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Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, football savior
Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP
That is why the expression "crashing failure" was invented.
The Super League plans of the twelve top clubs from England, Spain and Italy only survived two days, then the whole project collapsed after the wave of protests from politics and football.
With the withdrawal of the six English teams, the project is as good as dead for the time being. The renegades have promised purification, great cheers everywhere, the Chelsea fans dance in the street.
Is that it now?
Not at all.
You can approach the supposed end of the Super League on several levels.
On the one hand, you can interpret it this way: These two days have made it clear how little tact, you can also say: how little idea the twelve club owners have about the mood in European clubs, including what is called football culture.
With investors from North America and the sheikdoms, you shouldn't be surprised, but the bosses of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona could have been more trusted in this regard.
Apparently the prospect of using the Super League to minimize one's own mountain of debt was so tempting that one dared to go out into the open without cover.
One can assume that investors don't really care what the fans think about it, their resistance is factored in.
What they obviously completely misjudged, or at least underestimated, is how deeply the football milieu that has emerged over a century is also anchored in European society, in the media, especially in politics.
This damage to the image of their product, in order to stay in their minds, cannot be indifferent to them.
Dilettantism and unprofessionalism
At first glance, what we have seen since Sunday evening is an obvious PR disaster, a result of amateurism and unprofessionalism, a coup that was so poorly prepared that it does not deserve the name.
At second glance, however, you suddenly see a lot of winners.
Fifa and Uefa are now standing in the sunlight as the saviors of old football. For Gianni Infantino, the FIFA boss, and his Uefa colleague Alexander Ceferin, the past two days could not have gone better. With his strong words and shirt-sleeved threats, Ceferin has donned the shining armor of the Joan of Arc of football and pulls through his inflated new Champions League en passant. Infantino could speak of values and respect at the UEFA Congress, normally everyone would have to laugh at him for it. But no, everyone nodded their heads in understanding, yes, the associations that do something for our good old football.
Even the Qatari PSG boss Al-Khelaifi was able to stand up and claim that he and PSG have a strong belief that football is for everyone.
He said that without blushing.
Qatar as the good guys in football, you have to do that first.
German clubs watch from the fence
The two German premium clubs Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund first looked at the matter from the fence.
On the first day of the great excitement, they made another statement that left options open in several directions, and then, when it became clear how the general weather situation was developing, they clearly positioned themselves.
Both are now also internationally considered to be the resistors when it comes to super-commercialization.
They started this cleverly.
Beginners mistakes like the Big 12 don't happen to them, they know their Pappenheimers too well.
Meanwhile, the fans can bathe in the good feeling that they are still a powerful factor in the big game and that their protests have helped to overturn the plans.
And even the twelve top clubs that were treated with abuse and disgrace in the previous days don't have to feel like losers from all of this.
They are now considered capable of learning, they haven't lost hops and malt yet, they have understood.
While in reality they are probably leaning back, analyzing the events of the past two days in peace and quiet and proceeding more systematically next time, much better prepared, taking action at the crucial switching points in advance.
The general uproar would be lower anyway, the outrage would be less on the next attempt.
After all, you can't get yourself emotionally up again every time.
And until that happens, they'll take the profit from the new Champions League with them.
All good.
If there is a loser at all, it is called football. But he has been resigned to the role for many years.