How Mary Earps broke football: an interim blast
Men’s football is increasingly soulless, and a lot closer to implosion than we realise. Women’s football could be collateral damage — or it might just save the sport
I hope readers will forgive the unscheduled update: there is just so much to blast about.
I am writing, in despair, as an extraordinary World Cup in women’s football is — as usual — being overshadowed by the ghoulish antics of the vile and venal men who control the people’s game.
But the gender politics around Spain’s victory have also overshadowed the industrial struggle which followed England’s campaign, as fans of goalkeeper Mary Earps discovered they were unable to purchase a replica of the jersey Earps wore throughout the tournament.
The argument of Nike, which manufactures the kits for England’s national teams, was that it was not commercially viable to produce and distribute an Earps jersey. It is a familiar claim to authority, based on knowledge of market conditions that the individual consumer cannot possess. But fans, unlike Nike, do not see football as equivalent to any other industry.
We are happy to literally pay for football goods like replica shirts — or match tickets, TV subscriptions, sticker albums, souvenir scarves, etc. — because we know there are countless people involved in delivering this stuff, each needing to make a living. But fans are custodians, not customers. Companies like Nike are very much seen as the junior partner in this transaction: the opportunity to profit from football depends on their ability to lubricate our experience of a sport which ultimately belongs to the fans.
For too long, this implicit deal has been left unarticulated. Football has been privatised piece-by-piece, with its governance focused overwhelmingly on commercial considerations. But the drama around the Earps jersey brings this tension to the fore — we can hope that it signals a growing resistance to the soullessness of contemporary football.
Nike, understandably, took the brunt of complaints. But we should be absolutely clear about where the fault lies: the FA. The reality is that Nike did not produce an Earps jersey because the FA did not ask them to. It was the FA, not Nike itself (with almost $50 billion in revenue last year) that was most worried about Nike’s bottom line, because this affects how much the FA would receive in royalties from the manufacturer.
It is okay for Nike to focus on its profitability, for the most part. You would hope that they would see developing demand for products related to women’s football as part of an enlightened, long-term business strategy; but if they don’t, someone else will probably fill the gap.
In contrast, it is not okay for the FA — the institutional guardian of our national sport — to be guided by the same motives. But that is exactly where we are. Football is not being let down by its commercial partners, in any straightforward sense; instead it is, slowly but surely, destroying itself. Of course, Nike decided to absorb the criticism, rather than deflect it to the FA where it mainly belonged: a sacrificial act that will help Nike to retain an important client.
Fuck you, Jordan Henderson
We should perhaps acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that demand for the Earps journey was driven, in part, by England’s relatively poor performances at the World Cup, meaning the goalkeeper was instrumental in England’s somewhat fortuitous journey to the final.
As well as Earps’s heroics, it is testament also to Sarina Wiegman’s excellent management that England were able to come through several difficult situations en route. But Wiegman also made a number of mistakes which contributed to England’s shortcomings.
I was a little disappointed not to see stronger support for Lauren James from the manager after the forward was sent off in England’s second round match. James’s red card was justified, and a one-game ban would have been harsh but expected. A two-game ban was ridiculous. Wiegman could have said this publicly — not least to help motivate her team — and should have made clear that James would be restored to the starting eleven as soon as possible, no matter what.
James got 45 minutes of the final, but should have got the full 90. Ella Toone played well enough in James’s absence in a more advanced position, but there is rarely a good reason not to play your best team. Wiegman could also have introduced a dedicated striker sooner in the final, especially after Alessia Russo departed at half-time. Taking off Rachel Daly rather than giving her an opportunity up front was an odd move: Spain were out-manoeuvring England, and needed to be given something else to think about.
Wiegman was praised for switching from 4–3–3 to a 5–3–2 or 3–5–2 formation after Keira Walsh’s injury earlier in the tournament, but I thought it was an error. It worked well against China and, admittedly, in the semi-final against Australia. But it worked far less well against Nigeria, Colombia and, crucially, Spain. Firstly, Walsh plays deep but is not a defensive player, so sacrificing an attacking player (Chloe Kelly) to play an additional central defender was an over-correction which disrupted England’s natural game.
Secondly, the new formation also meant that, counter-intuitively, England failed to get the best from their attacking full-backs Lucy Bronze and Rachel Daly. They were able to get forward more often, but the absence of wide midfield cover meant opponents were more easily able to advance into England’s third when attacks broke down. This is exactly how Spain’s winning goal came about, with Bronze — still, in my view, England’s best player — being forced inside to relinquish possession as she struggled to cover two positions.
Nobody’s perfect, I guess. We should also note that Wiegman was also incredibly unlucky to lose two of the stars of Euro 2022 — Leah Williamson and Beth Mead — before the tournament began. And playmaker Walsh never seemed fully fit after returning quickly from injury.
Even with these three at their best, the 2023 team would still have been weaker, on paper, than the team Phil Neville took to the 2019 World Cup semi-finals. After a promising start — applying some notable tactical upgrades — Neville’s weaknesses as a manager soon became apparent. 2019, for me, will always be the one that got away; in contrast, England got a lot closer to winning the most recent World Cup than they should have.
Speaking of mediocre men, Gareth Southgate has been doing his bit in recent days to advance the annihilation of men’s football. (Wiegman would be a worthy alternative as manager of the men’s team, if she fancies a new challenge. But it will always feel like cheating for a large country to employ a foreign coach for the national team of its national sport; I would rather give the job to Emma Hayes, the best English manager working in English football today.)
Southgate was broken by the men’s World Cup in Qatar. In fact, he unravelled at the very thought of the tournament, as I argued at the time. In his pomp as manager of the de facto home nation at Euro 2020 (played in 2021), the 2022 tournament was a real-world test of how his liberalish, one-nation principles would react to the blood-soaked practice and nihilistic norms of football in the hands of FIFA. Spoiler alert: he wobbled.
The wobble manifested in Southgate making a few odd selection decisions, and largely abandoning key tactical decisions to Harry Kane. A limp show in the quarter-finals was probably an above-par performance in this context.
And the whole episode has clearly taught Southgate to put up and shut up. Writing in the Guardian, Barney Ronay rightly hammered Southgate’s refusal to condemn the English players who have decided to take the Saudi coin, most notably Jordan Henderson, who had previously been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. Southgate can clearly see that Saudi Arabia is making a play for world football, and he knows that his current employer will prove to be utterly spineless when it comes to resisting this agenda — as evidenced by its silence around the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United.
For the sake of one last crack at a tournament next year, Southgate has chosen the path of self-censorship — and forever tarnished his legacy in the process, whatever happens in Germany next year.
Sticking (two fingers up) to football
It is equally damning that Southgate has neglected — unlike Wiegman — to condemn Luis Rubiales and the Spanish football federation, for Rubiales’s behaviour towards Jenni Hermoso at the end of the World Cup final. Perhaps he hopes the story is seen to relate only to women’s football, but he knows this is untrue: Rubiales is the President of the Spanish federation, and a Vice-President of UEFA (albeit now suspended), so occupies a powerful position in the governance of the men’s as well as women’s game.
We should remember that Southgate’s ‘Dear England’ schtick focused almost exclusively on race, as he, quite commendably, stood up for the black players in his team who wanted to use the platform of playing for England to protest against racial injustice.
It was the right message at the right time: misguided, in some ways, but undoubtedly well-meaning. But in the cold light of kiss-gate and Saudi sports-washing, it is Southgate’s many silences that ring the loudest now. Did Southgate stand up for his black players simply because he had black players? Maybe getting political was his way of ‘sticking to football’, all along. But he does not have any women in his team obvs; does this mean there is no need to stand up for female footballers? He does not, as far as anyone knows, have any gay players; does this mean he feels less urge to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community?
In contrast, he has many players who drive cars — so it is his job to stand strong for the polluters. This stance is clearly implied by comments such as:
“Given the situation with Russia we are reliant on Saudi Arabia for a lot of our oil. They’re invested in so many British industries but I don’t hear any noises about that. It’s only the football that’s highlighted.”
Or:
Hmm. The protesters are lit up like Johan Cruyff, Gareth: pretty hard to miss.
Even more worryingly — but not surprisingly — Southgate has also refused to condemn Mason Greenwood, or Manchester United’s handling of the allegations against Greenwood (which included an outrageous attempt to pass the buck to the club’s female players representing England, including Earps).
This seems to reveal that Southgate knows it is conceivable he will one day pick a player — and perhaps even Greenwood himself — who has been accused of the most serious sexual offences. The bigots will applaud his future ‘sticking to football’ defence. The decision to select Kyle Walker immediately after he admitted (via an out of court disposal) to exposing his penis in a public place was a warning sign in this regard.
The coming Saudi supremacy
I do not think Southgate is a bad guy — far from it. But he is an influential figure, beyond football, and warrants scrutiny. We could conclude charitably that, while Southgate’s view that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to realise, and be rewarded for, their talent, is just about aligned enough with the politics of many of his black players, it does not lend itself so easily to a different set of structural issues around gender relations.
Similarly, it is a little forgivable if he simply does not understand the geopolitics of climate change sufficiently to recognise what Saudi Arabia is really up to.
But it is not remotely difficult to understand that LGBTQ+ people are not welcome in Saudi Arabia — despite Jordan Henderson’s extraordinarily well-remunerated crusade — or that political dissent and journalistic inquiry can lead to a death sentence.
Alas, nobody gives a fuck. Sanitised by the presence in the Premier League of Russian oligarchs, American extractivism, and Abu Dhabi, we don’t even care that the Saudi Pro League is rapidly undermining the fragile foundations of European football. So we are hardly likely to care about the wider human rights issues.
The SPL will not affect men’s football in Europe by poaching all of the best players, at least not initially. The impact will be on the competitiveness of domestic and international club competitions. Super-elite clubs, such as Manchester City, are now able to offload not-quite-world-class or just-past-their-peak players such as Aymeric Laporte or Riyad Mahrez to Saudi clubs without worrying about strengthening a direct rival — and at the same time receive inflated transfer fees which allow them to meet financial fair play rules, entrenching their financial advantage.
The quality of products such as the English Premier League and Champions League will inevitably suffer as a result. We might see ideas such as the European Super League revived in this context, but my guess is that the moment has passed: it cannot happen with Saudi Arabia on the outside, yet it would be self-defeating for the European elite to bring Saudi Arabian clubs inside.
What this points to therefore is a broader realignment within men’s football, with Saudi Arabia given a central role in the creation of new club competitions, organised globally. Since the nation of Saudi Arabia is unlikely to ever be a force in international football, we can expect the coming reconfiguration to further relegate national teams in the football pecking order, with a global club competition coming to rival the men’s World Cup as the sport’s pinnacle. Qualifying leagues could come to enjoy parity of esteem with domestic and international club competitions in Europe.
This scenario might seem far-fetched, but given the astonishingly corrupt cohort of administrators now running the show, football is there for the taking.
The only serious barrier to such a development would be resistance by ordinary fans. The Saudi influence will eventually sever, once and for all, the link between professional football and local communities. Localist sentiment of course inspired opposition to the ESL proposals a couple of years ago, but I suspect most people will not see the SPL as a threat until it is already too late. Crucially, Manchester City and the rest are never going to stop playing in the Premier League; the league is just going to matter a great deal less, over time.
After the fall
And let us be clear: what the Saudis are about to do to English and European football is only different by degree to what we have been doing to ourselves — and other parts of the world — for decades. European leagues accumulated power and wealth at the expense of Latin American football. The Premier League accumulated power and wealth at the expense of the rest of Europe, as well as its feeder competitions domestically. A handful of Premier League clubs have accumulated power and wealth at the expense of everyone else.
We will notice when we are no longer the centre of the footballing universe. We just won’t know we are falling until we hit the ground.
Women’s football will not be affected in the same way. It would be unthinkable for the women’s game to receive anything close to the same levels of investment in or by Saudi Arabia. Many of the game’s biggest stars are of course openly gay.
But the rebirth of women’s football in England has become dependent on the largesse of the men’s game, as leading clubs invest in their affiliated women’s teams, mainly as a PR exercise. There is no reason to believe this investment will continue indefinitely (and it has already been ruinous for clubs without affiliation). Women’s football needs to focus on nurturing genuine competition at all levels — and its development should be funded where necessary by the government as a public good.
Football is never just football, and just like the rise of men’s football two centuries ago, support for women’s football is implicitly a form of radical, political action. What has been lost by the men must be retained by the women. Football has the power to transform society by reflecting back our better instincts, and in choosing how we organise our national sport — such as the relationship with private companies such as Nike — we can learn how to embed progressive values in the economy more generally.
It might be naïve to expect football to champion social justice — but if not football, then what? The Labour Party? Football is not escapism, it is part of how many of us define ourselves. The game’s grounding in solidaristic politics and community cohesion has always been part of its appeal, and we will not be able to get this back once it has gone.
It might already be too late for men’s football. But the drama around the Earps jersey shows us that women’s football has the potential to lead the sport back to where it needs to be.
