War In Ukraine & A Very Political Cup Final Between Chelsea And Liverpool
Liverpool and Chelsea supporters have long had ideological differences. The war in Ukraine will likely ignite these tensions.
Before a single drop of digital ink is shared, I’ll have to preface this entire thing by talking about money in sports, and how it makes a hypocrite out of all of us. It’s ubiquitous and inescapable. In any elite league, in any elite sport, no matter how smart you are—no matter how hard you Moneyball—you can’t escape the financial reality that cash is king. The wealthiest teams can afford to make mistakes. The wealthiest teams will rise to the top, given a long enough time scale.
Liverpool is, by any metric, a very wealthy club. Jokes and banter about net spend aside, we as Liverpool fans are very lucky to have owners that invest vast sums of money into the club.
As Liverpool supporters, we have to look in the mirror on this one. Because the vast majority of Liverpool supporters are of the leftist or socialist persuasion, and are therefore likely to believe that billionaires, as a general rule, shouldn’t exist. And we are, of course, owned by a billionaire, John Henry.
John Henry is, as billionaires go, fine. Not overtly evil. He almost certainly had to do horrible things to accumulate such absurd wealth, but as things go, pretty standard-issue billionaire stuff.
So we have the following arrangement: Henry and FSG do right by Liverpool, and Liverpool supporters live with that cogitative dissonance.
Some billionaire owners are not so “innocent,” and of all the horrible people owning football clubs, both chronologically and objectively, Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich is top of that list.
Abramovich came into our lives in 2003 when he bought Chelsea Football Club. He showed us all—including future football club owners in Saudi Arabia and the UAE—how to invest massively into a club to gain success on and off the pitch. He showed the world the prestige that could be won and how a wee bit of sportswashing could do a oligarch good, no matter how bloody his past.
In short, there are billionaires and then there are billionaires who are effectively backed by a human rights abusing regime. Or in Abramovich’s case, someone who has been intimately involved in backing a human rights abusing regime, having been directly involved with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. He’s also been actively involved in the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands.
There’s standard issue billionaire evil. Then there’s Abramovich.
With the emergence of Manchester City (and soon Newcastle, no doubt), and taking Chelsea’s financial doping idea to the extreme, it’s almost easy to forget the role Abramovich and Chelsea played in the exacerbation of football inflation over the last 20 years.
From a purely football perspective, this financial doping nearly ruined Liverpool as they struggled to catch up. Instead, they merely spent a few years in the football wilderness, as other big clubs—Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, and even Everton—are currently struggling with the same.
Now, none of these “big clubs,” Liverpool included, are entitled success. But equally, their fame and fortunes were earned, organically, through successes and failures over decades.
The knock-on effect further down the pyramid is incalculable. How many teams have been relegated—or worse—because of Chelsea and Manchester City’s success?
At the best of times, Liverpool’s socialist and independent and Chelsea’s Tory, nationalist, and royalist philosophies create an especially bitter clash for clubs without an especially historical rivalry. I, for one, was looking forward to the fume when Liverpool supporters booed “God Save the Queen,” especially with said queen not doing so great.
Indeed, Liverpool supporters haven’t needed to dip a toe into the “owned by a horrible Russian oligarch” pool to hate on Chelsea and their supporters.
That is likely to change tomorrow due to the war in Ukraine. There is already tension, with the EFL reportedly interested in showing some sign of solidarity with Ukraine, a gesture that Liverpool fans will undoubtedly support, and some Chelsea fans will not.
Chelsea’s owner will no doubt do everything in his considerable power to prevent anything too overt from the EFL. And it is incumbent on Liverpool supporters to make sure that whatever weak message the EFL comes up with is amplified as loud and aggressively as possible.
This post is obviously too political for some. As if playing the national anthem before a game isn’t political. Or having a team owned (or effectively owned) by a nation-state isn’t political.
We cannot keep sports apolitical if politics and political figures continue interfering with sports. If politicians, oligarchs, and nation-states continue coopting sports to suit their purposes, than so must we.
The world will be watching Liverpool—and its supporters—tomorrow, just as surely as they’re watching, with horror, the unfolding events in Ukraine. Let’s continue being on the right side of history, and that includes standing up to Putin, Abramovich, and their ilk.
There is a football match tomorrow, but it feels much bigger than just a cup final. It’s a proxy war in a larger ideological struggle. Good vs. Evil. Law vs. Lawlessness. Democracy vs. Oligarchy and Dictatorship.
Whose side are you on?
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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