Why Boris Johnson is dropping everything for football

LONDON — Boris Johnson missed the first five government coordination meetings about the emerging coronavirus pandemic — but the British prime minister was on top of the crisis in European football in less than 24 hours. 

Between the initial top-level Cobra meeting on COVID-19 in January 2020 and his eventual presence at the fifth such event in March, Johnson reshuffled his Cabinet and spent the best part of two weeks on holiday. But after news on a proposed European Super League broke, the PM put out a statement and convened talks with top stakeholders within hours.

“If only the government’s response to the pandemic had been as fast as its response to the ‘football crisis’ we might all be in a very different position,” said Kit Yates, an adviser to the independent SAGE group that rivals the official government advisory panel on the pandemic. Yates noted that there was “no political capital to be made” at the start of the pandemic.

Gabriel Scally, a professor from the Royal Society of Medicine and another member of the group, agreed: “It is great to see the prime minister making a rapid intervention on an international issue of great concern. What a contrast with last year when he was repeatedly absent from the field of play when the COVID-19 crisis was kicking off.”

Indeed, there are numerous examples that illustrate how the European Super League plan has seized the attention of Westminster in a way more life-or-death issues have not. The explanation comes down to simple politics: politicians care about voters, and voters — including a large chunk of the core Red Wall group the two main parties are fighting over — care about football.

Closed league

One of the objections from fans is that the proposed new league guarantees places for 15 core clubs who cannot be relegated. Although five other clubs can enter the league each year on merit, that means second-tier teams have less chance of being in the big time — and existing competitions such as the Champions League and Premier League will suffer.

“The government has quickly picked up, and acted on, the sense of injustice that surrounds these [Super League] proposals,” said Andrew Forsey, national director of the Feeding Britain campaign. But he added: “Many of the families who view the proposals as unjust are struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills. They, like us, will expect ministers to show a similar sense of urgency to help them feed their children, earn a decent living, and keep a roof over their head as we begin to emerge from the pandemic.”

Indeed, Johnson dug his heels in for weeks during the coronavirus lockdowns to avoid funding meals for poor school children, before eventually having to U-turn. The campaign to feed children was spearheaded by the footballer Marcus Rashford, who plays for Manchester United, one of the clubs to have signed up for the Super League.

There are other examples of Johnson’s apparent lack of urgency on big ticket issues. Just this month the prime minister took a week to comment in public on the violence that broke out in Northern Ireland — in part due to the Brexit deal he agreed. There has been no emergency summit with the Republic of Ireland to resolve tensions. 

But Johnson on Tuesday convened emergency talks with football governing bodies, including the Football Association, Premier League and groups representing fans. “While, as a football fan, I admire the swift response of the prime minister to the European Super League news, I would be in much greater admiration if he increased his level of engagement on the post-Brexit situation in Northern Ireland,” said Neale Richmond, a Fine Gael parliamentarian in Ireland.

Meanwhile, ministers have already set out a list of options to block the Super League plan and used tough language to vow a crackdown if the sport’s governing bodies are unable to act. A long-promised review on fans’ involvement in football was suddenly launched the day after the scandal broke.

One senior Conservative MP said it was “ridiculous they can react to something like that so fast” but take a slower approach on more important issues.

The people’s game

But Johnson is far from alone in Westminster — or indeed among politicians across Europe. Labour leader Keir Starmer is holding his own emergency summit with fan groups and shadow ministers, who have been issuing their own urgent war cries against the Super League this week. MPs quickly put together letters urging teams to back down from the proposals. 

Conservatives who have spent their careers fighting against government regulation are throwing their ideologies to the wind in a bid to save existing football competitions. “Football goes beyond the typical ideological arguments people often make,” one government official explained, before insisting that state interventions would increase market competition in football.

Early polling suggests that politicians of all stripes who have jumped on the issue may be on to a good thing, if they don’t disappoint fans. Football has huge cut-through with voters and there is a clear consensus among the public on the issue. Polling by YouGov found a massive 79 percent of football fans oppose the creation of the Super League, while almost three-quarters want to see club owners punished if they sign up. 

“With football so ingrained in British culture and with passions running so high, no politician wants to look out of touch or like they’re doing anything to disrespect something that means so much to so many people,” explained Patrick English, political research manager at YouGov. “So it’s probably no surprise that we see politicians fall over themselves trying to look like they know their claret and blue from their claret and blue” — a reference to the Aston Villa and West Ham football strips, which former PM David Cameron famously mixed up.

It’s also about the particular voters in question. Both of the main political parties are desperate to appeal to the so-called Red Wall of northern and Midlands seats that the Conservatives snatched from Labour at the 2019 election — voters to whom hollowed-out local sports teams are big parts of their communities.

Will Tanner, director of the right-leaning Onward think tank, said the Super League proposal “crystalizes the key political battleground” in politics at the moment, about “place and belonging” and the feeling that community assets have been degraded. 

“In those types of places, the types of places that are most politically important at the moment, these types of institutions, sports clubs and other community institutions, are vitally important,” Tanner said. “So of course it’s going to assume a greater resonance with this government, and indeed with this Labour Party as well.”

Focus grouping by Onward in Grimsby on the east coast of England around a year ago found the one thing people wanted to improve the quality of the place was to move the football club back to the town center, after it was relocated miles away. It’s this sentiment politicians want to tap into as part of the so-called “levelling up” agenda — and the Super League has handed them the perfect chance.

Tanner argued the urgency with which Johnson has grasped the scandal showed the Conservatives understand their new base, rather than a desperate bid to move with the wind. “The speed of the government’s response is testament to the fact that this has been baked into the new Conservatism, rather than a panic mode, or any type of knee jerk response,” he said.