Todd Boehly and the latest polarising dividing line we don’t need

Supporters of major English football clubs can be forgiven for harbouring ambivalent attitudes to American ownership. For every John W Henry, under whose yoke an underperforming Liverpool won their first title in 30 years, there’s a John W Henry, who tried it on with that €uropean $uper £eague racket. Then there’s the Glazer family, who have on the one hand leveraged many billions out of Manchester United, but Old Trafford hasn’t yet completely crumbled into pieces so small you could sieve them through a sock, so that’s a plus point of sorts for now. Or how about Stan Kroenke, long eyed with suspicion by sections of the Arsenal fanbase, but damn can that man pair a wide-lapelled pinstripe suit with handlebar moustache. It’s swings and rotary traffic intersections.

All of which is a roundabout way of bringing us to Todd Boehly, the newest dude on the block. Since taking Chelsea off Roman Abramovich’s hands, the US billionaire has embarked on a wild spending spree, throwing obscene amounts of money at things he doesn’t really need, in the manner of a sailor on shore leave, or a billionaire. He’s also sacked a Big Cup-winning manager who didn’t approve of the spree, and as a by-product of appointing a new boss, ruined the early-season fairytale everyone apart from Crystal Palace fans was enjoying. Bored now, he’s called for the Premier League to launch a US-style All-Star game. Flag! Red flag!

“Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports,” said Boehly, addressing the Salt conference for “global thought leadership” – sigh – in New York. “People are talking about more money for the pyramid; in the MLB All-Star game this year we made $200m. So we’re thinking we could do a north