For clubs like Leeds United, the plans for a European Super League that were announced almost a year ago were nothing short of disrespectful. It was something that outraged football supporters across the continent, even those who follow the clubs that were planning to be involved in the breakaway competition.
In some ways, it brought the footballing world together in their disagreement of the grab from the executives of the planet’s biggest clubs for more money and more power. The Super League quickly fell flat on its face but it is widely believed that the clubs involved will be back with revised plans in the future.
A Sky documentary called Super Greed: The Fight For Football aired this week which provides an in-depth insight into the plans and how they rapidly fell apart. Angus Kinnear, the Leeds United chief executive, was one of those interviewed on the programme and pulled no punches in his assessment of the proposal.
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“Despite the fact that we are ultimately only faceless administrators who should play no real meaningful part in the game, we are actually pretty much to a man, all football fans,” he said. “It was almost like that if we didn’t act, then the game might die on our watch.
“This is as much about players dreams as it is about fans’ dreams. Our captain when he was playing in the Championship, Liam Cooper, was known as ‘League One Liam’ because nobody thought he was good enough to play in the Championship.
“A year and a half later, he’s captained a team who have won the Championship by 10 points and he’s now playing in the Premier League. Their dreams are tied to this issue as much as anybody else’s. This actually struck at the heart of why they play the game.”
Kinnear felt he had been let down by executives who he, and his colleagues, work with on a weekly basis when making key decisions about the Premier League and English football in general. For them to go behind the backs of the peers in such a way was something that he compared to a cartel and branded ‘industrial espionage’.
“There was a feeling of personal betrayal,” he claimed. “These were people who we work alongside day in, day out and we are ultimately shareholders of the Premier League.
“If it had been in any other business, it would have been an act of industrial espionage. It was creating a cartel. It was having negotiations in a clandestine fashion and that was something that the world of football found unpalatable.
“I think people viewed this as an attack on the game, an attack on our supporters and an attack on their hopes and dreams. It struck at the very essence of why our game is special and why a football pyramid is special.
“That pyramid is the heart of English football. It means that every city, community and town has the ability to play at the highest level.”
Leeds were able to play a key role in the downfall of the Super League as they hosted Liverpool at Elland Road the day after the plans were announced. Whilst supporters were not allowed inside the ground, fans still made the trip to the stadium to voice their displeasure at the concept.
An aeroplane with a ‘Say No to the Super League’ banner attached to it was flown over Elland Road during the match as the Leeds players wore shirts pre-match that read ‘Football is for the fans’. Protests like the one in West Yorkshire took place at Premier League grounds up and down the country during that period and it led to each of the involved English clubs withdrawing from the Super League proposal.
Despite its subsequent downfall, as mentioned previously, there is a widespread belief that Europe’s elite will return with improved plans to take more money out of a game which continues to be tarnished by financial greed.
