The European Super League Is Inevitable and Progressive

The decision of half a dozen top British football clubs to join with other top clubs across Europe to form a European Super League was inevitable, and is progressive.  Its been on the cards for years.  What it shows is that irrespective of Brexit, Britain is part of Europe, its future is determined by, and tied to that of Europe, and sooner or later, we will have to recognise that, and do the obvious thing of re-joining the EU.  The price paid for Brexit will be all of the chaos and suffering of the intervening period, plus the fact that Britain will have to re-join on worse terms than it left.

The fact that a load of very elderly, Tory reactionaries voted for Brexit in 2016, didn't change the underlying reality.  Britain is a part of Europe, geographically, economically, and culturally.  Geographically can't be argued with, especially given the way developments in transport and communications have made the existence of the Channel an irrelevance, especially following the building of the Tunnel.  Economically, its also indisputable, because the vast majority of Britain's trade occurs with the EU, and the interlinking of British capital with European capital had gone on for more than a century, even before Britain joined the EEC in 1983.  Culturally, its also undeniable, too, given our shared history, and the fact that we play the same games such as rugby and football, and so on.

It also didn't change the reality that led to Britain joining the EEC in 1983, in the first place.  That is that the normal functioning of capitalism led to increasing concentration and centralisation of capital.  It means that for any capital to operate efficiently, it has to do so on an increasingly large scale, it has to engage in an increased social division of labour - of which the introduction of Just In Time systems are a manifestation - and to make such ever larger scale production worthwhile, it must be able to sell more or less homogeneous products, into very large single markets, in which the same standards and regulations apply to all producers.

For the duration of the 19th century, when Britain continued to enjoy its first mover advantage of having undertaken its industrial revolution decades before others, and having its protected colonial markets to sell into, it could avoid that inevitable logic that would impose itself on the relatively small British economy.  Indeed, the other European economies like France, Germany, and Italy coming later to the party, did have that reality imposed on them from the start.  Its why first France under Napoleon, and then Germany under the Kaiser and Hitler attempted to forge a single European market and state.  When the US industrialised, in the second half of the 19th century, that pressure on European states intensified considerably.  Today, its not just a huge US economy, but also a huge Chinese economy, closely tied to a large Japanese and Asian economies that they have to compete with.

So, many decades ago, capital itself became multinational, and its clearest manifestation after WWII, was the multinational corporation.  The truth is that football, like many other sports, is now big business.  A large part of the revenues that come into the coffers of these clubs, and to the associations to which they belong comes from fees paid by large media corporations.  Those revenues swamp the money clubs take at the gates.  Satellite TV, means that around 100 million Chinese regularly watch Manchester United, and pay a subscription to do so.

That its taken this long for football to also catch up, and become multinational is what should be surprising.  If you are one of those hundreds of millions of Man Utd fans across the globe paying to see them play, do you really want to pay to see them play Stoke or Port Vale, or do you really want to see them regularly playing other top teams like Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid?  The answer is obvious, and the same applies to all these other top clubs across Europe.  The British government in order to appease Brexit reactionaries, as well as the bosses of the clubs in the lower ranks of British football, who will lose out when the funding provided by the revenues of the top clubs stops, or is significantly reduced, might try to prevent the top clubs joining.  That would be in line with its other reactionary and authoritarian moves of late.  But, it will not prevent clubs in Europe going ahead, and that will just mean that as with other aspects of Brexit, as Britain is cut adrift, it will simply accelerate the decline of British football.   The top clubs will lack the regular competition with other top clubs, meaning they can coast and still end up in the higher ranks of British football, whilst the best players will quickly move to the clubs in the European Super League.

Nor is the fact that the clubs are doing this for their own profits a reason to oppose it.  That is the way the whole of capitalism operates, after all.  And, the truth is that the current set up simply imposes the kind of protectionism and monopolies that Brexit itself seeks to restore, but which will be inevitably damaging.  A lot has been made of the fact that there will be no relegation from this new league, but that doesn't mean that those in it will not compete intensely to be at its top rather than its bottom, because not only prestige goes with that, but also a huge variation in revenues.  Moreover, the creation of this Super League, is likely to be just the start, with European Clubs forming other divisions, in the same way that associations in the various countries have done.  Rather than lessening competition, it will massively intensify it.

The truth is, of course, that the top clubs in British football already have no real chance of relegation, because they already have the top players, top facilities for training, not to mention the financial resources to ensure they outcompete other British clubs, the vast majority of which are broke, and only hang on because of the loyalty of their fans, and the financial support provided to them, much of which itself comes from the revenues of the top clubs, and from TV deals, which are themselves determined by the performance of the top clubs.  When they have to compete with top European clubs every week, they will have to up their game considerably. 

Already, reality is imposing itself irrespective of the Brexit vote.  Whether its the collapse in British exports due to Brexit, the sharp rise in prices due to Brexit, the problems caused with the Irish border due to Brexit, and return of violence flowing from it, or the increasing break-up of Britain, due to Brexit, the result is already being the disaster that was predicted, and this is just the start.  The fact is that at the molecular level, British capital remains inextricably linked to the EU, and those links are what will destroy Brexit itself, one way or another.