Uzi maalum wa kupeana Likes: Comment chochote upate "Like"

Uzi maalum wa kupeana Likes: Comment chochote upate "Like"

The interim ruling of a Spanish court earlier in the week appeared to prevent football's authorities from using sanctions such as expulsion to block the breakaway on the basis such punishments would have contravened competition law. It therefore highlighted a serious weakness in football's ability to enforce its rules. Those at the heart of the crisis seem to agree that ultimately the ESL would have prevailed in the courts, or at the very least succeeded in dragging the dispute out over months, if not years, by which time the ESL would have been established.
 
The government's promise this week to legislate, effectively in order to grant football an exemption from competition law, along with the support of the opposition parties - was deemed crucial in defeating the ESL plotters. Well-placed sources within the Premier League believe this was a crucial miscalculation by the ringleaders of the plot, who assumed politicians would not want to get too
 
Perhaps in Spain and Italy such an assumption was fair. But in England it proved drastically misguided. For now, the threat of a breakaway has retreated, but expect such legislation to follow as a means of empowering football's authorities.
 
Be wary of the potential for hypocrisy at this time. Fifa may claim to have been on the right side of history this week, but it also presided over an era in which the 2022 World Cup was awarded to Qatar, one of the most controversial hosts of a major sports event in any decade.
 
Fifa's president Gianni Infantino is no stranger himself to controversial new competitions and formats, proposing a lucrative new Nations League and Club World Cup, before the plans were put on hold amid another Uefa backlash.
 
Uefa may have been viewed as the victor this week, but remember that many clubs fear that its new, enlarged Champions League, with yet more matches, will threaten player welfare in the pursuit of more money. And as both Shaka Hislop and Andros Townsend said this week, many will wish the federation showed as much dynamism and ruthlessness against racism as it displayed this week against the ESL, when its power and wealth seemed threatened.
 
The Premier League and the FA may have condemned the insurgency, but do not forget that the top flight was created with a breakaway in 1992. Yes, promotion and relegation was retained of course, and there have been undoubted benefits. But many believe that many of the financial issues the English game now wrestles with lower down the leagues, can be traced back to that moment.
 
It was only a few months ago that the Premier League sparked outrage by showing some matches on pay-per-view TV, reinforcing the feeling many have that traditional fans have been gradually priced out of the game over the past 30 years. Pay-per-view was quickly scrapped, but not before the league was accused of greed. And while Rupert Murdoch's Sky Sports and some of its pundits have made clear their opposition to the breakaway, as is their right of course, some observers may consider the fortunes the company has made by putting the Premier League behind a paywall for almost 30 years.
 
Politicians may have been quick to condemn the clubs behind the breakaway this week. But many seemed happy enough in recent years for most of the country's top clubs to fall into the hands of the overseas-based billionaires who took the game to the brink this week.
 
Perhaps, given all of this, it was natural that the owners of the big clubs - some of whom, it must be said, have also brought much to the English game with great players, coaches and wider investment - looked at the tone set by the sport's authorities and thought anything was possible, acting in their best commercial interests.
 
The seismic but ultimately farcical attempt to launch a super league will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the sport's history. The moment when many in football, having seen the wealthiest clubs consolidate more power and wealth over years, finally said 'enough' and fought back. But the game is not yet over, and future battles lie ahead.
 
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