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Jonathan White

You’ll have seen the video of the English Premier League trophy smashed to bits on the car park of the Manchester City training ground by now.
The camera pans to striker Sergio Aguero on a balcony two stories up, sheepishly walking away.
You’ll have seen this because it has been shared widely on every social media network you are part of and on many of the newspapers and websites that cover the all-pervading Premier League.
What you might not have seen as people gleefully share the sight of silverware in smithereens is that it was a “prank” done by the club’s in-house television channel, City TV.


It was a hilarious nod to Oleksander Zinchenko knocking the trophy off its pedestal as they waited to collect it last season.
You have to wonder how long that prank has been in the planning, but it would be unlikely this was a spur of the moment idea.

The #Bundesliga is Coming @GameOfThrones #GOT #FCBTSG pic.twitter.com/9chvZDreca
— #MEIS7ER (@FCBayernUS) 23 August 2018

The reason for the cynicism is because it seems like a cynical attempt to go viral. It’s almost enough to make you think Liverpool might have been more deserving champions.
The attempt by football clubs – many of which are closer to multinational corporations now than the community-based sports organisations they began as – to come across on social media as having personality is something they have borrowed from the corporate world.
As Private Eye put it back in 2014: “It appears that the future of digital communications is Domino’s talking to Kit-Kat, forever, alone.”

What time is it? Yep, it's ten to! #UCL #ARSFCB pic.twitter.com/T2lDkvivkS
— #MEIS7ER (@FCBayernEN) 7 March 2017

Well football has caught up to what the weekly British satirical magazine termed “brand banter” or “branter”.
Bayern Munich’ US Twitter account is very much at the forefront of this, interacting with opponents. The worst of these interactions might have been in their regular meetings with Arsenal in the Uefa Champions League but they have also had similar banter-tastic inanity with Barcelona and Roma over the years.

You come at the , you best not miss...@Totti with the instant response!pic.twitter.com/wLvEQPw1aK
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) 18 May 2019

It’s the Italians that might be to blame for this as their social media strategy of seeming like a real person and engaging with fans from all clubs has been seen as the blueprint but not successfully copied.
Bayer Leverkusen perhaps try the hardest in their mimicry.
Their own low point was at the start of last season where they “trolled” Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech after he made a mistake trying to play out from the back.

Say hello for us! https://t.co/w3Ac9e3TMW
— #MEIS7ER (@FCBayernUS) 20 May 2019

Leverkusen responded saying they knew a goalkeeper who the Gunners could turn to and posted a video of new Arsenal signing Bernd Leno starting off a goalscoring move from the back. Cech was “owned” and “destroyed” by the Germans, to use the modern parlance.
The Czech keeper responded via Twitter: “We share important values which make us a big club not only on the football side. Fair competition, professionalism and sportsmanship are the biggest ones you teach young footballers and it’s sad to see when other clubs don’t share the same values.”
His message tagged Arsenal at the front and Bayer Leverkusen at the end.

Petr Cech was not happy at all with Bayer Leverkusen's Twitter account mocking him after the game against Man City at the weekend...#Arsenal pic.twitter.com/2W4hiPYWnz
— The Sportsman (@TheSportsman) 14 August 2018

Leverkusen apologised, in a way, but it was as cringeworthy as their initial post.
“Hi Petr. It seems our joke about wanting to see Leno, our former player, in action has been taken a bit more harshly/personally than intended. It was only a bit of banter. We’re all for the values you’ve stated and wish you and your big club all the best. Nice 1v1 save on Aguero!”
Fast forward to the end of the season and Leno made 32 Premier League appearances while Cech has announced he will retire after the Europa League final in Baku.

Cech vs Bayer Leverkusen
Not the twitter beef we expected to see today!
Love the cameo from @ASRomaEN pic.twitter.com/t5ySEi17Uw
— 90min (@90min_Football) 13 August 2018

As much as we might wish for football clubs to act like, well, football clubs, we are past the point of no return.
“At the end of the day, we’re a football club; we dedicate our activity to football, but in reality what we are is a content company,” Rafael de los Santos, Real Madrid’s global head of digital, said in 2017. “I believe the big challenge for us is to become content producers.”
That’s the biggest and most valuable club in the world telling us where the game has gone. If that’s the metric then who can blame Manchester City’s content team for trying to reach their KPIs?

@LUFC . Between @dcfcofficial and I we’ve played at Wembley more times in the last 12 years than you lot . pic.twitter.com/dOAub5hAoD
— Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) 15 May 2019

It’s trickled down the divisions too. Leeds United’s Twitter account got into an ongoing spat with One Direction singer Niall Horan this season but there are hundreds of examples.
It’s all so forced, this often prearranged spontaneity that is at its worst when clubs announce new players or new kits.
Last week Southampton made a Fyre-style video to launch their new shirts. It did not go down too well when questions abound over the Chinese sponsor on the front of those new shirts.

“Why has no one put a Premier League club kit launch on a desert island?” #SayntsFestival has arrived… pic.twitter.com/kL3IqzruON
— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) 17 May 2019

That’s what it comes down to really, pretending to be a mate in an effort to separate us from our cash – and they are up front about it.
“Obviously, it is part of the strategy to monetise our popularity later on,” Bayer Leverkusen’s marketing director Jochen Ratthaus said in 2017.
If this is modern football, where making viral videos with trophies is more important than winning them, then you can keep it.


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English Premier League

Manchester City’s Premier League trophy banter is another example of commercialism ruining football

Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling and teammates celebrate with the English Premier League trophy on a bus during the parade. Photo: Reuters

Football clubs specialise in social media own goals and Chinese Super League sides are in a class of their own

Tianjin Quanjian’s Pato is proving the exception to the rule. Photo: AFP

Kenedy of Chelsea. Photo: Instagram

(FILES) This file picture taken on February 13, 2017 shows Andre Villas-Boas, head coach of Shanghai SIPG, speaking during a season launch event in Shanghai. Haunted Andre Villas-Boas shouldered the blame after he failed to inspire big-spending Shanghai SIPG to silverware in his first season in China, with his future likely to be resolved on late November, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE / China OUT

Sport

Football

Clubs as content creators is the direction the game is going in from the very top, and it is filtering down the divisions
German sides leading the way when it comes to cringeworthy chumminess on social media


Clubs as content creators is the direction the game is going in from the very top – and it is filtering down the divisions.


Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Opinion