Bleak Future for Football?

Nothing really new in the article I've attached, but sadly it's very true I think. League football is becoming tediously uncompetitive & it's not going to get any better. The subordination of international football to the financial agenda of a handful of big clubs is a worry too. As Patrick Barclay of The Sunday Telegraph said recently, "it's time to declare football bankrupt: morally bankrupt".

Maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. I like the way clubs like Celtic are focusing in young locally sourced talent rather than seeking soulless mercenaries like Hasselbaink etc. Give me a Derek Riordan over another Van Hooijdonk (" seven grand a week is good money only if you're homeless").

Maybe we should just let the G13 or whatever just get on with things & leave the rest with something to enjoy.

http://www.itv-football.co.uk/Story/...335489,00.html

A bleak future for football

Don't let the landmark matchfixing verdict fool you.


The leading clubs will continue to pursue any means, legal or illegal, to entrench their dominance in world football.


Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina may have been relegated from Serie A in the aftermath of the scandal, but such a verdict should have been delivered years ago.


Rigging matches and corruption have been at the heart of the game, and especially so in Italy, for far longer than football fans would care to remember.


The verdict should be applauded, but ultimately it will not change the flawed system which produced such a shocking web of deceit and scandal.


Next time and there will be a next time, the culprits will simply be more careful and will find new ways to disguise their actions.


But beyond the current furore in Italy, there are serious and deep-rooted problems which are only serving to widen the disparities within the game.


Lars-Christer Olsson, the UEFA Chief Executive, has expressed his fear at the direction the game is taking as his organisation fights against the monopolisation of the game by a European elite.


In his article entitled "It's time to take on the dangerous elite" Olsson is adamant that legal reforms need to be made to stop the game being taken away even further from the masses.


"A few clubs in Europe's big markets - England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France - earn much more money than their rivals, which reduces competition. Many use it to buy the world's best players, which again widens the inequality, although often they have so many top stars that they leave some on the bench."


An all-too familiar scenario really and the real losers are the fans, who pay bottom dollar to watch their club play, spend ridiculous sums of money on replica shirts only to see loyalty rewarded by the club changing kit the next season, ticket prices being raised and their star player being flogged to Real Madrid.


Yes, the working class are becoming increasingly estranged from the game - just the ticket prices for an average Premiership game mean that your average fan cannot afford to attend more than a couple of games a season, as the business executives and bourgeoise elite watch smugly from the VIP suites.


Olsson continues: "We are concerned that football's fans are paying for the excesses of just a few clubs - those excesses include players' wages, which are generally too high, through ticket prices, subscriptions to TV companies and merchandise."


And furthermore, the increasing disparites mean that the game is becoming more predictable and hence more boring. There are only a handful of teams in the world's leading leagues who have any chance of landing the title - the likes of Wigan may upset the odds on occasion but this is the exception rather than the norm and they will still never win the title.


Olsson has warned that the growing predictability will lead to the game stagnating and "if left unchecked it will kill off a lot of the interest in football, which depends on unpredictability of outcome to keep fans, TV companies and sponsors involved."


Which brings us to the G14, an elite grouping of European clubs, who forced UEFA to expand the Champions League to bring more money to the participating teams. This somewhat self-interested organisation will surely form a breakaway Super League in the future to maximise their financial success, unless measures are put in place to limit their hegemony and power.


The UEFA chief paints a nightmare vision of what would happen if the G14 got their way.


"Club football will become a closed circus. They will organise a competition for 24 teams, play games in Asia and North America to generate resources. Players would only be released to play for their national teams if their wages were paid and if their release did not conflict with club activities, as already happens in ice hockey," he added.


Olsson insists the organisation will not be bullied by the G14 and hopes that the Independent review of European football - conducted a few months ago by European sports ministers, including British minister for sport Richard Caborn - will help reduce the inequalities rotting football and lead to a new European legal framework to prevent these clubs from taking total control of the game.


As promising as it sounds, we have heard such fighting talk before. But unfortunately in football these days, as players, agents and clubs all look to maximise their earnings, money talks loudest.


Even louder than the game itself.


By Ben Sanders