As football enters the year of Uefa’s 70th anniversary, amid so many concerns, it is probably worth celebrating one great virtue. The game has been a unified pyramid for the majority of its history, and certainly since the European body’s founding. This is a virtue that speaks to football’s joyous universality. It has never endured the splits of boxing or cricket, or even had to withstand sustained threats of similar. Until now.
The great fear is whether 2025 will be the year when the game starts to come apart. There are already many forces assailing it, which is why it’s even more of a problem the sport is bursting at the seams from a packed calendar.
