Community Shield removed from free-to-air as disgraceful Arsenal vs Man City decision made

Millions of football fans around the country won't be able to watch Arsenal vs Manchester City in the Community Shield since the match is locked behind a paywall

If you ever needed definitive proof that modern football's suit-wearing technocrats would gladly charge you for the oxygen inside the stadium if they could figure out the pipework, look no further than the Community Shield.

Stripping the season's traditional curtain-raiser - which, this year, sees Premier League champions Arsenal take on FA Cup winners Manchester City - off free-to-air TV and locking it behind a TNT Sports paywall is a piece of corporate villainy so greedy it might as well have been pushed through by Mr Burns from The Simpsons.

Let's pause and remind ourselves of what the Community Shield actually is. It's essentially a high-profile, sun-drenched exhibition match. It's the day players shake off their summer sangria, test out their shiny new haircuts and try very hard not to blow out an ACL before the Premier League season actually starts.

Crucially, it is - or was - a charity game, explicitly designed to raise funds for local community projects, food banks and youth grassroots clubs.

For generations, it was a free, wholesome gift to the nation on the BBC or ITV. Families could gather around the screen without having to re-mortgage the house, enjoying a harmless afternoon of football through the haze of an August heatwave. But in the boardroom of modern football, even good deeds must carry a tollbooth.

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Slapping a subscription charge on a charity match takes a genuinely spectacular level of nerve. It's the administrative equivalent of standing outside a soup kitchen with a card reader, demanding a £30-a-month direct debit before anyone gets a bowl of broth.

To follow a single football club through a season today, the average supporter needs a bank account with more legroom than the driver's seat of Peter Crouch's car.

You need Sky Sports for weekly Premier League games, TNT for the European nights, Amazon Prime for the odd midweek fixture. Hell, at the current rate of corporate bloat, it won't be long before we're forced into a monthly direct debit for Deliveroo TV and friggin' Greggs+ just to unlock the second half of games.

All told, regular Joes are being told to cough up nearly a grand a year to follow their team all season long. Football was built on working-class terraces, but it's now run by suit-and-tie vampires who treat the average supporter like a lemon to be squeezed until the pips squeak dry.

Locking the opening game of the season behind a paywall sends a cold, miserable message to millions of kids: if your parents don't have a high-tier subscription package, the game doesn't belong to you.

It's seedy, it's greedy and it stinks to high heaven. The Community Shield was meant to be a celebration for everyone. Flogging it off to pay-TV is absolute proof that modern football knows the price of a subscription, but hasn't got the foggiest idea of the value of anything else.