In contrast, none of his colleagues and co-conspirators spoke a word: not to the news media, not to the fans, not even to him Father of his children. Andrea Agnelli, president of Juventus, has never before hesitated to voice some of his hard-hitting ideas about improving football; Now that he had settled on one, he was not so ready to defend it.
John Henry, Liverpool’s lead boss, never hid his belief that football needed to find ways to curb his spending, but this time he refused to make his case public, though he did Apologize Wednesday morning. Nor was the Russian plutocrat or deputy prime minister or activist investor of the Gulf State or the owner of Size of a farm in Los Angeles.
There was no attempt to sell the idea, no attempt to underline the benefits as they saw them. A high-profile public relations firm in London was hired to handle the launch, and yet as criticism became more volatile and more strident and more brutal, there was no backlash, and more favorable narrative. No attempt was made to shape it.
All the work he had done, for all the millions he had spent, for all the legal documents he had filed, nothing about the project seemed complete. The architects also could not explain how to prepare a statement to be published by their club to explain to their owner why they had joined the breakaway league. All this, somehow, was ignorant: there was A cobbled-together website, An indifferent logo and an American banker, but no broadcaster, no suite of sponsors and, ultimately, no commitment to see it through.
This is hardly a prophetic feature for patrons of institutions, although they are run like businesses and are regarded as entertainment complexes, also cultural and social touchstones. If they were disinterested with their own very cherished ideas, imagine how worrying it would have been if they had not been in charge of things that were not in their hearts.
And yet, throughout this, sorry mess, there is something deeply encouraging for football. From the point of view that the disparity that the Super League should have addressed, this group of owners needs to give them what they want, to meet their growing demands.
