The Lessons of the Pirate League

Accepting the mutineers’ cash was so controversial that the stories of how the players made their way to Colombia seem to be drawn straight from spy novels: Bobby Flavell of Hearts being bundled into a moving car on the runway at Glasgow airport; Neil Franklin, regarded as the best English defender of his generation, being smuggled out of the country incognito.

(Only Matt Busby, the great Manchester United manager, seemed to understand the motivation. When his left winger, Charlie Mitten, received an offer, he told him to accept it. “Go, or you’ll die wondering,” Busby told him.)

It did not last, of course. Few of the Europeans who made it to Colombia settled. Franklin lasted only six games. Within a few years, the league had been forced to come back into FIFA’s fold, and the glittering array of stars it had contracted floated away. Some were welcomed back at the clubs they had deserted. Others, particularly in England, were treated as heretics, scorned for daring to try to earn more money.

Why bring this up now? Partly, in all honesty, because it is a brilliant story, one that has not been told nearly often enough — though Franklin, at least, has been the subject of two books in the past year: “Flight to Bogotá” and “England’s Greatest Defender.”

Partly because, as Europe’s elite clubs flirt with the idea of a breakaway league once again, the days of El Dorado provide a warning: Ultimately, players will go where the money is, and fans will follow. The clubs of the pirate league could pay their generous salaries only because Colombia’s stadiums were packed to the rafters. With a fragmented, international audience, it is probably fair to assume the same would happen with a super league.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/sports/soccer/european-super-league-alfredo-di-stefano.html