Welcome to this special sports edition of Podcast of Ideas. Alastair Donald is joined by Academy of Ideas colleagues, Geoff Kidder and Rob Lyons, along with Hilary Salt and Simon McKeon, two regular speakers and session producers at the annual Battle of Ideas festival.

Over the past week, football has hogged the headlines on the front as well as the back pages as the plan for a new European Super League emerged and then collapsed, almost in the blink of an eye.

The headlines claimed this has been the 'biggest fiasco in football history', the 'defeat of greed' and that elites sports has suffered its 'most astounding humiliation.

• Why did the European Super League has suddenly emerge now?
• What were the main problems with this initiative?
• Why did pushing through the ESL run up against the buffers?
• Can we read anything deeper into this, culturally or even politically?
• What are the ramifications of the ESL's collapse and what about the future – for fans, football, football governance and politics?

#SportscastOfIdeas: the rise and fall of the European Super League