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Just another day in the age of hypocrisy.

Six Premier League football clubs have announced that they will be joining three Spanish and three Italian clubs to form a European super competition. The founding members will be permanent members, and the matches are to be played midweek - allowing the teams to compete in their respective national leagues (but probably not cup competitions?).

It seems likely that this would be detrimental to other teams in the participants' countries but this is denied. Money will, apparently, filter down to the lower levels of football. We have heard this before. It seems to be a (fallacious) central tenet of neoliberalism. It failed when Sky TV bought the English Premier League, and it failed to live up to expectations in the age of Thatcher and Reagan.

German teams, which are, by law, majority-owned by their supporters, will not be taking part.

The British Government and that well-known frequenter of the terraces, Boris Johnson, have been animated in their opposition. I very much doubt that they have the good of the game to heart. There are several aspects of concern related to the government position:

• A Prime Minister who, in his egregious mendacity, claimed that the success of the UK vaccine programme was attributable to greed and capitalism cannot then criticise businesses, and the larger football clubs are more business than sport, for exhibiting just those characteristics. They are just doing what Johnson recommends.
• The UK government are not performing well generally and have recently come under pressure for what appears to be a systemic governmental dishonesty. Not only are they accused of diverting eye-watering amounts of public money to their friends and donors, but one minister eased planning permission for a Tory donor, potentially saving the donor millions of pounds (that this action was found to be illegal and was reversed does not dilute the original intent), and the Tories are becoming increasingly immersed in the stench of sleaze generated by lobbying scandals. When asked whether he knew of any more examples of government sleaze, Boris Johnson avoided answering.
• An impressive street presence materialised following the governmental and right-wing press dog whistles. Were they all supporters of the clubs they challenged?

British, and, particularly English, football has long drifted from its roots as a weekend diversion for the working classes. Certainly, there are clubs that can claim justifyably that they are still close to their supporters, but the most successful clubs have been drifting away from their bases. That these clubs would seem to be happy to ask their support to travel long distances for away games suggests that a more profitable global audience is their target. The money is the prize, and football has become a microcosm of the ills of capitalism.

As an erstwhile football supporter, I was disappointed in the clubs' move, but I am more concerned about the governmental reaction.