“Anarchy at Old Trafford”, headlined the Daily Mail Sports this Monday, May 3 in the morning. “Fans invade Old Trafford pitch”, the stadium “Under siege”, related for his part the Times.
Sunday May 2, a few hundred supporters have invaded the lawn of the Old Trafford, in Manchester, resulting in the postponement to an unknown date of the Premier League meeting between Manchester United and Liverpool. For some equipped with smoke, when other fans invaded the streets of the city, the supporters wanted to express their opposition to Avram and Joel Glazer, American owners of the club, and son of Malcolm Glazer who had bought the club in 2005 (it is died in 2014).
BREAKING: Angry Manchester United fans are staging a protest against the club’s owners after getting inside their Old Trafford stadium.
Read more: https://t.co/UlMC47LNkj pic.twitter.com/dDtHI04cGa
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 2, 2021
“You can buy our club, but you cannot buy our heart and soul”, summed up a banner waved by fans, decked out in yellow and green scarves. In recent years, these colors (the first worn by Mancunian players when the club was founded, Editor’s note) have been worn by dissident supporters in the stands. They symbolize mistrust of owners, who have never been popular at Old Trafford.
A large-scale protest is currently underway at Old Trafford #MUFC pic.twitter.com/fWyBsawc1K
— BBC RM Sport (@BBCRMsport) May 2, 2021
Because if the opposition between the American owners and the supporters does not date from yesterday, it was revived by the aborted Super League project (league closed to 15 clubs to compete with the Champions League, with only the European elite), in which the Red Devils were involved, and which would have distorted English football.
If these images are reminiscent of those of the invasion of the La Commanderie training center in Marseille last February by some three hundred supporters, what is happening in England seems of a different order. It was already the English who had caused the abandonment of the Super League, dragging in their wake the Italian clubs then Real Madrid in particular, and they are also the ones who continue to beat the iron, to keep the “soul” of their sport.
Decryption of this unique movement in Europe.
Read also: INTERVIEW. Former Manchester United, Louis Saha understood the anger of the supporters
1. Why did Manchester fans invade the pitch?
“There are two essential aspects, on the one hand the old protest of Manchester United supporters against the American owners of their club, explains sociologist Nicolas Hourcade. It dates from the takeover of the club by the Glazers in 2005. Many supporters suspect their club leaders to be more concerned about the financial profitability and development of the MU brand than about sports performance or the local community. “
In 2005, dissident supporters even created their own club: FC United of Manchester. Manchester United is therefore not a place chosen at random for this challenge. “Others continued to follow MU, using the yellow and green colors of the club that gave birth to Manchester United, continues the specialist in football supporters. These colors, which we found in the demonstrations on Sunday, are a way for the supporters to show their support for the club and their opposition to the leaders. “
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English supporters in Manchester on May 2, 2021 © PHIL NOBLE / REUTERS
“The second element is the Super League, completes Nicolas Hourcade. In the eyes of protest supporters, Mancunian leaders have crossed an intolerable red line by taking part in this project. This reactivated the mobilization and gave it even more scope. The supporters now have the support of former players and leaders, political actors, whom they did not have so clearly before. “
2. Are the scars of the Super League project still very present?
“The feeling of betrayal was stronger in England than elsewhere, underlines Ronan Evain, Managing Director of Football Supporters Europe. In Liverpool, for example, we put a lot of emphasis on the workers’ identity… incompatible with this project! “
The Super League project involved six English clubs: Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal Tottenham, three Italians, and three Spaniards. It is therefore England which was most entangled in the project, which explains why the current dispute is mainly happening there.
“Behind this occupation of the MU stadium, there is a message from the supporters towards the owners of the big clubs saying in substance: ‘you tried to transform the spectacle of football with the Super League, but this spectacle cannot be done. without us, the supporters, illustrates Nicolas Hourcade. If you want to change our sport, we can prevent it from happening ”.
3. Why does this dispute seem more important in England?
Less than 48 hours after the announcement of the plan of the “Twelve bastards”, code name in England for the “traitors” who took part in the Super League project, Chelsea fans took to the streets to protest, before a Blues game against Brighton. Second symbol of this protest Sunday, May 2, with the invasion of the lawn by the 200 supporters of Manchester United. Elsewhere, in Italy or Spain, the opposition seems much weaker.
“In England, the Super League was the last straw: the financialization, the commodification of English football have been taken to the extreme for twenty years. VS has been very expensive to be a supporter in England, the public freedoms of supporters are severely repressed, and all these battles were lost by the English supporters. L he last fight was the Super League, that’s why the protest takes longer there “, avance ronan evain.
“In all European countries, there has been strong opposition from supporters to the Super League, nuance Nicolas Hourcade. What is specific to England is the visibility and scale of the actions. In England, many fan associations were already strongly mobilized against the financial logic of club owners. There is also a very strong attachment to the local championship, to the history of English football: this sport is an important marker of national identity. Football is a national and political subject there. “
4. Are there possible comparisons in other countries, in France in particular?
“We see it in Nantes, Bordeaux, or in a positive way in Paris with the supporters who accompany their players … Today it becomes the only means of expression that remains to us, without the stadiums”, regrets Ronan Evain.
In Bordeaux, the Girondins were recently released by King Street, the club’s sole owner for a year. “In Marseille, Nantes or Bordeaux, supporters recently demonstrated against the owners of their club, in different forms, ranging from peaceful demonstrations to violent abuses, resumes Nicolas Hourcade, in reference to the invasion of the Commanderie training center in Marseille. In Manchester against the Glazers, as in Bordeaux against the King Street shareholder, the reasons for the rebellion of the supporters are similar: they denounce the financial logic of the American owners. In these different cities, leaders who see the club as a business oppose supporters who position themselves as the guarantors of the club’s history and identity. “
5. Can this kind of dispute happen again?
UEFA’s forthcoming reforms, particularly around the Champions League, will continue to fuel the fan’s rumble. “The demonstrations will happen again, for sure, since the anger is deep among the English supporters and there have already been several mobilizations around the clubs involved in the Super League project, confirms Nicolas Hourcade. On the other hand, field invasions, it is much less certain that there will be new ones, because England remains traumatized by the tragedies linked to hooliganism in the 80s. The English media and sports and political leaders have stressed that they understood the demands of the supporters while insisting on the need not to exceed the limits in terms of safety. “
The disconnection of club leaders from their fans, the profitability demanded by the former, to the detriment of sport, are sources of anger which will persist. “A football club is a community, a territory, a socio-cultural project. This is what the English supporters are shouting: our football clubs are not simple cash machines ”, concludes Ronan Evain.
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