Big six cartel nearly killed game – Kinnear - Yorkshire Post 23/3/22

LEEDS UNITED managing director Angus Kinnear says that he and fellow Premier League executives had to act to block last year’s proposed European Super League to stop domestic football from dying ‘on their watch’.

By Leon Wobschall

When the top-flight’s ‘big six’ signed up to sell the soul of English football on the altar of hard cash and become members of the ESL last April, Kinnear admits he felt compelled not just to stand up for the interests of Leeds in his opposition, but all those not involved in that controversial cabal.

A number of senior figures in football, including Kinnear, were interviewed in a Sky documentary entitled: Super Greed: The Fight For Football which aired this week.

It provided a forensic account of how plans to launch the ESL failed after briefly threatening to wreck the football pyramid.

It remains to be seen if the concept resurfaces in a different form in years to come, as many suspect. But rest assured that clubs and fans will be prepared if there is a next time.

Kinnear commented: “Despite the fact that we are ultimately only faceless administrators who should play no real meaningful part in the game, we are actually pretty much to a man, all football fans.

“It was almost like that if we didn’t act, then the game might die on our watch.

“This is as much about players dreams as it is about fans’ dreams. Our captain when he was playing in the Championship, Liam Cooper, was known as ‘League One Liam’ because nobody thought he was good enough to play in the Championship.

“A year and a half later, he’s captained a team who have won the Championship by 10 points and he’s now playing in the Premier League.

“Their dreams are tied to this issue as much as anybody else’s. This actually struck at the heart of why they play the game.”

In the documentary, Kinnear revealed that he found out about plans for six Premier League clubs – Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool – to break away from the competition from West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady, with his outrage being immediate at what he labelled as an act of ‘industrial espionage.’

He continued: “There was a feeling of personal betrayal. These were people who we work alongside day in, day out and we are ultimately shareholders of the Premier League.

“If it had been in any other business, it would have been an act of industrial espionage. It was creating a cartel. It was having negotiations in a clandestine fashion and that was something that the world of football found unpalatable.

“I think people viewed this as an attack on the game, an attack on our supporters and an attack on their hopes and dreams. It struck at the very essence of why our game is special and why a football pyramid is special.

“That pyramid is the heart of English football. It means that every city, community and town has the ability to play at the highest level.”

The day after the ESL bombshell shook European football to its foundations, Leeds played Liverpool in a fixture at Elland Road on a night remembered for fervent protests by two sets of supporters united in their anger at the developments.

Covid restrictions did not prevent sections of two of the most passionate fanbases in England from congregating and raucously telling the ESL overlords where their new project should go in no uncertain terms.

Several hundred turned up outside the ground beforehand to vent their fury, while an aeroplane with a ‘Say No to Super League’ banner flew over the stadium.

It was the beginning of the end; a precursor to a wider nationwide protest which eventually downed the project with fraught and panicking executives forced to listen to supporters and do a U-turn.

Ahead of the game, Leeds players made their point by warming up in T-shirts which stated: ‘Champions League, Earn it. Football is for the fans.’

After the match, Liverpool captain, Leeds-born James Milner, became the first player to publicly voice his displeasure at the concept, which the hierarchy of his own club had signed up to.

“My personal opinion is I don’t like it and hopefully it doesn’t happen”, said the straight-talking Yorkshireman.

On the importance of that evening in front of millions watching around not just England but across Europe, Kinnear added: “The way I view the Super League is that it would have been catastrophic for Leeds United.

Particularly because we’d worked so hard to get ourselves back to having a seat at the top table of domestic football and that is why the Liverpool match was so relevant.

In the Super League, Liverpool would have had to not worry about qualification for Europe, which is something that drives all of us.

And it would have been compounded by the fact that the money that they made from that would have meant that they would have just been able to outgun us to such a significant degree that there would never probably be a competitive match between Liverpool and Leeds United again.

“Our responsibility is bigger than football. We have the hopes and dreams of a whole city resting on our shoulders.”