in 1992 ,avoided administration by the skin of their teeth last year, but they are currently in the fourth tier, struggling badly to make ends meet. The North West is home to some of football’s most destitute clubs is perhaps no surprise given the struggles of postindustrial Britain in recent decades. Football, unlike the sport of our Imperial overlords, cricket, was always for the working class, famously played by coal miners and factory workers but as you start moving towards east Manchester, you’ll see Manchester City’s gleaming Etihad Stadium, part of a sprawling campus built by the Abu Dhabi elite since buying the club in 2008.
This drastic contrast started under the the successive governments of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair in the 1980s and 1990s. Thatcher famously deregulated the financial sector, dismantled state ownership, and championed the free movement of capital — policies that both of her successors maintained. These were to provide the conditions for the growth of football capitalism and gave rise to hundreds of millions of pounds being payed in player fees and players earning upto 300,000 pounds a week. Football clubs are run as a multi billion dollar firm rather than something built with and for the fans. As these rich owners, the Oligarchies, the Arabs and the American businessmen keep consolidating power in football, we’ll see the interest of football change from the emotions of fans who’re now paying upto 70 pounds for a Saturday evening game to it becoming a commodity being listed on the New York Stock Exchange and sights like the current calls for a closed competition for the footballing elite will be closer to becoming a reality. Till then the message stays strong, Football is for the fans.