Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 94
May 3, 2021
All Blacks sale could prove a private equity intrusion too far for lovers of sport | Jonathan Liew
Selling a stake of New Zealand Rugby to a US firm is of a piece with the attempted European Super League coup
Towards the end of last year, the consultancy firm Deloitte issued a pamphlet to investors outlining the uncertain financial landscape created by Covid-19. “An increasing number of companies and economic sectors are under severe pressure,” it noted. “Millions of jobs have been lost and thousands of businesses are at risk. This is a classic scenario where private equity can play a role.”
Right on cue: in a time of fear, a hero will come. Often several heroes, bearing wads of cash and a stern list of conditions. And so, here we are: seven words that perhaps encapsulate the dystopian weirdness of 2021. The All Blacks are up for sale. Yes, those All Blacks: not just one of the most successful and famous teams in the world, but a culture and tradition, a heritage and a lineage. A name that – for all its vaguely irritating self-mythologising – resounds well beyond the borders of New Zealand, well beyond the shores of rugby union.
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May 2, 2021
Manchester United fans’ direct action is an expression of powerlessness | Jonathan Liew
Amid the grievances that have brought fans into the streets in recent weeks there is a yearning to feel something again
A lone saxophonist was playing in the sunshine outside Old Trafford on Sunday evening. This was after the tumult, after the crowds had been pushed back, after the police had regained control of the concourse outside the megastore, before the inevitable 0-0 draw between Manchester United and Liverpool had finally been called off. And on another surreal and poignant day in English football, it was possible to hear in those breezy notes a lament for something that had been lost, something that even now might never be recovered.
Earlier in the day, by all accounts, the mood had been mutinous, bordering on euphoric. We knew on some level that the few dozen United fans who managed to infiltrate the Old Trafford pitch must have been motivated by some intense and bottled anger. But as they cavorted on the famous turf, grabbing souvenirs, hurling tripods, gurning at the deserted directors’ box, they didn’t look particularly angry. They, like those protesting outside, looked giddy with excitement.
Related: Gary Neville and Roy Keane support Manchester United fan protests
Related: Timeline: Glazers and their turbulent reign at Manchester United
Continue reading...April 29, 2021
Manchester City’s Kyle Walker makes his case for greatness against PSG | Jonathan Liew
Critics are quick to dismiss the 30-year-old as a mere speed merchant, but he is one of the game’s best full-backs
It was about 40 minutes into the semi-final on Wednesday night that Kyle Walker made the first of his trademark overlapping sprints up the right wing. You know the one: the classic jet-powered Walker burst that seems to possess a surreal comic-book quality. Cartoon smoke billows from him as he goes. Cars are hurled aside in his wake. A dweeby looking businessman gets coffee blown all over his suit. Manchester City were 1-0 down against Paris Saint-Germain and, with half-time looming, City’s all-action hero had finally decided to join the party.
Related: ‘No cheering’: Manchester City players were calm after PSG win, says Guardiola
Related: Manchester City expose brittle Paris Saint-Germain’s lack of maturity | Jonathan Wilson
Related: PSG 1-2 Manchester City: player ratings from the semi-final first leg
Continue reading...April 27, 2021
El Gasico? El Cashico? But Man City v PSG is worth getting excited for | Jonathan Liew
Neither of football’s great petrocarbon empires have won the Champions League and now they stand in each other’s way
So what takes precedence here: the football stuff, or the other stuff? Obviously you know about the other stuff. Paris Saint-Germain v Manchester City in the Champions League semi-final has already more than its fair share of alternative monikers. El Gasico. El Cashico. The Sportswashing Derby. Gulf War Three. A proxy battle on hybrid grass; a clash of new money and even newer money; Qatar v Abu Dhabi; the diseased nadir of the modern game; a big night for Kyle Walker.
It is, of course, all of these things and less. The meeting of European football’s two great petrocarbon empires feels ostensibly like a moment for savage lament: to mourn football’s slow capitulation to capital and disdain for human rights, to curse the subversion of the game we all love to forces well beyond our control. Even so, this is a course of action that only really makes sense until about 7.59pm on Wednesday night, at which point all moral resistance feels queerly obsolescent. This fixture is an utter disgrace and I object to it in the strongest possible terms. Peep! Right: come on Neymar, get stuck in, son.
Related: Guardiola urges Manchester City to treat PSG semi-final like a friendly
Related: Mauricio Pochettino: ‘It’s so easy with Neymar. He’s very humble, he listens’
Continue reading...Manchester United’s caution on the pitch reflects the club’s corporate culture | Jonathan Liew
The team’s sense of tactical trepidation is a product of the decisions made by the Glazers and Ed Woodward
According to reports, the high‑powered meeting between Boris Johnson and Ed Woodward at 10 Downing Street earlier this month was actually a chance encounter that occurred when the two men stumbled across each other in a corridor. Instinctively, this feels about right. After all, these are two men for whom stumbling has been their defining professional technique: over decisions and into positions of immense and unanswerable influence.
Who knows what was discussed? Perhaps the prime minister and the Manchester United executive vice-chairman bonded over their apparent shared indifference towards football, and the strain of having to feign otherwise. One thing we are told was certainly not on the agenda was the European Super League, which was in its late stages of gestation. Downing Street insists the prime minister was completely oblivious to the whole thing, which – given it basically took him two months to grasp the existence of a deadly pandemic – feels weirdly plausible.
Related: Maguire takes out frustration on Fred in Manchester United’s draw at Leeds
The United product is cautious, risk-averse, football played with a sense of trepidation
Continue reading...April 21, 2021
Super League died but the cartel lives on: ‘back to normal’ will simply not suffice | Jonathan Liew
European football’s dirty dozen must not be allowed to slip back into their routines. Now is the time to get vindictive
Those of you with a taste for these things will have noted the irony: a competition designed to eliminate promotion and relegation in perpetuity somehow managed to shed half its teams in a single evening. One by one the scions of the European Super League fell, like spurned pastry chefs in a televised baking competition: first the prize flans of Chelsea and Manchester City, then the rest of the English clubs late on Tuesday night, then Atlético Madrid and the two Milan clubs on Wednesday morning. Farewell then, Super League. You promised a leaner, more tightly focused vision of football, and you achieved it by launching and shelving an entire tournament within three days.
Naturally there is a tendency towards schadenfreude here, the urge to rejoice and revel in this triumph of popular will over the cold hand of Big Commerce. The principal protagonists have been humiliated. Ed Woodward at Manchester United has already paid for the fiasco with his job. The Juventus chairman, Andrea Agnelli, was forced to bury his pet project on live television. Even JPMorgan Chase, the investment bank that was funding the venture, has paid a price: its corporate sustainability rating has been downgraded by Standard Ethics from “adequate” to “non-compliant”.
Related: Uefa could be forced to alter Champions League plans amid backlash
Points deductions, suspensions, expulsions, eye-watering fines, transfer embargoes: none of this should be taken off the table at this stage
Related: Tell us: how should football be reorganised to put fans first?
Continue reading...April 20, 2021
The European Super League hangover – Football Weekly
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew, Archie Rhind-Tutt and Mike Calvin to discuss the fallout from the ESL proposals, and the view from Germany
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The pod look at the mounting reaction to the European Super League breakout, as non-ESL clubs line up to condemn the proposals.
Continue reading...April 19, 2021
Tottenham sacking consigns dour and dogmatic José Mourinho to the past | Jonathan Liew
Daniel Levy was seduced by the stature and record of a manager who has all but destroyed a progressive, united team
José Mourinho subsided in the same manner as so many of his teams this season: meekly and by degrees, with an impending inevitability and perhaps even a certain mercifulness. Indeed, if you want a measure of how far his stock has fallen, then consider the fact that his sacking by Tottenham Hotspur was not even the biggest football story of the day: one of the game’s great coaches reduced to a parish notice, a footnote in the foothills of football’s bold new future.
And so Mourinho will not lead Tottenham into the European Super League in which they have so controversially enlisted. Nor will he be given the chance to lift the 21st major trophy of his career in the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City. Instead, Ryan Mason will lead the team out at Wembley on Sunday: same players, different coach.
Related: José Mourinho sacked as Tottenham Hotspur manager
Related: European Super League clubs promised €200m-€300m ‘welcome bonus’
Continue reading...April 18, 2021
Only someone who truly hates football can be behind a European super league | Jonathan Liew
The clubs behind the proposed tournament must find competitive sport offensive, all the way from the grassroots game to the World Cup
Perhaps once all this has shaken out, once the imminent threat of a breakaway European super league has been resolved one way or the other, football will find the time for a little reflection.
How we reached this point. How the game’s elite clubs managed to engineer a scenario in which a hostile takeover came to feel inevitable, even irresistible. How the world’s most popular sport managed to hand over so much of its power and wealth and influence to people who despise it.
Related: Premier League condemns European super league after English clubs sign up
Related: ‘Pure greed’: Gary Neville takes aim at clubs involved in European super league
Continue reading...March 23, 2021
Furore around Glen Kamara shows how racists can keep getting away with abuse | Jonathan Liew
To get their personal violations recognised, victims of racism have to navigate an obstacle course of suspicion and bad faith
You’re a footballer who has been racially abused by an opponent in the course of doing your job. So let’s talk tactics, scenarios, next steps. Yes, I know it happened only a few seconds ago. You’re angry, upset, confused. Above all there’s a football match still to be won, and you don’t want to lose your focus. But really, you need to get your head in the game. Because even in these raw early moments, one false move, one wrong choice, and your prospects of justice are sunk.
Obviously you’ll want to lodge a formal complaint as soon as possible. But of course the referee didn’t hear anything, and the opponent has an angelic “Who, me?” expression on his face. Here’s your first task: you need to remember the exact words that were used. Was it “fucking monkey”, “black monkey” or just “monkey”? Yes, it’s gruesome, but it’s important. Get it wrong, admit the merest uncertainty, alter your story one iota, and in a few months’ time a smooth-talking lawyer will be flaying you to ribbons in front of an FA disciplinary panel.
Related: English football is consumed by racism and hatred. Can the cycle be broken? | Jonathan Liew
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