Project Big Picture – Other crackpot money grabs from football and beyond

Aside from being one of the most condescending project titles ever devised, Project Big Picture created quite a stir when it was released.

Liverpool’s and Man Utd’s team owners claimed to have found a way forward for the English game, meaning some charity was afforded teams down the league system in return for Premier League team owners effectively taking full control of the game on these shores.

However, it did not take the skills of a forensic investigator to pick holes in the plan, with many fans and press observers seeing Project Big Picture as nothing more than an opportunistic power grab, just when so many smaller clubs are on their knees.

When things like this happen, it can be easy to think that there is no option but for clubs and supporters to carry on regardless; to accept their fate and march to the tune of their Premier League top 6 overlords. Sometimes, though, it is good to take a step back and to leaf through the annals of history, to see where other sports either got things right or horribly wrong.

Here are some other crackpot sporting coup attempts that either succeeded, and destroyed a sport, or failed miserably, never to see the light of day. Brighton fans should take note and form their opinions accordingly.

Professional Tennis Players Association
One sport where top players can never complain about making enough money is tennis, with top stars such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic consistently being rated as some of the top sports earners on the planet, free as they are to reap the rewards of endorsements and promotional deals as well as huge prize money pay checks.

However, all that has not been enough to placate the likes of the Serbian world number one, who along with fellow player Vasek Pospisil, has formed the Professional Tennis Players Association, a body that as yet has not stated it is a union, but which basically is one in all but name.

What can be wrong with unionization you might ask? Well, alarm bells started ringing as soon as it was revealed that the association would only be accepting members from the world’s top 500 players, and that it would initially only be for male players.

The association soon backtracked on this latter issue, but it was seen as a marker for what it really was: a group of already wealthy and powerful individuals pushing for control of the ATP.

Of course, a trade union should be designed to look after the interests of those at the bottom of the ladder, but it is clear that Djokovic and Co. are too concerned by that, especially when you consider US Open champion Dominic Thiem’s recent comments about the fact he believes lower ranked players should be less financially incentivized than they already are.

If big Premier League stars and managers begin coming out in favour of Project Big Picture, it is important to consider whether they really have the grassroots of the game at heart.

European Super League
Back in the world of football, and Premier League clubs have long been clamouring for more control and less financial oversight, not just on the domestic scene but across the continent as well.

That desire has taken the form of the proposed European Super League project, with clubs such as Man Utd, Man City and PSG all vying to wrest control of the Champions League from UEFA, so that punters find themselves wagering free bets on more games between Europe’s elite rather than those sides from less glamorous leagues or countries.

Cue the huge back and forth battles between both sides over the financial fair play rules that govern the sport, rules that stop undesirable entities from gaining a foothold in the sport, something many clubs seem quite keen to facilitate.

This is exactly the same battle that is being fought between the Premier League, FA and club owners, and is a good example of how far those owners are willing to go to override a governing body’s regulations for their own financial gain.

Liverpool are saying that EFL clubs will never walk alone, but for how long will that olive branch be extended?
[/caption]Man Utd are one of the clubs who form a part of the wannabe breakaway European Super League group
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Saracens, Lance Armstrong and Cricket
The implications of such pushes by powerful individuals to concentrate wealth at the head of a sport have been clear for all to see in other forms of athletic competition, where tournaments, tours and entire sports have been utterly discredited; their reputations damaged forever by the greed of a few.

Prime examples of this are Saracens in the English Rugby Premiership, who decided that their sport’s financial fair play rules did not apply to them, rendering years of rugby union null and void.

In cycling, Lance Armstrong’s US Postal Team became so powerful that through very well documented means, they managed to fix the greatest cycling race in the world – the Tour de France – for multiple seasons, with professional cycling still reeling from the repercussions.

Last but not least there is the case of the Stanford Super Series, whose flamboyant founder fell dramatically from grace after it was revealed how he had really been funding his extravagant cricket competition.

Sure enough, the ICC and other cricketing governing bodies were lured in by the big bucks, only to have Stanford pull the plug, leaving egg on the faces of everyone involved. Such is the way with owners who have deep pockets one minute and then become miraculously broke the next.

By even contemplating Project Big Picture, the UK football hierarchy would be advocating for the eroding of the beautiful game at a local and grassroots level, while ensuring that fairy tale cup runs and underdog stories are a long forgotten gems of the past.

Brighton fans would be well advised to keep some of these disastrous power grabs of past and present in mind when they next bump into a club official who is on fence about the whole idea.