The Manchester United Protests, and the Super League Crisis, One Year On - with Matt Ford

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.

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For this first episode, I am talking to Matt Ford. Matt is from Manchester, an active United supporter, longtime critical fan journalist, and a professional football journalist by day as well, for the English speaking public broadcasting service of Germany. He now lives in Germany too. Matt gives us the inside scoop about the protests among Manchester United fans against that club’s owners, particularly the events of May 2nd 2021 that led to the league game against Liverpool being canceled just in the wake of the proposal for the European Super League. A lot of important dynamics intersect here: super league vs league pyramid, ownership systems vs. member owned clubs, soccer clubs as global brands vs. community assets etc., and we try to cover them all to some extent.

I would enjoy your comments and questions via The Assistant Professor of Football on twitter. Also: I would like to keep this space free of ads and paywalls. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

1. Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
2. If you could leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice, that would be particularly helpful. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

HELPFUL LINKS for this episode:

United We Stand (Fanzine)

MUST, Manchester United Supporters Trust

Clip from Sky’s coverage of the protest, with the Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville quotes from the intro

The English FSA (Football Supporters Association) is a great resource to dig deeper, and played a role in the “Fan-led Review” of football conducted after the Super League proposal. They also work with clubs’ supporters trusts.

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.
If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/