Assuming you haven’t been living in a cave for the past 24-36 hours, you will know that media outlets are falling over themselves to criticise all those involved in a proposed breakaway European football league.
That co-called European Super League will see some of the continent’s biggest teams abandoning national competition in favour of a lucrative new competition in which the footballing elite – Real Madrid and Barcelona from Spain, Juventus and Inter Milan from Italy, and England’s Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool – will compete for European supremacy and multi-millions in TV rights and sponsorship deals.
As a West Ham fan, I would welcome such a move. Based on current league standings, the departure of those elite clubs would see my precious Hammers second only in the Premier League standings to Leicester, a team we beat just a few weeks ago.
As a football fan, however, I see it for what it is; a revolution driven by greed and avarice with seemingly no regard for the fans that flock to see these teams each week.
For all that, I kind of understand where the owners of these big clubs are coming from. After all, the running of a “brand” like Manchester United has about as much in common with the running of Accrington Stanley as the running of the Disney Corporation has in common with Demolition News.
And, when you think about it, those same rules apply right here in the demolition business. Let’s be honest, the industry elite – Erith and DSM here in the UK, Despe in Italy, for example – operate on a whole different level to Fred Blogs Demolition, which specialises in demolishing single-storey houses in and around East Yorkshire.
Take this as an example. When there is a shift in legislation or a change in taxation, Fred Blogs Demolition relies upon the good grace of a national demolition trade association to compile and disseminate that information. The industry elite have no need for such a service. Those companies have their own legal experts, taxation experts and their own insurance experts in-house.
This isn’t a case of competing on a level playing field. It is more a case of playing on an entirely different playing surface.
Fred Blogs’ demolition of a single-storey house might involve one or two men and one or two machines for a week or less. The multi-million pound projects undertaken by the sector elite require the deployment of dozens of machines and potentially hundreds of men. It requires them to satisfy countless stakeholders on projects that might last for months or even years.
Moreover, like their counterparts in the world of football, there is a big difference in how the lower leagues and the top of the upper leagues operate.
On the demolition of a single-storey house, there might be 10 or more demolition companies competing for that work. Some of them might only do demolition on a part-time basis to supplement their usual landscaping business. This is similar to the UK’s FA Cup in which even non-league minnows have a chance of glory.
When you get to the demolition of things like power stations and petro-chemical works – the industry equivalent of the Champions League tournament – only a very small handful of the industry’s biggest and best are qualified to take part.
Of course, I am aware of the existence of the European Demolition Association (EDA) and the work it undertakes. But the EDA membership also includes some companies that are relative minnows and for whom the lobbying of the European Parliament is of little or no interest.
The fact is that, despite the obvious geographic and language barriers, Erith has more in common with Despe than it does with Fred Blogs Demolition.
In terms of shared learning, shared experience and shared knowledge, the notion of a European Demolition Super League makes a lot of sense.
Furthermore, while cross-border working remains something of a novelty – Safedem and Despe joining forces with the TopDownWay system being a notable exception – you would have to think that the UK will one day become too small to contain ambitious and multi-million pound companies like the aforementioned DSM and Erith.
Maybe those industry behemoths really DO belong in a European Super Association. Maybe, their departure from traditional national associations might just allow those bodies to appeal to a broader church. And maybe, just maybe, that departure might propel a new name to the top of the national league.
Should that ever happen, my only question is this: Who will be the demolition industry’s league-leading West Ham United?
