United for Manchester

United for Manchester

Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book. If Wednesday’s terror attacker had that goal in mind, he failed miserably. An already close-knit city has formed an even tighter sense of community. Things that are usual cause for division have been shelved. Manchester stands together.

They say by not carrying on with life, the terrorists win. That’s why after the 1996 Manchester bombing, a Euro ’96 game was played the next day, and the Manchester Arena continued to host events the following week.

This time can be no different. The Courteeners will play Old Trafford Cricket Ground on Saturday, and the team from the football stadium still face a Europa League final tonight.

To give an example of this togetherness, a week ago, this Manchester City fan was trawling the Internet for an Ajax shirt. It was going to be worn as I cheered on the Dutch side. The idea of ever supporting Manchester United – up until the events following Ariana Grande’s concert – seemed alien, unlikely: downright impossible.

Now, for tonight at least, it would be preposterous not to get behind a team flying the flag for Manchester. Many of the players – especially younger members like Rashford, Lingard, and even Pogba who lived in the area from the age of 14 – will feel a personal connection. The same goes for members of staff making the journey.

It also goes for the 9,500 United fans in the Friends Arena, and the thousands more travelling to Stockholm to show support.

They will all become the embodiment of a mourning but determined spirit.

For weeks, the press has made The Red Devils favourite to claim the only major piece of silverware that has yet to grace their trophy cabinet. The tragedy aside, it was always going to be a harder game to call than those assumptions.

Ajax are a younger side that play free-flowing football – when given the chance. It sets up an interesting match where the pragmatic Mourinho style will be expected to absorb the early flurries and eventually see off the promising Dutch side.

AC Milan probably had a similar idea heading into the 1995 Champions League final until Patrick Kluivert had his say. United need to make sure nobody becomes the new Kluivert tonight. It would have been easier had Zlatan Ibrahimović been able to signoff his Man United duties on home turf.

Instead they will look to other – rested – faces for success. There are enough mature heads, with plenty of experience, in the Manchester United contingency to ensure the sense of occasion, and the gravitas of events back home, do not overwhelm. You can imagine someone like Rooney using it as motivation to propel the players forward rather than sink with the burden.

After the terror attack, the United players observed a minute’s silence in training. Tonight, they will be greeted with ninety minutes of raucous support from the red and blue sides of Manchester. Sure, at the start of next season, if they’re sitting in Pot 2 of the Champions League draw, it’ll be mildly annoying.

But for now, they have nothing apart from unequivocal support as they represent a great city, unity, honest people, the innocents affected, and the freedom of our way of life.

This City Stands United.

Accrington Stanley, Who Are They?

Accrington Stanley, Who Are They?

A catchphrase made famous from a milk advert before the Premier League existed, and best sums up attitudes displayed by that organisation this week. Accrington Stanley’s chairman, Andy Holt, attempted to highlight how life in the lower leagues was a struggle while those in the top flight lived in luxury. The response: a veiled threat to remove all financial support for Stanley and the other members of the EFL.

Mr Holt also suggested in this tweet, that the Premier League was a destructive force:

To begin with, let’s deal with an insinuation the Premier League levelled at Andy Holt. Since the new TV deal (with oversea rights, this now exceeds £8bn) the Premier League upped its contribution to the EFL and grassroots football by 40% to £1bn. Okay, that sounds a very large figure but it needs be placed into context.

The increase in TV revenue was 70%, so already there is a disproportionate redistribution of money. On the bottom line, the Premier League donates a smaller – albeit larger final sum – percentage of its revenue to those below them in the nation’s football pyramid.

Of that £1bn “donation,” the majority of it actually goes to teams relegated from the Premier League in the form of parachute payments. Suddenly that large cake on the table has a big chunk missing.

Before the deal, 3% went to grassroots, now the twenty clubs in the top flight agree to invest £112m a year into this programme. Again, context is required here. Grassroots is a place the top clubs circle like predatory sharks without fronting the sizeable bill. Between them they can just about muster £112m when Manchester United alone are willing to give an agent £41m for a single transfer.

This is where Andy Holt’s fears about the state of football hold the most water. Top clubs are able – and have no qualms – to allow money to leak from the game. Just as boxing promoters act as vampires on the sport, financially benefiting from the skill of others as the grassroots decay, football agents walk away with money that could prop-up entire divisions.

With the best fiscal management in the world, the harsh reality for lower league clubs is a yearly battle with rising costs and increasing debts.

The Premier League has gone past the tipping point when it comes to moral obligations. The desire to be the NFL of soccer has made it lose sight of certain facts. The NFL model works because there is nothing beneath it other than college football.

By the time the Premier League is finished, there won’t even be suitable football training in our schools. They have allowed a cancer to enter the revenue stream of the beautiful game and failure to ignore the final cries for help from people like Andy Holt, is like refusing lifesaving treatment.

Such is the arrogance and disconnect with the real world, the Premier League thought ensuring all staff members at top flight clubs were on the minimum living wage was a show of grace. It was the absolute least expected.

It has made no efforts to control ticketing prices for fans, meaning the working-class man in the terraces hasn’t seen the benefit of increased revenue passed down to him.

Too many clubs in the EFL, like Leeds, Blackburn, Nottingham Forest, cripple under their own weight as they take massive infrastructure into a landscape that can’t provide. It’s a wonder teams haven’t already started dropping out of existence. But that day will come, and it will affect the big and the small in the EFL, because they all have one thing in common: they have been made to sit on the poor table.

The tone of the Premier League’s reply gives the impression they enjoy teams coming to them like Oliver, bowl in hand, begging for more.

The Premier League has forgotten that the football pyramid in this country used to be a symbiotic relationship. That’s what the FA Cup used to symbolise: all ninety-six professional teams and all the non-league ones below that enter, on a level playing field of equal importance.

Nowadays the notion is played with by the Premier League in the same way a cat toys with a dead mouse. The idea of a shared national game is just a novelty to those at Lancaster Gate. They’re not bothered about Andy Holt’s opinions on the matter because they’re not bothered about the EFL, grassroots, or Accrington Stanley.

Who are they?

Exactly.