From Melwood to Kirby

Farewell to Melwood as Reds move on

By SAM HODGKISS

Premier League champions Liverpool are packing up and moving to their new training ground, joining The Academy at Kirkby later this month.

The Reds will move to the AXA Training Centre, named after the global insurance firm and current sponsor, meaning Jurgen Klopp will lead the first Liverpool side away from Melwood, which has been the home to Liverpool FC for more 70 years.

Although the move from West Derby was finalised years ago and the grounds sold to affordable housing provider Torus, local residents are still angry about the move, with the new housing estate being built on the hallowed grounds.

West Derby Councillor Lana Orr expressed her fears for the area once Melwood is no longer occupied: “Many residents are not happy about the move and it’s been the talk of the area for some time now.

“With the new housing estate being built, there’s a fear that West Derby will become too overly populated and the local amenities won’t be able to meet demand in the near future.”

Melwood holds a special place in the history of the clubso it was always going to be emotional to say

The idea of a European Super League (ESL) has been floating around football for more than thirty years, with the concept first taking shape in the 1980s. Whispers seem to crop up every few years then disappear again, without there ever being a serious proposal.

For many football fans, including myself, the ESL was nothing more than the fantasy of Europe’s elite football clubs – a fantasy that would never actually come to pass. Recently though, rumours of an ESL have resurfaced, this time, with more potency to the ‘whispers’ than ever before.

The concept of a European Super League is a simple one. Sixteen of Europe’s most elite clubs would play in a yearly tournament with a similar format to the Champions League but with a key difference – the competition would be run by the clubs themselves and their owners, not by UEFA or FIFA. Furthermore, 11 of the 16 clubs would be known as ‘core founders’, meaning that their participation would be guaranteed for 20 years. According to a 2018 report by German publication Der Spiegel, the core founders of the competition would be Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Juventus, AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain goodbye. However, it has been no secret that Jurgen Klopp has been eager to unite the youth and senior squads together under one roof since his appointment in October 2015.

With club owners Fenway Sports Group also behind the idea, work began on the new training complex in Kirkby. The £50 million state-ofthe-art facility is set to be kitted out with two gyms, an indoor sports hall, recovery and therapy centres as well as three football pitches that emulate the pitch at Anfield.

With the training centre now complete, Klopp and his players can finally move into the facility, something which was planned for the end of last season but was cancelled due to delays in construction.

But with the Reds finally heading to Kirkby, Northwood Councillor Edward Connor has welcomed them with open arms.

He said: “I think it’s a wonderful thing. Liverpool have been great partners to us for the last, well since they’ve been there, and especially over this Covid period they’ve been tremendous, especially with the resident neighbourhoods.

“We’ve been delivering food parcels and Liverpool have been giving us food and other things for the children to play with, toys and such. Liverpool have been really good to us.”

Liverpool Opinion

and Bayern Munich. The other five places would be made up of teams who have qualified through a secondary league, which would be set up to allow for promotion and relegation.

Considering the similarities with the Champions League, many will feel that an ESL would be unnecessary. The main driver though is money. The possibility of watching Europe’s elite face off against each other week in week out could be enamouring for football fans worldwide, and the exclusion of the ‘duds’ you get in the Champions League should mean a hotly-contested competition. This would inevitably mean a mega TV deal as well as lucrative sponsorship opportunities.

I am sure many fans would agree this competition would undoubtedly be exciting. However, the idea of 11 clubs being untouchable for a 20-year period has always been looked at with distaste by the rest of Europe, and when you read through the Liverpool and Manchester United backed ‘Project Big Picture’ proposal for the Premier League, a very Conservative

Melwood memory. Photo © Commons wikimedia suckfromthecan

Is the European Super League a good idea?

By Charlie Baker-Mullings

concept of “keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor” becomes the common theme. Interestingly, the Big Picture proposal was leaked three days before a vote amongst Premier League clubs was made, and after gauging fan reaction, which was overwhelmingly negative, all clubs voted against the proposal, despite it being the creation of those very clubs. There seems to be a desperation shared amongst Europe’s most historically successful and elite clubs to try and protect their status at the top, by vacuuming up the increasing amounts of money that continue to flood into the game to share amongst themselves.

The billion-dollar question now is, will the European Super League actually happen? At this point, it seems as though the answer is yes. Former Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu announced at his resignation press conference that Barcelona had (unofficially) agreed to join a prospective European Super League, making the Catalonians the first club in Europe to publicly state a readiness to join.

The key players will most likely be the Premier League’s top six, as England holds the largest football television rights deal in the world. For these English clubs and their billionaire owners, the positives appear to outweigh the negatives. However, according to former Arsenal manager and FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development Arsene Wenger a European Super League would “destroy” the Premier League.

He said: “The Premier League has a superiority; the other leagues try to destroy the advantage that the Premier League has.

“We’re in a period of owners who are investors – their first target is to make more money. And the European Super League is one way, maybe, to make more money.”

There is something about the elitist mentality that drives proposals like the ESL and Project Big Picture, which rubs the majority of fans the wrong way. Football has always been seen as one of the most inclusive sports in the world, but maybe times are changing.