Evoking so much emotion and passion gives sport a certain responsibility. In English football, this has typically been shared across players, managers and the clubs themselves, but with the chequebook changing the balance of power, the clubs’ owners now have the ultimate responsibility as their actions have a domino like effect on everything else.
This is playing itself out at Liverpool, which happens to be my team. After dominating in the 70s and 80s, we fell behind rivals and in effort to keep up, went looking for new investment. It arrived last year in the form of two US gents with sizeable bank balances, but little respect. Steeped in history, it would have been advisable for the new owners to swot up on what football means to Liverpool fans.
Undermining the manager is one thing, but then discussing it in public is something else. This isn’t rocket science, these gents even own sports franchises in the US, but for some reason they don’t seem to understand.
Could they be getting it confused with American football? Have been watching the US variety and while the two games are not without their similarities, the fans involvement, passion and intensity is not comparable to the global game. Think about it for a minute, it has even triggered wars in certain parts of the world.
Liverpool is not a franchise or a business; it’s a football club. Yes, the players’ shirts carry sponsorship, yes it sells its TV rights and yes, it has to make the books balance, but importantly, it’s not part of a game that’s defined by its business model. Instead, it is the most successful club in a sport that has an inseparable role in a country’s history, even causing a break in WW1.
Maybe news of the fans uniting to try and buy the club back might help them understand how much people care, but if they cant hear the Kop, then they probably want to get their ears checked.
