The Red Cartel exists, but not in the way you think

This was a vintage year for Premier League conspiracies, and one of the best exports is that of the ‘Red Cartel’. Great name, less great premise.

The common accusation is that three clubs that traditionally dislike each other – Manchester United, Arsenal And Liverpool (one Premier League title in the last ten years) – secretly plotting to protect their status and stop them Manchester city (six Premier League titles out of the past seven) to continue to grow and succeed.

Part of this is due to their fundamental influence on the structure and rules of the Greed is Good League, and part is due to the perceived benefits and leniency they receive from referees, financial regulations and the media. It comes from rival fans who can’t tell you exactly how they do it, but they know for sure it’s bad.

It is worth saying right away that this Cosa Nostra in template packs is clearly not doing so well. City is the second richest club in the world and the most successful in England over the past decade.

Newcastle qualified for the Champions League within two years of coming under new ownership. Aston Villa are top of this season’s league stage. The suggestion that the rules somehow limit the success of non-cartel teams is in no way true.

Yet City fans parked a billboard outside the Premier League offices on Tuesday displaying the badges of the three cartel clubs – and Tottenham – under the words “Richard’s Masters,” referring to league CEO Richard Masters and the recent case surrounding the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.

For all the city’s strong armament and roar, the APT row – and the Premier League’s wider philosophical divide over its future and governance – is a very English clash between old and new money, between established values ​​and ambitious types. The fact that Newcastle, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and Everton supported City’s cause illustrates this perfectly.

This is where I say the line: there is no Red Cartel. There is no conspiracy. All these clubs tried to break into the Super League alongside Manchester City and Chelsea. Every Premier League club has the same voting rights, and each vote requires fourteen clubs.

This is just a long story about convenient and inconvenient timings, and those who took advantage of them at various points. It may not seem entirely fair, but life isn’t.

United, Arsenal and Liverpool happened to be part of the ‘Big Five’ when the Premier League broke away. Manchester City and Chelsea were not, but both were acquired before effective financial rules were put in place.

Everton were part of the big five but didn’t benefit from it and now have the worst of all worlds. Newcastle are often seen as a victim of the profitability and sustainability rules, but they are an example of doing exactly what they need to do, while at the same time allowing them to develop and grow sustainably, which they are .

The Red Cartel discourse is a result of fans resisting attempts to maintain any consistency and competitive balance in English football, as their teams clearly do not benefit from it.

But unlimited money should not mean that you can ignore the rules indefinitely. Enforcing that is not a conspiracy, it is merely maintaining an appearance of sporting integrity. The Premier League cannot and should not allow all clubs to benefit from lax regulation that threatens the very fabric of the sport just because some once did.

None of this means that the generational divide in the Premier League isn’t a fundamental problem, just that portraying it as something deeply evil is both unfair and deeply unhelpful.

But as is often the case with mafias, somewhere beneath the noise, myth and distraction lies the real mob.

They’re in your walls. They’re in your TVs. They’re on your podcasts.

They try to sell you Huel and tell you HILARIOUS stories about life under Sir Alex Ferguson/Arsene Wenger/Rafael Benitez. They are writing another book and producing another documentary that exposes the inner workings of an already exposed world. They are ex-Arsenal, United and Liverpool players and, quite frankly, they are everywhere.

If there is any real appearance of a Red Cartel, it is expertise. Again, there’s no grand conspiracy behind this; these players represented the country’s most popular and successful clubs at a time long enough since they retired, but not long enough since they ceased to be relevant. I completely understand why TV and podcast execs can’t get enough of it.

But on Air sports this season you’ll see a handful of Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Patrice Evra, Jamie Carragher, Jamie Redknapp, Daniel Sturridge, Ashley Young, Theo Walcott, Paul Merson, Michael Owen and Alan Smith every Saturday and Sunday, with some extra Carra on Mondays.

On TNT there’s Rio Ferdinand, Owen Hargreaves, Paul Scholes and Steve McManaman. Switch on TalkSport and you’ll hear from Martin Keown and outspoken Arsenal fan Darren Bent.

The fact that they have played for a club does not automatically bias these pundits, but there is increasingly talk of a gradual shift in the Overton window in terms of exposing their bias. Most people don’t even have a problem with it anymore. Keane’s career depends on it. As with anti-Tory comics as soon as they lost power, you wonder what Keane’s raison d’être would be if United started winning again.

This all comes to a head on the Overlap podcast network. Run by a company founded by Neville, it’s increasingly a shamelessly biased listener for every demographic, from Twitter tactics and football history buffs to people whose happy place is a bar fight. This is Goalhanger’s single-sport ‘The Rest is’ empire.

Their flagship show Stick to Football – made up of Neville, Ian Wright, Keane, Carragher and Jill Scott – averages over a million views on YouTube per episode and will easily surpass that on podcast platforms.

Apple Podcasts ranks second among all football podcasts in the UK, only behind The Rest is Football. Its popularity and ubiquity are undeniable. It’s not an impossible listen, as much as the approach of starting each episode with five minutes of pointless warm-up chat is irritating.

But questions must arise about its wider effects. Football’s overarching overlap only narrows the scope of its content. Every book or documentary about Istanbul or the Invincibles takes up space that could be used to tell new stories and raise new voices. During the day Euro 2024ITV hosted live episodes of the Overlap as they used their experts during matches.

The booming cottage industry born from the chaos of Manchester United is merely demand meeting supply, but that doesn’t mean it actually has any value other than the perpetual burning of the Olympic flame of anger.

And so, at a time when there should be calmer, more nuanced and less biased voices around a Premier League that has never been so mired in conspiracy, controversy and incompetence, we are left with a pundit class dominated by the loudest voices from three countries. parties on one side of a legitimate debate.

By definition, this is not a cartel, but that does not mean it must continue to exist. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of pundits on the national football conscience, whether we like it or not. If you want to fight conspiracy, find people who will actually fight it.