Here’s a recap of some of the biggest headlines in the world of football over the last few days:
A footballer on nearly £500,000 a week did an unauthorised talk show interview to criticise his club and manager because he’s not good enough to be in the team.
The sports-washing World Cup starts this weekend in Qatar and players who have spent a lifetime dreaming of this moment are having to take a stand against human rights abuses.
The European Super League rebels continue to insist their dream of a billion-pound breakaway league and guaranteed revenues is alive and kicking.
READ MORE: 'It's United in Europe, it's surreal' - The non-league club making history in Europe
Any actual football? Not so much. It's all been about the soap opera of football, the circus of the game, the Netflix drama of a sport doing its best to consume itself.
But the soul of the game is still there, you just have to search a little harder for it at times. It was certainly on show on Tuesday night in Moston.
The Manchester suburb is an unlikely place to be watching European football, but behind one of the goals at FC United's Broadhurst Park stadium are around 25 football fans from Belgium. They spend the 90 minutes singing almost constantly in perfect English, supporting KSK Beveren, the only fan-owned club in the country, who normally play in the sixth tier of the Belgian pyramid.
The teeming rain and plunging temperatures are an inhospitable welcome, but off the pitch the cameraderie is heartwarming. When the final whistle blows on FC United's 4-1 win, the Belgians and the Mancunians will decamp to the club bar for some beers and a sing-song, before the party continues into the city centre for those who fancy a late one on a Tuesday night.
At the weekend, KSK Beveren will be back in action in the East Flanders provincial league and FC United are at home against Gainsborough Trinity. But for now, it's a European night under the lights in Manchester. Just not as you've come to expect it. Welcome to a night at the Fenix Trophy.
'Fenix Nights. Balls to the Bernabeu', reads the banner hanging down from the stand running alongside the pitch at Broadhurst Park. "We are the champions, champions of Europe" sing the FC United fans, many of whom thought their days of getting the passport out to go and watch football on the continent were over the moment they walked away from Manchester United in 2005.
The Fenix Trophy was formed last year. The brainchild of Milan-based Brera FC and open to non-league clubs around Europe with special cultural or community significance. FC United were recruited to help organise the competition and duly won it in its first year.
That included trips to Warsaw to play AKS Zly, Milan to face Brera and then to Rimini for the finals. It was an unforgettable experience but Neil Reynolds' side were clearly the best side in the competition. This year it's expanded and KSK are a tougher challenge for FC United, who still prevail 4-1 in a game that features a standard of goals that won't be matched at the Bernabeu this year.
In spring FC United will head to Beveren and Valencia, to take on the third team in their group, CD Cuenca-Mestallistes 1925. The competition is already growing and an entrant from Serbia this year, FK Miljakovac, have struck a deal for their fixtures to be shown live on TV.
It's about the football, but it's also about much more than just the football. "It’s football for the sake of the football, rather than how much money can we extort out of it," explains Tim Browning to the Manchester Evening News an hour-and-a-half before kick-off.
Browning was a lifelong United fan who says "when I sang not one penny more I absolutely meant it" about the Glazer takeover. Now he helps with the social media at FC United as well, but in a week when the game has again made itself look particularly unappealing, his spirited take on the beauty of this kind of football is the perfect antidote.
"The saying is the love of money is the root of all evil and that is so true in football," says Browning.
"Money is being extracted from the bottom echelons and going right to the top. It’s not going into the game, Ronaldo is making a million quid every two weeks, there are agents out there making £20m or £30m a year. For what? What are they contributing to the game?
"We’re having to scrape things together just to keep going, like all clubs at our level, yet there are people extracting money from the highest levels of the game. If they weren’t involved in football they would be in another business. It’s not football they’re interested in, it’s money."
The competitive element is still there. When the MEN arrives at Broadhurst Park we're ushered into the home dressing room and meet FC United captain Charlie Ennis, who scores the third goal from the penalty spot a couple of hours later.
But as the bar starts to fill upstairs, he sits on a bench surrounded by some of his fellow early arrivals in the team and explains what playing in European football means to a non-league stalwart.
"We feel like the level [of the competition] is going to improve over the years, who knows what it’s going to be like in five or 10 years time, but each year this club is in it and I’m part of it we want to win it," he said.
"There won't be many players in this dressing room who will get the opportunity to play abroad. It’s a great experience and something you look back on at the end of your career.
"I’m one of the older players in the team and coming towards the end of my career it’s definitely something I’ll be grabbing on to."
The players warm up on the 3G surface outside the stadium, to avoid damaging the pitch after a day of heavy rainfall. But when they emerge from the tunnel they will walk past the Fenix Trophy, on an FC United-branded plinth next to the pitch.
Reynolds, who has been the manager at FC United for just over four years, says he has goosebumps as he stands next to the trophy won last season and talks us through the challenges of taking a non-league team into Europe.
There is the difficulty of part-time players getting time off, fitting the fixtures and the travel in around a busy domestic programme, and finding out about the opposition you're facing.
Reynolds had managed to have KSK watched on three separate occasions, impressively, but despite the demands, he realises what a privileged position he is in.
"When Adrian [Seddon, chairman] spoke to me and asked about taking FC United into Europe I never thought it would come off. Then all of a sudden you’re doing it and going to Warsaw, Milan, Valencia, Brussels. It’s hard to imagine a team at our level doing that," he says.
"It’s bigger this year. It seems to have gathered a lot of pace, it’s been well received in non-league circles, we’ve got representatives from our league here tonight taking a real interest in it. Speaking to players, they’re asking if we’re still in Europe."
A crowd of just under 750 come to Broadhurst Park on Tuesday. The home games are essential for FC United, who use them to try and fund the away trips.
Last season they made a loss of around £900 on the competition, but aim to break even this time around. The home clubs book and pay for hotels for visiting teams, with the aim of getting a good deal locally, but clubs must pay for their own airfares.
Seddon received an email in January 2020 from people at Brera asking about FC United's interest in the Fenix Trophy and still finds the fact it is up and running surreal.
He was in the Nou Camp in 1999 and watched United all over Europe, but when the Glazers drove him away from Old Trafford he thought those days were over. The similarities with United's first forays into Europe in 1956 aren't lost on him.
"We’ve loved being the pioneers, Manchester United were the pioneers for European football and we feel like we’re the pioneers for non-league European football," Seddon told the MEN in the busy club bar on the first floor of the stadium.
"Who knows where this will go, it might fizzle out in a couple of years, in which case we’ve had a lovely experience, or it might turn out to be a big competition in the future, in which case we’re the inaugural winners."
As the signing cranks up a level, we move out onto the terrace. FC United are proud of their place in Fenix Trophy history and - unlike the Glazers - are happy with their current involvement in European football.
"We’ve all done this with the approval of our leagues and our federations," says Seddon, an unmistakable contrast to the doomed European Super League plans.
The outrageous ESL concept was a tipping point for many fans to seek their football elsewhere and plenty more upped sticks from Old Trafford to Broadhurst Park, although Seddon insists they are open to all. There are even a couple of City fans who are regulars on matchday in Moston.
"There comes a point in a lot of people’s lives when they’ve had enough. There’s a line in the sand moment, for me it was 2005, other people have it at different times. The European Super League was certainly a big line-in-the-sand moment for a lot of people," said Seddon.
"For others, they can’t afford the ticket prices, or they just can’t get tickets. One day they say ‘we’ve had enough of this’. We’re here for them, for anyone who has had enough of modern professional football and wants to come and watch a game, have a beer in the stands, have a sing-song and have a good time. People come at different times in their lives and whenever people have had enough, we’re here for them."
The ESL isn't the only footballing topic that leaves people bewildered this week. The World Cup in Qatar is upon us 12 years after it was awarded to the tiny Gulf state and the reality of that is hitting home.
Then there's Cristiano Ronaldo. Robin Beck has been a board member at KSK Beveren for eight years and when the MEN mentions Ronaldo going on Piers Morgan's show to him, he just laughs and shakes his head.
This is KSK's first season in the Fenix Trophy. They were in the Europa League as recently as 2004 before financial problems struck. They were taken over by a nearby club and became Waasland-Beveren, who are now in the second division of Belgium football.
But hundreds of Beveren supporters boycotted them and started from the bottom, with a delegation visiting FC United 11 years ago while searching for ideas and inspiration.
"It’s not about the money, it’s about the game, about making friends, giving it all on the pitch and being honoured to be invited to a club like this," said Beck.
"In professional football that all goes away. It has nothing to do with the true spirit of the game anymore. Everything around it is just crazy and it makes the sport go in a very bad direction."
"It’s going to continue that way, I can’t see anything that’s going to change that," adds Paul Butcher, an FC United board member.
"People just want success and they will do anything for it. Look at what Newcastle fans have accepted. They will turn a blind eye to it but you’ve got to make a stand at some point.
"I did that 17 years ago and I’ve had a lot more fun here, compared to being told to sit down and shut up, have no say and no connection with the team."
Chantal Adams was seven when her family walked away from Old Trafford in 2005. She's only known football through FC United but unlike many of her friends, she can afford to go and can easily get tickets to games. Now, through the Fenix Trophy, she has experienced football in Europe as well.
"It was amazing, the home games as well, we had the Polish team come over, having them in the ground with all their flags and singing and going out with them after," she said of last season's competition.
"The football club is a community, you go to these places and see the same faces, it’s like seeing your family out there. Then you get to mix with the players and the fans from other clubs, finding out above those clubs, their social values. It was a great experience."
***
By the time the match kicks off the two sets of fans share the same terrace behind the goal. Brexit has made it harder for European fans to come to England and probably halved the number of supporters KSK would have brought to Manchester.
But the 25 or so who are here make a constant noise and the fans in attendance are treated to an entertaining game featuring some brilliant goals. Regan Linney curls in FC United's first from an almost impossible angle.
The striker has been one of the star men this season and has attracted interest from higher-level clubs. "He's going on Piers Morgan next week," one wag jokes after another eye-catching moment.
Former Everton academy graduate Michael Donohue then rifles in a shot from around 30 yards, but Jochen Bergauwen's goal on the hour is a thing of beauty, a picture-perfect lob that soars well over the head of the stranded Dan Lavercombe and kisses the surface on the line before going in. It was as aesthetically pleasing as it gets.
KSK give FC United the most competitive game they've had so far in the competition and it remained 2-1 until the final 20 minutes, before the hosts pulled away. Their defence of the trophy is up and running.
Ten minutes after the final whistle has blown, both sets of players stand in front of the terrace behind the goal, chatting to fans, taking pictures and leading each other in song. 'Beveren, Beveren, Beveren' chant the FC United fans, before asking the visitors to 'give us a song'.
As the rain pours down the bar looks inviting. Stories are shared over pints, about what it means to be a football fan and to have ownership of your club. For one night at least, in this little corner of Manchester, the spirit of the game is alive and well.
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