A new football league is formed containing a select few teams. There’s no relegation from this league, at least for a couple of years, but there’s extra money available for the clubs involved and possibly a new TV deal as well.

And absolutely no-one raises a fuss, because this is the Women’s Super League, which started ten years and a few weeks ago.

Apart from this being women’s football1, WSL had the full backing of the FA so it was a state-sanctioned breakaway league as opposed to an idea cooked up by people who “aren’t us”.

As I’d remembered about the WSL, I thought I’d follow up my previous thoughts with a few more, now that things have calmed down a bit.

A league of their own

Mark Borkowski calls the launch of the ESL an historic comms disaster, and it’s hard to disagree with him.

But the whole thing also highlights several issues around good strategic communications which is why, I hope, you’re reading this.

Now: any good multi-billionaire club owner worth their salted pretzels won’t give two camels’ humps what “the fans” think. The fans, after all, were quite happy for you shell out a transfer fee and wages on a marquee player or three.

But it’s normally a good idea to think of your internal stakeholders. Let your key staff and managers know what’s happening before you announce. Pull together a briefing note to explain what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, who else is involved and how it’s going to work.

That way you’re not putting them on the spot should they get collared by the media, making them feel uncomfortable when they have a job to do. You risk them plying their trade elsewhere.

Have you told your key external partners? They might not agree with you but if they don’t know it’s coming they have to spend time calming their own fans and stakeholders, which is only going to annoy them further.

Did someone from Legal check over your existing contracts to make sure that you could actually do what it is you’re proposing to do? In this case, no-one seems to have noticed that Premier League clubs can only take part in specific, named competitions without explicit agreement (Rule L9).

Who is your spokesperson? Six of the 12 clubs were English but there wasn’t a local spokesperson for the project; they were in the US, Italy, Spain or the Gulf. Where could reporters and supporters go to to get the answers they wanted – apart from a dodgy website?

Think of the language you use. “Legacy fans” is not only an insult it’s an insult likely to be appropriated. The kind of people who come up with phrases such as “legacy fans” probably shouldn’t be allowed to do any communications work. Translate it so that fans will understand.

It’s an international competition; have you considered how to tailor your messaging for your different markets? Despite being majority owned by overseas people/companies, the level of outrage in England is similar to that you’d expect in Germany or Sweden, where clubs are majority owned by fans or the equivalent of community interest groups. What plays out well in Italy went down faster than Jürgen Klinsmann in the penalty box elsewhere.

These are the kind of strategic questions I’d expect any half-decent communications professional to ask, and they’re certainly among the ones I’d have asked if involved (I’d have also filled in my holiday card – this is one turd beyond even my polishing).

In other news… plus ça change

While this was going on (on, but not very far) it escaped most people’s attention that UEFA passed plans for a revamped Champions League which allowed for two teams with historically-good performances to enter, even if they managed to get themselves relegated from their country’s top flight the year before.

It was a contentious idea, designed to keep clubs including the ESL 12 on-side by letting them qualify for a competition their actual performances didn’t deserve. For UEFA, the daily hoo-ha surrounding the ESL announcement must have seemed a Godsend while they pushed through their flawed plans. The Premier League will have been quite happy as well as they and main broadcast partners Sky suddenly became the good guys.

Meanwhile the poor fan still faces annual season ticket rises if they can afford to get to games, annual rises in the cost of Sky Sports and BT Sport channels if they can’t.

Worse than that, the politicians are now involved. God help us all.

PS. Patrick Bamford had it about right. Football is important, but if only we could put the same energy we marshalled these past few days into sorting out “racism and stuff like that”…

  1. Do try and remember that I was General Manager at Leeds United Ladies for two seasons and the media person for five before snorting your derision or firing off a tweet. []