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Reputations shredded like so much cabbage at a coleslaw convention

<span>Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

MONEY SPOILER?

Poor Ed Woodward. Manchester United’s executive vice-chairman was so set against the proposed Super League, so vehemently and principally opposed to the entire hideous idea, that he flat out insisted on saying absolutely nothing about it for two days before, once it was obviously falling apart and reputations were being shredded like so much cabbage at a coleslaw convention, announcing that he was resigning but not quite yet.

Amid the chaos of Tuesday night this noble stand was misinterpreted by a foolish public as evidence not of the greatest ethical purity but of some kind of personal failure, forcing someone to brief Sky today that Woodward’s resignation came “because he could not support the owners’ plans to join the Super League”, rather than because he was fatally tainted by the entire miserable clusterbungle. The Fiver, along with all right-thinking fans, thanks him for his sacrifice.

Related: ‘It was like shouting into a hurricane’: how the Super League crashed

Earlier today, a group of United fans broke into the club’s Carrington training ground, presumably so they could personally pass on their thanks to Woodward. They carried a number of banners, including one that read “Glazers out” and another that said “we decide when you play”, although the latter might have been brought along by whichever Sky representative was inside being briefed.

Meanwhile Florentino Pérez, the Real Madrid pérezident, blamed the collapse of the breakaway league on a breakaway club, “one of the English clubs who didn’t seem so interested” which he identified as “the one from Manchester”. There were of course two from Manchester, something you might expect Flo to know – but it is thought he meant City.

Pérez’s astonishment that a club leadership which had by then already demonstrated a complete lack of loyalty to teams their organisation has been working with for well in excess of a century, might not be completely loyal to teams they had been working with for about half an hour is one of the great surprises of this entire story. Pérez declared himself “sad and disappointed”, making him a cross double-crosser.

Pérez also insisted that the Super League is “not dead”. Meanwhile Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, said it was “dead without the English and German teams, let’s be realistic, it’s dead”. As the story nears its end this uncertainty about whether the villain is or is not dead, as well as a plot that is essentially about infidelity, suggests that the entire Super League project might just have been an elaborate remake of Fatal Attraction, only with the protagonists’ own reputations playing the part performed in the original by the rabbit.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I was going into games happy sitting on the bench and that’s not me. I didn’t want to play because my mind wasn’t there, I wasn’t focused at all … even in matches, I felt like the game was just passing me by, like I just didn’t want to be there” – Jesse Lingard opens up to online show Presenting about dealing with depression.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

It’s time for those three magic words: Football. Weekly. Extraaaaaaa.

FIVER LETTERS

“In classic Fiver style please could Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd and Tottenham forever now be prefaced with ‘Former €$£’s’?” – David Bowers.

“What a fantastic turnaround in the last couple of days for Spurs fans. José sacked and avoided being bottom of the league for the next 20 years” – Neil Bage.

“All this €$£ malarky reminds me of a day in secondary school when a group of hormone-and-gobstopper-fuelled rebels decided that classes would be better taught (a) outside and (b) by themselves, for themselves. Safe to say, what started as the great breakaway quickly turned sour and they were marched back into school, tails between their legs. It was Ed [Woodward? – Fiver Ed] who started it, apparently.” – Dan Forshaw.

“In regards to a €uropean $uper £eague anthem (Fivers passim) it can surely only be the Adventures of Stevie V and ‘Dirty Cash’” – Karl Barry.

“Surely the €$£ anthem should now be ‘You Cant Always Get What You Want’, sung by a choir made up of one suit from every breakaway club” – John Myles.

“Yesterday’s mention of Dublin’s ‘Arriva Stadium’ had me wondering if José’s next job will be parking the bus as Republic O’Ireland manager?” – Dan Westacott [ah, yes. Apologies – Fiver Ed].

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … John Myles.

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“I’m a Govan boy” – the venerable Lord Ferg makes a welcome return in this clip from a new documentary, coming to cinemas and streaming platforms soon.

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

Uefa chief Aleksander Ceferin is threatening to get medieval on the wantaway clubs. He insists they must suffer consequences following this week’s Super League farrago.

Mikel Arteta has revealed that the Arsenal-owning Kroenkes have apologised to him over their dastardly Super League plot. Arsenal face Everton this weekend and Arteta will be without forwards Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette.

Mr Roy has said football fans were crucial in stopping the €$£ money train. “The fabric [of football] was in danger of being torn apart, and I’m just delighted that the fans have played such a major part,” Mr Roy said poetically.

West Ham are at the front of a queue that also includes Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham and Bayern Munich, assembling outside Carrow Road to snaffle £30m Norwich right-back Max Aarons.

And Brighton manager Graham Potter suffered a facial injury after taking a spill on the beach. “I’d love to be able to tell you there’s a heroic, chivalrous story here but unfortunately I just missed my footing,” Potter sighed.

Graham Potter sporting one hell of a shiner at his presser today.
Graham Potter sporting one hell of a shiner at his presser today. Photograph: PA Video/PA

RECOMMENDED ATTENDING

What does the failed Super League mean for the future of European football? Max Rushden, Barney Ronay, Jonathan Liew and Suzanne Wrack discuss in this online forum. The admission price? It’s a fiver!

STILL WANT MORE?

‘It was like shouting into a hurricane’: how the Super League crashed and burned - top analysis here by Sean Ingle, Fabrizio Romano and Nick Ames.

Sassuolo manager Roberto De Zerbi would have preferred to boycott Wednesday’s match against Super League plotters Milan - but his side went to San Siro and won instead, writes Nicky Bandini.

Floating-brain-in-a-jar Jonathan Wilson takes us back to 1950s Colombia in a warning for the breakaway bunch.

Could a fan-friendly ownership model like Germany’s work in English football? Uli Hesse takes a look.

“Appeasement has not worked”: Kevin Miles, chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Association, says fans must stay angry to get the game back on track.

Ideas far above The Fiver’s station dept: Big Paper’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, says the Super League is the perfect metaphor for global capitalism.

Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!

THE GOAT. RIP HENNES VIII