What a surprise. Football really is all about the money…

There are sports where the surest way of ending up with a small fortune is to start with a big one, and I daresay that in the lower echelons of football leagues this may still be true.

But the owners of the six English clubs which have signed up for the proposed European Super League are different. They are in it for the money and they are in football because there is more money to be made from football than there is from, say, hockey.

The proposed plan may stink a bit – more of that later -and has sparked what The Times in its understated way calls “outrage”. Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England player, now a Sky TV pundit, is especially disgusted, it seems, by the participation of his old club “born out of workers a hundred and more years ago”, and of Liverpool “who pretend ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.. and they are breaking away into a league without competition that they can’t be relegated from? It is an absolute disgrace..” 

Well, yes indeed, this is stirring stuff and it’s easy to sympathise with him in his indignation. Then you find yourself wondering if he has lived all his adult life with his head under the blankets. It can’t really be a surprise to him that many of those who buy big clubs, often with borrowed money, are keenly interested in, well, money. And football at the top level is awash in money and at the same time loaded with debt.

So far 12 clubs – six English, three Spanish and three Italian – have reportedly signed up to the deal, while two big German clubs and one French one have said “no thanks”, for the time being anyway. That leaves the consortium needing to find three more clubs to make up the “Gang of Fifteen” who will be the permanent members of the Super League. It will have twenty clubs in all but the final five will have no such security. They will be poor relations, there by invitation and their membership precarious. That’s to say they can be relegated whereas the Fab Fifteen can’t. It is, I suppose, just possible that clubs invited to make up the numbers might be a bit wary, muttering about the need for a long spoon if you’re asked to sup with the Devil.

The plan is that the Super League, divided into two groups of ten will play 18 home and away games in mid-week and that these league fixtures will be followed by a knock-out stage. The superclubs would still play in their national leagues, but not in any UEFA competitions. The assumption is that their national leagues would still welcome them, and this may be a tad rash. For one thing there is a suggestion that the English-based Super Five may be in breach of the Premiership’s Terms of Agreement.

Meanwhile UEFA – with the support, it seems, of FIFA – is threatening reprisals. Like King Lear they threaten revenges, saying “I will do such things/ What they are yet I know not- but they shall be/ The terrors of the earth..” It would be no surprise if it all became a matter for the courts and rich pickings for lawyers: there will be allegations of breach of contract on the one hand and restraint of trade on the other. Attempts to make players from the breakaway clubs ineligible for selection for their national team would surely lead to legal action.

There are precedents here – cricket’s response to Kerry Packer’s breakaway circus in the 1970s, for instance.

There may be an element of bluff in the Gang of Fifteen’s game. Threatening to break away and issuing their prospectus might be designed to put pressure on UEFA to come up with proposals for a revision of European club competitions that would give the clubs more say in formats and – of course – a considerably bigger slice of the cake. Their announcement this week may be intended as an invitation to make them an offer they can’t possibly refuse.

On the other hand UEFA may be bolder than expected. It might choose to call the bluff – if bluff it is – face the Gang of Fifteen with “the terrors of the earth” and say “over to you, Buster”. UEFA itself is no spotless saint. Nevertheless there is this to be said for it: for all its faults it does have the wider interest of European football at heart and looks after the interests of the weaker members.

If the Gang of Fifteen have their way and set up their 20-club European League (with the founding 15 protected from any threat of relegation), what will the public response be? At first, of course, there will be much moaning and groaning, gnashing of teeth and anguished cries bewailing the sale of the beloved game to Big Money. There will be talk of a boycott – there is always talk of a boycott. There was talk of a boycott when the Glazer family bought Manchester United and landed the club with a big load of debt. But the boycott withered, fans filled Old Trafford again and the Glazers are still there.

There will be resentment and some will refuse to subscribe to whichever TV channel is showing ESL matches. But there will be tens of millions of subscribers all over the globe, people who respond to the glamour of the ESL and couldn’t give a damn about United having been born of workers long, long ago.

Does it stink? Sure; there’s a nasty whiff. But it’s a long time since football, off the field anyway, smelled even faintly of roses.