by Evan Gough
Earlier this week, the football world was shook. 6 of the most elite teams in England, and 6 other European giants entered into a 12 team league called, The European Super League. The villainous power-hungry sharks wished to dismantle from UEFA in order to form their own league, with their own rules.
This was not taken lightly by the football community, more specifically the fans. With hearing about the constraints that UEFA was firing back at the founders of the ESL, it cause the earth to shake, and the pyramid structure of the sport to collapse. With these counters from UEFA, players of the teams who were apart of the 12 ESL teams were told they cannot play any football in the National level.
What that means is that players like Ronaldo cannot ever play for Portugal
again, and the Messi fans of the world would never see him wear an Argentina
shirt ever again. Not only on the National level were these players restricted,
but also domestic leagues and UEFA competitions: the Premier League, Champions
League, Europa League, Spanish First Division, etc.
There was a
glimpse of panic from clubs, players and fans as to seeing the collapse of
their beautiful game, football. Many people were questioning if 2015 is to be
Chelsea’s last year to win the premier league, is Real Madrid’s last chance to
win the CL this season, will Barcelona ever win the LaLiga again? Many of the
top teams in Europe were leaving.
It was then
on 4/20, when Chelsea was to face Brighton in a Premier League match, that
there were huge protests outside of Stamford Bridge. Fans not allowing the
buses to enter, fans chanting against the ESL and asking the owner, Roman
Abramovich to do the right thing. It was that same day, that same moment, when
news came out that Chelsea were the first team to withdrawal from the ESL. This
created an uproar during the protests, and thus created a domino effect for the
other teams to leave the ESL.
Within 48
hours, the ESL came and went, but it was because of the fans who came together
nation-wide to take a stand against the greedy chairmen of the ESL. It was
because of the fans who stood up against the threats to their beautiful game
that the ESL collapsed. It was because of Chelsea, that other teams followed
their initiative.
The Premier
League is back, the Champions League is back, and more importantly football is
back.
