The question “what makes a football club?” is one that Bobby Robson famously answered – in a quotation which has now become synonymous with an earthy, authentic, but ultimately schmaltzy view of the game. “It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes,” said the England, Barcelona and Newcastle manager. “It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.”
Several decades on, Robson’s words still read like a lovely offhand paean, but they now seem hopelessly out of date. Because in 2024, the marketing departments and executive boxes have rewritten the game in their image. They will likely see that mythical small boy as a “Gen Alpha consumer” and his father as a “heritage supporter”; that “hallowed stretch of turf” is possibly about to be pulled up, auctioned off to American superfans, and then paved over with a luxury apartment complex. No doubt, young lads and lasses still fall in love with the clubs their parents supported, but they are just as likely to become what marketeers call “icon imitators” (people who follow individual players more so than clubs). And if they want to see their club regularly, well, they better get on that Junior Gold season ticket wait list before they turn 16 – otherwise they will be resigned to watching TikTok highlights compilations and Mark Goldbridge watchalongs like millions of others.
Right now, there is a battle for the soul and the soil of the national game, with dozens of factions, bodies and personalities trying to plant their flag. At the top of the tree are the venture capitalist and reputation-washing royal families at City, Chelsea, Newcastle, Arsenal and Villa – the ones whose treatment of English football clubs recalls nothing so much as Kanye West buying, revamping and ultimately destroying an architecturally significant Malibu beach house. So prevalent are these types now, that they are forming weird and unlikely consortiums, the kind that lead to NFL GOAT Tom Brady purchasing a stake in lowly Birmingham City, and a rumour that Jay-Z was trying to buy the catatonic giant of English football, Everton.
But, try as they might, these Hollywood investors have no real say over the rules of the game, which are defined by a conflicted and unaccountable set of bodies and organisations, which in England, spans everyone from Uefa, to the FA, to the Premier League, to Professional Game Match Officials Limited. Yet, even these organisations are themselves beholden to a fractured and diverse set of broadcasters who stump up the broadcast rights (Sky, NBC, beIN, the BBC, TNT Sports, and increasingly, Amazon).
Perhaps, in some attempt to show who really rules the roost, many of these institutions are trying to rewrite the script – flexing their muscles with grand plans and harsh vetoes. First came Fifa’s unpopular plans to hold consecutive World Cups in Qatar and Russia, then the Real Madrid-led Super League mutiny, followed by a government-enabled Saudi takeover of Newcastle United. More recently, there has been a pointless and confusing restructuring of the Champions League – an elitist move which some are calling “Super League-lite”. Then came the news that England could be banished from the next Euros due to the government having the gall to create an independent regulatory body – something which UEFA deems as “interference”. The proposed regulator would be invested with the power to investigate clubs’ financial solvency and probe dodgy owners, matters that feel increasingly urgent given the ongoing trial of Manchester City over 115 potential financial rule-breaking offences, some dating from 2009.
With all these different factions endlessly provoking and beating on each other, it all starts to feel a lot like a 1950s mob war, or a violent gold rush over some mineral-rich land in the Old West. There is probably some enjoyment to be had, watching the Succession-esque corporate intrigue at Chelsea, or speculating which Marvel actor is going to buy Millwall. But the long-time supporters have been left very much at the bottom of the pile. Although the likes of Todd Boehly and Sheikh Mansour try to make reference to fans being “the soul of the club”, their influence will only keep sliding downwards – towards total irrelevancy. This is because capitalism must keep moving, it must grow to survive. In football this requires new fans, markets, players, stadiums. And if you aren’t a fan of a club that is currently reaping the benefits of this theory, then the results can be highly alienating, and sometimes borderline surreal.
Things seemed to reach a zenith (or perhaps a nadir) last week when, at the League One fixture Birmingham v. Wrexham, the American sports-industrial complex came to town. On an unseasonably chilly night in the West Midlands gathered Wrexham co-owner, the sitcom star Rob McElhenney (fellow conspirator Ryan Reynolds embarrassingly video-called into the stands), and the aforementioned Tom Brady. With them came David Beckham, Gary Neville and a raft of razzle-dazzle gimmicks and “relatable reaction shots” straight out of a Paul Rudd movie.
To my eye, it was a rather depressing spectacle, and one viral X post suggested it will be remembered as the moment the game became well and truly “gone”. But then, something rather spectacular happened: the game did not play out as a marketable feast of touchdowns. It turned out to be a messy, bitty, thoroughly nasty goal-laden thriller, full of terrible challenges and tribal aggro. It started when Brady was booed and jeered as he walked past Wrexham’s away support, many of them shouting “Who the f*** are you?” at a man who really is only a superstar in his home nation.
In the game, there was a goalkeeping error, some dreadful marking and even a strange moment where Wrexham’s Paul Mullin seemed to bite the calf of a Birmingham City defender. Then, up stepped James McLean, a one-man controversy merchant endlessly derided by opposing fans for his Republican views (but also a man very happy to “give it back”). As McLean left the pitch to a barrage of muffled sectarian insults, he gestured at the Birmingham fans to keep it coming – winding them up, pushing their buttons. It was an ugly, but perhaps revelatory moment. Because this was probably not what the venture capitalists and well-groomed celebrities had in mind when they decided to funnel their cash into the English game. They wanted Top Gun, they got Nil By Mouth.
Although McElhenney and Reynolds tried to style it out, stating that “our dreams are bigger” in the post-match media scrum, the “Hollywood Derby” revealed itself to be a lower-league brawl – and thank god for that. Perhaps, our last hope must be that this American interventionism fails in the way American interventionism usually does. That their habit of turning up, gung-ho in a foreign culture, with little to no understanding of what they’re doing will eventually send them packing with their tails between their legs. That the land of English football is too tribal, too deep, too wild for them to truly conquer. But then, there is the abiding fear that it will continue on like this, and that one day we will see the Accrington Stanley Chiefs taking on the Tranmere Rams at the BlackRock Stadium, while Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announces to the heritage fans that their season ticket price has hiked up another £500.
What makes a football club you ask? Sadly, the answer these days is bound up in how much a football club makes.
[See also: David Peace’s footballing saints]
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