People Power

For a long stretch of human history, meritocracy would have been a foreign concept. People were born into positions and no one expected to be in a different position at the end of their lives.

The promise of meritocracy must have been intoxicating for the masses when it became a possibility. It's no surprise revolutions and democracy spread across the world like wildfire. Once you believe you should be able to change your standing in life it's impossible to accept any limitations. When the notion that some people deserve more because of their birth is exposed as a lie you can never look at the world the same.

America perfected spreading this newfound belief. It was branded as the American Dream. With enough hard work, anyone could rise above the station of their birth. And we all bought into it. American or not.

But while the American Dream was achievable to some it was always limited. Black and brown people were excluded from the means of accumulating wealth. Or had their assets taken away or devalued. It was never a complete meritocracy.

Meritocracy is a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than wealth or social class.

When has that definition ever been 100% accurate in our society? Wealth has increasingly been accumulated by a few who use their earnings to earn even more at the expense of others. People have always had economic advantages from their class, wealth, gender, and skin colour. The American Dream was simply excellent branding. Organic viral marketing before we knew what to call it.

But that might be all it was. Viral marketing that introduced a new product that could soothe the masses. Rather than angry subjects who knew there was significant inequality, we now had a docile population who worked hard believing they could one day join the elite.

Some do but not many. And the ones that are already on the top don't stop there. Capitalism doesn't have an endgame. Continued growth is the game and no amount of money is ever enough.

True Meritocracy

Despite the lie of meritocracy in our political systems it has existed and survived in one aspect of life: sports.

There have been controversies but sport at its core is meritocratic. The better you perform, the more you're rewarded. While other methods for social mobility like education have declined sports have remained a clear path for those who are talented and work hard to improve their station in life.

Football has represented this ideal better than most sports. It's the most popular sport in the world not because of advertising or investment but because it's the most accessible. All you need is a ball and you can play anywhere. Other sports require expensive equipment and facilities. It's why you see football being played on streets, in mud, and on beaches. Even a ball isn't a hard requirement, any spherical object you won't injure yourself kicking will work.

Football Pyramid

Unlike American sports, the structure of professional football in Europe is meritocratic by design. In each country, there's a football pyramid with several layers of leagues that are all connected. Each season the worst-performing teams from each league are relegated to the league below and the best-performing teams are promoted to the league above.

While money has invaded the game and rich clubs have already gotten richer than the rest of the pyramid, there's still the unlikely chance that a team can rise from obscurity to the top of the pile.

And it happened in the 2015-16 season when Leicester City won the Premier League. Leicester City had struggled in the lower leagues for 10 years until they finally won promotion back to the Premier League. After barely surviving their first season back the rewards for investing in scouting players paid off. In one of the greatest stories in sporting history, they won the league besting their significantly richer rivals with a team of rejects and players few had heard of before.

Greed

Of course, like society at large, sports ideals of meritocracy have been slowly eroded by those with more power. The billionaires bought their way in and turned average teams into champions. Nation states bought clubs to improve their reputations. FIFA and UEFA executives got greedy, stole money, and sold the World Cup rights to a country that's abused workers to create infrastructure in the desert. American businessmen bought clubs and saddled them with debt while they collected dividends.

There are few innocent parties in this story. Everyone in power at some point gave in to their desire for more money and allowed those with different interests to enter the game and inevitably that led to a desire for consolidation.

This all came to a head in April 2021 when owners of the richest clubs announced they'd be forming a new football league. It would be similar to American leagues where the same teams play every year and there's no chance for smaller teams to join. It'd be controlled by only the rich and benefit only the rich.

Fans, Football, Owners, in that order

Immediately across England, fans of the clubs that announced they'd be joining this Super League began marching and making their voices heard. The protests grew louder and there were calls for resignations and owners to sell their stakes. A Manchester United vs Liverpool game was even cancelled after fans gained access to the stadium.

And eventually the rich owners all gave up.

Plans were scrapped and owners were forced to write apologies and make promises to listen to their fans. It worked.

People Power

Of course, that's unlikely to be the end of the battle for control of football. The billionaire owners are still there and some clubs haven't given up on the plans. It's a threat looming in the background.

But in that moment when they felt they had the power to make their will reality, they failed. The people rose up and put a stop to it. They reminded the oligarchs who hold the true power.

This is a power we seldom exercise however. In too many cases we feel resigned to the whims of corporations and their shareholders. We all dislike Facebook but continue to use their products. We all think music streaming services are hurting artists but continue to use them. But together we've got the power to change these services or move on if they don't comply.

Football clubs have the advantage of already having a connected group of individuals with shared interests. It's a lot easier to unite. But how can we extend that elsewhere? Unions seem to serve that purpose at work and have seen a resurgence particularly in the video game industry. Maybe we can expand that model to other parts of life.

We've been promised a meritocracy but in the few ways it existed, it's being stripped away. In sports, in housing, in art, and in our careers. There are fewer ladders to climb and more cul-de-sacs of surviving disguised as the American dream.

The only way to change this is to recognise the power we hold. Not just when threatened like the football pyramid was but whenever an inch is being negotiated.

They should be scared.