Football is by its very nature divisive, and nowhere is this truer than in the Premier League, with each fan-base separated by toxic tribalism and bias.
What unites us, however, is a universal dislike of the following five clubs. We should thank them really, for the service they provide.
Barcelona
Mes que un club. More than a club.
Barcelona’s motto smacks of an arrogance and an inherent sense of entitlement that has been much in evidence of late, the Catalans believing it is their God-given right to spend-spend, spend despite the club being stony, stony broke.
With a fanatical fan-base to satisfy, Barcelona are pitifully incapable of letting a transfer window pass by without finding a new inventive way of rustling up yet another loan, all to bring in a new face.
Anything but accept their current reality and cut their cloth accordingly.
After all, they are more than a club.
Real Madrid
The ultimate establishment club, Los Blancos’ links to the highest echelons of Spanish power date back all the way to the 1920s when King Alfonso XIII conferred the title of ‘Real’ on his favourite team, translated as ‘royal’.
In the 1930s and 40s it all got rather murky when the fascist dictator Franco is said to have supported them. Rumours of police intimidation of Barcelona players ahead of a heavy El Clasico defeat in 1943 is still a sour subject to this day.
As recently as 2016 it emerged that the Spanish government had allowed the club to build a new training ground in the capital on land purchased for £15m under its market value.
Forever short-priced in the Champions League betting, Real are a marquee name in world football for sure.
The manner in which they have historically taken full advantage of their silver spoon heritage though, is unsavoury at best.
Bayern Munich
There is something undeniably cold and clinical about Bayern, making them less a football club and more a meticulously oiled machine.
They’re football’s very own Terminator.
It’s a machine that has won the Bundesliga 18 times in the 21st century and on the rare occasions someone else gets a look-in they simply go out that summer and buy that club’s best player.
Which makes it downright infuriating when Bayern’s hierarchy take the moral high ground when discussing the Premier League’s riches, a topic that seems to preoccupy them.
Arnie’s cyborg was many things but he wasn’t a hypocrite.
Juventus
At the heart of the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal that rocked Italian football in the 2000s, the ‘Old Lady’ was dumped into the second tier and stripped of two of their league titles.
Showing precisely no contrition for their actions, the Turin giants appealed and protested for well over a decade, right up until they faced fresh disgrace, in the form of a false accounting scandal that saw them docked ten points last year.
Add in a lifetime of dodgy penalties, late goals, and season after season of Scudettos and is it any wonder that besides their millions of glory-hunting fans, the whole world is ABJ.
Anyone but Juventus.
RB Leipzig
What a remarkable fairy tale it’s been for SSV Markranstadt, bought out in 2009 when residing in the fifth tier of German football, by a little-known drinks firm, a company that fuels the very best and nicest people on a Friday night.
Renamed RB Leipzig, their new ground was romantically christened the Red Bull Arena while a change in nickname saw them imaginatively called the ‘Red Bulls’.
With nothing but plucky investment behind them, this wholesome creation began to climb through the divisions.
In recent years, they have justified their Europa League odds by going deep in the competition and competed well in the Champions League.
From nothing but a dream and a sprinkling of derring-do they have twice finished runner-up in the Bundesliga.
Apologies, but sometimes sarcasm is the only way to deal with modern football.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
