Arsene Wenger once said in a press conference, several years before he was forced to step down, “you’ll miss me when I’m gone.” He was prophetic with this statement. Something else he was right about, years ahead of his time- the rise of the European Super League.
Check out what the former manager of Arsenal, for 22 years, said 12 years ago, and again three years ago:
Wenger in 2009: ‘Maybe in 10 years, you will have a European league…the money that will be coming in from the Champions League will not be enough for some clubs’
Wenger in 2018: ‘It is inevitable…to share money between the big clubs and the small clubs will become a problem’ pic.twitter.com/agIPGfOH86
— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 19, 2021
Wow! Arstradamus Wenger! The news of the ESL formation is almost universally hated by supporters and pundits alike. It’s very difficult to get the football community, in general, to almost all agree on anything, but the backlash for this certainly comes close.
It’s not the sky is falling paranoia to say that if this goes through, and the Premier League stands their ground against the ESL, that we’ll have the end of football as we know it. And that’s a horrendous thing.
And Wenger saw it all coming, listen to what he said here:
https://twitter.com/MessiMX10i/status/1383920927730135045
What’s even crazier is that the club the Frenchman built up, Arsenal is in the ESL, despite the shambolic state they’re currently in. Twitter today was filled with jokes about the Gunners, as well as their North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur being the runt of the Super League litter.
Football fans on social media were making all kinds of jokes at Arsenal’s expense, as it is widely believed they’re going to get absolutely whomped in the Super League.
Arsenal accepting Super league money while getting slapped 5-1,6-0 and 4-0 every week by Bayern, Madrid and Barça pic.twitter.com/fzLAAbQqUZ
— D (@EideballHater99) April 18, 2021
I think it’s safe to say a lot of Arsenal fans also miss Wenger now that he’s been gone. Since he stepped down, the club has just seen their standards continuously redefined downward.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.