Social media is where football snobs go to graze

Social media is where football snobs go to graze.

And football snobbery is very much a thing. Which is quite funny when you consider that a lot of it comes from supporters who seem to think that because their club happens to be located in an elite football country, the club itself must therefore be elite.

It doesn’t quite work like that. You don’t become royalty because you live near Buckingham Palace.

Take this exchange between Stoke City fans discussing Ryan Mmaee’s move from Omonoia to Atlas. Mmaee didn’t exactly pull up trees during his time at Stoke, but last season he scored 27 goals in all competitions for Omonoia before earning the club a reported €3 million move to Mexico.

Apparently, though, none of that really counts because it happened in Cyprus.

One supporter pointed out that the Cypriot League isn’t comparable to the Championship. And, broadly speaking, they’re right. The Championship has bigger stadiums, larger crowds and considerably more financial power. Nobody sensible is arguing otherwise.

But this is where football snobbery gets a bit confused.

Let’s use Stoke City as our little experiment.

Stoke have qualified for European competition three times in their history. Their best modern European run ended in the Europa League Round of 32 in 2011/12.

Now compare that with APOEL Nicosia. A club often casually dismissed as a European “minnow” by people whose knowledge of European football apparently stops at the English Channel.

APOEL made their Champions League group-stage debut in 2009 and have since shared European pitches with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham Hotspur, Borussia Dortmund, Atlético Madrid and Ajax.

Then came 2011/12.

APOEL finished top of a Champions League group containing Porto, Zenit St Petersburg and Shakhtar Donetsk. They then eliminated Lyon in the Round of 16 before eventually losing to Real Madrid in the quarter-finals.

Not bad for a little team from that league which apparently doesn’t count.

Further European campaigns have included victories over Sevilla, Athletic Bilbao, Olympiakos Piraeus, Bordeaux and Young Boys. APOEL haven’t merely turned up for the free UEFA buffet and a photograph at the Bernabéu. They’ve competed.

And if I wanted to be childish – which, obviously, I don’t – I could mention AEK Larnaca’s 1–0 victory away to Crystal Palace in October 2025.

AEK played Palace three times last season: one win, one draw and one defeat.

Stoke City’s last 11 meetings with Crystal Palace? One win, one draw and nine defeats.

But we’re not comparing, of course.

That would be childish.

The point isn’t that the Cypriot League is better than the Championship. It isn’t. The point is that football doesn’t work like a national pyramid of inherited importance. A club from a smaller league can have greater European pedigree, play continental football regularly and provide a better platform for certain players than a club sitting in the middle or lower reaches of a richer domestic competition.

Ryan Mmaee’s time at Stoke didn’t work out. His time at Omonoia did. He scored goals, won a league title and earned a multimillion-euro transfer.

Sometimes a player isn’t rubbish.

Sometimes the move is.