Muharemovic, Struijk and the Premier League’s Hunger Games — Square Ball 15/7/26

All Katniss aren't we?

Written by: Luke Brennan

I don’t tend to watch films. It’s not because I’m a socialite, too hung up on seeing the world and being the light in everyone’s life. It’s not because I’m chained to my desk, exasperated over writing one too many blogs. I’m not quite Michael Owen — I have seen some films — I just don’t tend to watch many.

But last week I sat down to watch The Hunger Games. If you don’t know, it’s a metaphor for socio-economic injustice and the treatment of soldiers in America. It’s aimed at teenagers, and involves the Big Bad sending a group of 24 young ‘uns into an arena to kill each other. About two hours into the film, the main character and eventual winner of the competition, Katniss Everdeen, forms an alliance with a younger girl named Rue. Rue dies, of course, wrenching the hearts of the nation and making everybody very sad. Katniss decides to show the oppressive system that she isn’t a heartless pawn in their game and buries little Rue in flowers, to tell the world that this little girl deserves a heartfelt and loving send off.

Hang on, hang on. Pause the telly. I’m thinking about Pascal Struijk. This is why I don’t watch films.

Struijk has left Leeds United after seven years in Beeston to rekindle his friendship with Georginio Rutter. The pair now live in Brighton, are presumably neighbours, and have successfully climbed seven spots in the Premier League table. Leeds shook Pascal’s hand, waved him goodbye and pocketed just under £20m from it. He’ll slip into Brighton’s rotational squad for Europe and become a bigger blip on the Netherlands team’s radar. That’s all fine, I suppose. As much as I might miss him and his beautiful haircut, it’s refreshing to experience a transfer not fuelled by hate and spite. I’ll leave Pascal Struijk to frolic on the beaches with the best of my luck, regardless of quite how pointless his endeavour may be.

This year, Brighton have qualified for the UEFA Conference League. This is an incredible achievement for a club invented in 2011. They’ve built a futuristic, data driven supercomputer that drops its claw grabber into the identical bucket of Toy Story aliens and picks out the best one. They’ve managed to make a business out of being just attractive enough to convince a stupid American to give them millions every summer for quite little work. Think of them as the OnlyFans model of the Premier League. You could look at this and say that I’m “jealous” of Brighton’s “success”, or that I “wish” Leeds could play in these “games”. You’d be perfectly correct. Anything I say or do in this moment may not be used against me when directly benefitting me in the future. Leeds are set to tickle their transfer record with Sassuolo’s Tarik Muharemovic, a centre-back I’ve never heard of but will undoubtedly be brilliant. This is not a democracy, I am an absolute hypocrite.

But as the club loses out on Struijk to the pull of beating AEK Larnaca on a Thursday night, and as Katniss covers Rue in daisies, I’m left wondering if there’s any point in it at all. See, the competition’s whole ethos is giving smaller European clubs the chance to compete with each other, and allow fans of these teams to win something meaningful within the tightening football monopoly. That’s the competition that was won last year by Crystal Palace, the year before by Chelsea and two years before that by West Ham. If the Conference League was built for minnows, I’m unsure exactly where billion pound BlueCo fall into that mix.

In reality, this is a problem with the irrational spending power of the Premier League. When Rayo Vallecano faced Crystal Palace in Leipzig for the Conference League final back in May, the Eagles had broken their transfer record twice in one January window. They brought in Ethan Ampadu’s Wales teammate Brennan Johnson for £35m, followed by Wolves’ Jorgen Strand Larsen for £48m. These two, alongside last summer’s signing Yemery Pino, amount to £113m. Rayo Vallecano’s total spending as a club ever lands around £105m. That’s with 101 years more to get it spent.

Okay, fine. I can see you rolling your eyes. Palace were part of a multiclub ownership model and were demoted to the Conference League as a result of Lyon qualifying for the Europa League. They shouldn’t have been there at all. Fine. Let’s look at Villa instead.

There is no taking away from the fact that Aston Villa are quite a big football club. They’re one of the biggest clubs in Birmingham, and once managed to hold Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds to a 1-1 draw after we’d let them score. Villa qualified for the Europa League due to the genius of gaffer Unai Emery, the man who’d conquered Europe previously with Sevilla and Villarreal. What Emery did at Villa, though, was unprecedented. The man was handed the scraps that the seagulls didn’t want, spending only £340m on 21 signings since 2022. In that time, he took Villa to the Champions League spots, making it to the quarter-finals of the competition before losing to the eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain.

The season after, they dropped to the Europa League — the competition built fifty years prior to the Conference League to give smaller European clubs the chance to compete with each other, and allow fans of these teams to win something meaningful within the tightening football monopoly — and made it to the final. Here, they faced Freiburg and promptly demolished them. The score was 3-0 before the 60th minute and Villa claimed their first trophy in over thirty years. That being said, Freiburg’s highest transfer fee paid in their history is around £10m, which is only a fraction more than Emi Martinez is paid per year. I’m not saying that Villa should be a lowly little club from the Midlands, but perhaps Rue should’ve never been with the big kids in the first place.

That’s where Brighton come into it. That is not a big football club. That isn’t even really a town. I don’t know if Brighton is a city or a town. Maybe it’s just a beach. Everyone says that Brighton are really well run, but I’m not sure I believe it. They’re too good to be true. Brighton are a CIA plant designed to convince me not to start my cocaine vape business plan. If the government can make hipsters mainstream, I’m out of a job and a handsome centre-back. Regardless, Brighton will head into the upcoming season with the realistic goal of winning a European competition. They’re a small club, probably smaller than the teams they’ll face in the latter parts of the competition, yet will undoubtedly be the financial heavyweights. They’ll win it, score some nice goals and have a nice time. But I can’t ignore the fact that they’ll be battering teams they have no right to play anyway. Premier League resources are not the level of the Conference League and render the whole affair pointless. Until Leeds qualify, obviously.

When Palace beat Rayo and Villa beat Freiburg, those fans celebrated like their team had just won a European trophy. So, when Brighton sign Struijk and Leeds bring in Muharemovic, I can’t help but wonder if the future is really worth it. Katniss tucked Rue away to rest, and neither of those poor children should’ve been there. Rue was killed by someone much bigger, stronger and well versed. By a man who was crafted with the sole intention of murder, and who had no harm in utilising this power when needed. Rue should’ve been fighting someone her own size, in her own little game. If only there was a special place for her to play.