It was Des Kelly in The Mail 9/8/10 who for me, came closest to hitting the proverbial nail on the head, with respect to prospective new owners for Liverpool FC. In a blistering broadside of a heading, Get real, we sold our soul to Chinese ages ago, Kelly dismisses those who bemoan that another sporting jewel in the crown is up for sale to the highest foreign bidder. Kelly correctly argues that the sale of British sporting assets is already well advanced. The Premier League is merely a plaything, like a giant game of Risk, where America, China, Russia, and the Arabian oil powers move their pieces around and use sport to promote their image, boost commerce and shift huge sums across international borders.

Quite true. This is exactly the way Britain behaved when it had a global empire only with the addition of rifle toting troops. What Kelly cannot quite bring himself to write, although I’m sure he and the editorial staff at The Mail are now well aware, is that Britain is no longer a big player on the world stage and all its crown jewels are up for foreign plunder; sporting, financial and industrial. Former big British companies like Cadbury’s, Rolls Royce and British Steel are all in foreign ownership, so why not Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool? That is the real nature of global capitalism and the British ruling elite and its hangers-on had better get used to it pretty damned quickly.

Labour in opposition will denounce the Tory government for promoting an international fire sale, but we should never forget that Labour in government did nothing to preserve or promote local industry and local ownership. Blair and Brown’s thirteen years of light-touch regulation gave a green light to a foreign free for all, but as far as ordinary Brits are concerned, foreign ownership or British ownership means much the same thing; huge profits for the share holders and diminishing crumbs for the working class. Did I mention class? How terribly old fashioned of me! Didn’t Blair establish a modern classless meritocracy?

Kelly is absolutely right when he describes precisely what the inappropriately named English Premier League is all about:

Our Premier League actively sells itself as a global product. The fact that there remains anything English about it is merely down to a quirk of geography. England might be where the matches are played but conglomerates, governments and businesses from around the world increasingly control the process.

Then Kelly gets personal:

The Premier League has been happy to embrace oligarchs like Chelsea owner Roman Abromovich, who has links directly to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. You may think he is a private investor, just as you may think he has earned those billions of his without government help. Remember the Premier League also rolled out the red carpet at Manchester City for Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, despite huge controversy over human rights abuses in his homeland. When he was sentenced on corruption charges, the Abu Dhabi United Group stepped into the void. They are the investment arm of sheik Mansour and the Royal rulers of the United Arab Emirates second largest federation.

Kelly could go on indefinitely, outlining the dubious credentials of the current crop of Premier League club owners. He could also say a thing or two about the main Premier League media sponsors; Sky TV and its very undemocratic owner, Mr Rupert Murdoch, who through his global media empire, has the power to make and break so-called democratically elected governments. The key point that Kelly is making is clear; we should not be surprised if the Chinese government or some other global corporation gets hold of Liverpool FC because the local supporters of English football have long lost any real connection with the ownership and direction of their clubs.

Now that it is clear that Britain has become a rather insignificant middle ranking player on the world stage, both in sporting terms and political and financial terms, we have a real opportunity to redefine what we aspire to as a community. We could endlessly play at empire by hanging on to Uncle Sam’s rapidly fraying imperial coat-tales, or we could develop ourselves something along the lines of the Scandinavian countries and direct our diminishing resources towards creating a more equitable society; progressive, innovative and democratically internationalist in outlook. Such a new direction would not be about re-establishing corporate British ownership, but rather about pioneering new forms of local, democratically accountable ownership that would render all forms of corporate control, whether foreign or domestic, as anti-social and anti-democratic. It isn’t going to happen just yet, but it could happen. The green and gold protests by Manchester United supporters are a constant reminder of what is possible. What a shame that Alex Ferguson just doesn’t get it