Beyond Football - The Real Goal

Brentford and Wigan might be a lesson we didn't know we needed.

Feb 17, 2026

I’m always saying that Planet Football is a reflection of real life. And this week we got a sad and depressing reminder of how true that is. For years now, ever since the arrival of Russian oligarch money used to inflate Chelsea’s drab operation, the dream of the average fan has been for some billionaire to buy up their club and start pouring in the money. Apparently the road to success is paved with billionaires.

Abramovich wasn’t the first of the super rich to start dabbling in football, Jack Walker bought himself a title with Blackburn in the 94/95 season, but Abramovich raised the spending to a whole new level. Inequality got turbo-powered with his arrival in 1992. Today, with the exception of Brentford (which is owned by a VERY RICH man) every Premier League club is owned by Billionaires. The People’s Game has been appropriated by the powerful for their own amusement. Just like everything else.

That’s why I kinda like Brentford, even (maybe especially) when they draw with us. And Brighton. These are relatively small clubs with relatively less rich owners (who still earn more per day than you will in your entire life) yet they punch above their weight through employing a tactical and savvy approach to the business of football. Or more precisely, the organisation and thoughtful approach employed by these clubs is a blueprint (in some ways) for how to survive in a massively unequal playing field where the rich dominate and destroy everything in their path. Sound familiar? It should.

Some tax-exile Billionaire who holds a minority stake in Manchester United had a few things to say last week. This entitled cosplay of a ex-rockstar decided to inform the world of his vicious ignorance by slagging off the most vulnerable people in society, immigrants and the poor. Jim Ratcliffe, once the UK’s richest person is now himself an immigrant having moved to France from where he currently pays ZERO personal income tax in the UK. Ratcliffe, who was a big supporter of Brexit, which famously limited the average person’s ability to move freely and live in Europe, saved himself huge amount of tax by moving to Monaco, France. His move didn’t stop the man worth 14.5 BILLION from asking for and receiving 800 MILLION POUNDS in UK and European state aid for his businesses though.

In spite of all this Ratcliffe still spat our the vile lie that immigrants are destroying Britain and somehow hoovering up all the benefit money (it’s amazing there’s anything left after Ratcliffe’s sticky hands have been in the public purse but there you go). The economy, said this giant leech, couldn’t withstand the onslaught of immigrants “colonising Britain.” Besides the fact that it’s beyond parody for a British Billionaire to talk about the unfairness of colonisation, the traditional British national sport long before and after football was invented, everything Ratcliffe said was wrong. And not by mistake.

Posturing vicious and vile opinions has become the norm of the super-rich these days. Even though UK government figures prove the average immigrant in the UK, in fact in any country, contributes more to the economy than the super rich, these bile-ridden people still keep stoking up division and fear by repeating the lie that they create wealth while immigrants extract it. The truth is the exact opposite.

Who’d be surprised that a Manchester United owner would be an idiot? Well, don’t get too comfortable fellow Arsenal fans because our very own Stan Kroenke donated ONE MILLION dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund last January. Arsenal’s owner sent funds to a convicted felon and man implicated in child rape ring and who’s masked racist thugs are killing people in American streets. Not a good look. I don’t want my club even tenuously linked with such lowlife but what can I do about it?

Of course there are those that will say politics and sport don’t mix. They’re usually the same people who say that Russia should be (rightly) excluded from participating in international events as a penalty for invading Ukraine, while at the same time supporting Israel’s inclusion in all international events after the Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people.

The problem we’re facing is unchecked power. I don’t mean to make a tenuous link here, but we see this in football every single day. Clubs with the financial backing win. Simple as that. And if they break the law, like Man City, allegedly, then they use their power to subvert justice. Again, sound familiar? Planet Football reflecting the real world?

We are at a critical period in world (and football) history. We need to make some big decisions and take some radical action because the dream that some billionaire has your interests at heart has surely been well and truly shattered. Ratcliffe doesn’t care about Manchester Untied any more than the Billionaires who support Reform in the UK and the Republicans in the US (and the Sverige Democrats in Sweden or the countless other dangerous extremists they support around the world) care about the nation or the people of anything else but themselves.

We may enjoy watching Arsenal slice and dice Wigan but in the long run the increasing inequality we’re witnessing in the Premier League is unsustainable. We need less BIG MONEY and more regulation to protect the game from the rich. How about in the real world? Is there anyone who really believes billionaires are going to do anything but enrich themselves at everyone else’s expense?

Brentford played a smart game against Arsenal last week. And their playing a smart game in general because they recognise they live in a unjust and unequal world and they’ve found a way to use that to their advantage. We football fans, and citizens, need to remember that we too live in an unjust and unequal world that’s fast turning into vicious authoritarian world orchestrated by the “winners”. We need to take a leaf out of Brentford’s book and organise properly or we’ll be finding out very quickly just how bad this can get.