A consortium backed by Jeff Bezos buying a stake in Liverpool is a reminder that football is going to money men who don’t understand fans…
BILLIONAIRE owners sell some of someone else’s heart to another set of billionaires so that more billionaires can make more money from someone else’s heart.
The news of a new consortium now holding a stake in Liverpool Football Club rather washed over me. The process of people who are either largely or totally ignorant of why we love the game in the first place taking more and more of it has become so normalised that any argument to the contrary seems almost futile.
It’s like complaining about a blocked toilet on the Titanic. What’s the point now?
It was going this way long before Jeff Bezos and his mates saw an investment opportunity in an enclave in L4. FSG, liberal though they may be, were always going to share their cake at some point, and it seems like they’re not too fussy as to who has the other spoon.
Largely benign owners maybe, but FSG have previously supported huge ticket-price hikes and the promotion of a European Super League in the guise of ‘being competitive’.
They’re keen to ‘monetise the asset’ to the nth degree, and seemed surprised and unprepared at the pushback it faces. It seems to me that the only real interest they have in the fans has been by using images of us singing and swaying to emphasise the brand.
Even when Spirit Of Shankly and other bodies have voiced opposition to this and other unpleasant ventures, it hasn’t stopped them trying to find new ways to squeeze us a little more. And that will continue. It’s what venture capitalists do, and they’ve paid to have the box seat.
“Your revolution is over, Mr Lebowski. The bums lost.”
The flavour of owner no longer matters. People will justify it all the same. There’s a man in the consortium criticised heavily for his excessive labour practices to the extent people fell ill, and for marginalising smaller businesses via predatory market pricing.
The same man openly supports the most horrific of all U.S. presidents whose views go against everything this club stands for but, hey, he hasn’t executed anyone, right? We win, yeah?
Is that a false equivalence? I’m not sure. I’ve already been told: “Yeah, but you buy Amazon products.” Yes, I do, but for reasons of expediency rather than brand loyalty, but it does make me part of the problem. It’s difficult not to be, as this is the world now.
It’s just that I’d rather it didn’t enter into something as poetic and important as my football club. At least give me that. Give me time away from the perpetual pillaging of something I love and live by.
The fight between the soul and the bottom line. Liverpool to me is a club representing my home city and doing things differently, singing through adversity, standing up for the few, going to places any other homogeneous support won’t touch, and our unique tradition.
It’s applauding the opposing goalkeeper when he approaches The Kop (we used to do that), the Sing Fong, yes – the Sing Fong! – the smell of the ground, the laconic voice of George Sephton, the badge, the badge, the badge. Things that can’t be reached by market forces.
But the bottom line will always win out. The people of no interest or understanding of the above and the very core that it presents in us would be Bill Shankly’s boss today. Jurgen Klopp’s line manager. People who have never been to a football match in jeans and they can misuse their privilege any way they want.
And it’s made worse by their genuine ignorance of this viewpoint. It’s doubtful they’d recognise the argument.
Last month, the President of the USA intervened in a football decision, and the game’s supreme government body was fine with it. Once that blew over, they announced plans to sell off the most prestigious tournament in world football to the highest bidder, because they can and they’ve always believed they can due to the power and influence investment brings.
It’s become a right and, again, they wouldn’t understand a counter-argument.
This is not to say that Bezos is about to nudge John Henry to one side and treat Liverpool Football Club employees to the draconian work conditions for which he’s been criticised before. He won’t be a board member. Yet.
But why would you spend that amount of money if you didn’t want some say in how things could be? It’s another example of the decision-makers being those who understand the game the least, who can trample over what’s important to us. People who can’t begin to have the level of buy-in we do.
I expect these views will be shouted down by a chorus of ‘yeah, but money’, but it’s just another step towards what is and what should never be. Of just being another club run the same way as everyone else, with all nuance removed. Anything unique confined to the past when we were nice to opposition goalkeepers.
I don’t know if I can sing for that.
Actually, I do. Because I’m weak and I’ll always have my version of Liverpool to support, even though it directly contradicts the evidence of my own eyes. They can’t touch that.
I’ll still support mine. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t.
