
This year has been defined, naturally, by the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our globe. The same can be said of football. Fans are barred from stadiums and many places of congregation, with authorities hedging their bets on public health over the cries for “freedom”. Clubs, specifically of smaller stature, are hemorrhaging money without them. In recent weeks, the reaction to this economic strain has become crystal clear: top Premier League clubs are using a time of crisis to consolidate their power and wealth. When one adopts an analytical approach to understanding this moment, we can see the coronavirus not as a crisis-creating event, but one which exacerbates preexisting crises in our system.
This crisis has illuminated the relationship between people and systems. Protests across the United States and the world showcased how police brutality is inexorably tied to systemic racial injustice. The economic system has proven in countries like Britain and the U.S. that its response to a catastrophic pandemic is to enrich its billionaires and deprive the working class of proper financial and medical treatment. Football is closely related to both of these cases, and recent reports about a restructuring of the English football pyramid similarly offer a glimpse at how a discussion of any subject is necessarily a discussion about people.
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In 1990, at the turn of the decade, two events shaped the course of economic development in Europe.