A rant!!

Article by Matty

A transfer that doesn’t even affect Liverpool shouldn’t make me this angry. But the sale of Sandro Tonali to Newcastle makes my blood boil. It’s everything that’s wrong with football displayed in one shining moment of sadness. Milan ripping out the heart and soul of their club, a future captain, someone who should’ve been a mainstay in the team for 15 years. Doing this merely days after firing arguably the greatest legend in the history of their club, Paolo Maldini, treating him like a failure. In reality, Maldini “only” carefully constructed the squad that won Milan a Scudetto last season and got them a UCL semifinal this season, far away from their lows of the previous decade. I believe Milan’s new ownership group wanted to make an example of Maldini and Tonali. That nobody is a sacred calf at that club anymore. Everybody is for sale, everybody is replaceable. They’re turning Milan, one of the most prestigious clubs in the history of football, into another iteration of RB Leipzig. It makes me sick.

As much as we moan over the oil clubs, there is a second type of owner who doesn’t spend like the oil clubs, but has an equally insidious effect on the game: the venture capitalist. The man so concerned with spreadsheets and data and analytics that he cannot see nor quantify the soul of the team. These owners also tend to have a power trip, clash with authority figures, and terminate their contracts to make an example of them. Boehly at Chelsea is a fine example of this. Since Cardinale took full control of the club with Redbird Capital’s authority, he’s let go of Zlatan, Maldini and Tonali. He’s ripped out the soul of the club in three weeks. These owners do not care about the fans, the manager, or the players. These owners only care about lining their own pockets with more money. And I must admit, it concerns me greatly that a significant investor in our club is handling Milan’s affairs in this manner. It makes me worry that a similar cull could happen with our club sometime in the near future. In fact I believe the only reason we haven’t gone the way of Milan is Jurgen Norbert Klopp. He’d resign if we did business in such a cruel and ruthless fashion, and FSG knows Klopp is our only ticket to success so they’ll placate him until he decides to retire. But once he’s gone? I’d be careful not to get too attached to anyone.

Our beautiful game has been tarnished by the powers in charge of the sport. Two types of owners, drastically different in practice but equally disastrous in effect. We still get bristly at any mention of the failed Super League, but look around you, it’s happening in plain sight! And you want to know why FSG pushed so hard for it? It was the only way clubs like Liverpool and Milan could still have a seat at the big clubs table. Barcelona has gone bankrupt trying to keep up with the vast spending of their bitter rival in Madrid. The Premier League has become a glorified Bundesliga, with more Saudi money in Chelsea and Newcastle the only real hope of competition for City. We don’t even need to mention Ligue 1. All of Serie A is perpetually bankrupt. Bayern Munich has fallen victim to the ruthlessness that has become rampant in the game as teams try to keep up with the demands of the competition and the fans. There is no soul left in this sport. Just a bunch of billionaires thinking they know best and telling the fans to go fuck themselves. And fans that eat it up like mindless lap dogs because they don’t value human beings, they value winning above all else.