Wednesday, September 21, 2005
I started writing this after being annoyed at this article (mentioned earlier). I’m not quite sure where I ended up in the end.
I’ve argued this before: if football has problems it is because it is insufficiently capitalist. The clubs are not so bad - although a little cost benefit analysis and risk assessment would have saved Leeds from their current situation - it is with the supporters that the blame must lie. Clubs hold a monopoly over their fans’ loyalty, it is natural for them to exploit it; but high ticket prices and uninspiring football can only continue with the acquiescence of the supporters.
Fans must use their most powerful weapon – their money. It is unrealistic to expect people to follow a different team because they play more attractive football – although floating voters may have drifted from Manchester United to Arsenal to Chelsea over the last five years – but they should withdraw their support if they are not seeing the game played the way they would like: they can refuse to buy the replica shirts, duvet covers and season tickets by which their clubs make their supernormal profits. But as soon as this does begin to happen people complain about a crisis. Hardly. The desertion of football is the necessary trigger for it to change.
The fashionability and unprecedented exposure that football has enjoyed over the last ten years have led to unrealistic expectations. At some point the warming sun would drift away from the Premiership and something else would become popular – and at that point football would have to change to become more attractive or shake hands amicably with the departing fans and agree that we’d always have Barcelona. I suspect that “real” fans of clubs do not care too much how their club plays, as long as they are winning, and that it is the casual viewer in search of entertainment that bemoans the lack of goals. Well, maybe it’s time for those of us who know the name of Chelsea’s first choice left-back but who would never go to a game to just piss off out of it and cast our money-votes in favour of La Liga, or cricket, or Celebrity Wrestling – anything that fulfils our search for something exciting to watch. The Premiership is not for me, nor should it be. This could be goodbye.
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I’ve argued this before: if football has problems it is because it is insufficiently capitalist. The clubs are not so bad - although a little cost benefit analysis and risk assessment would have saved Leeds from their current situation - it is with the supporters that the blame must lie. Clubs hold a monopoly over their fans’ loyalty, it is natural for them to exploit it; but high ticket prices and uninspiring football can only continue with the acquiescence of the supporters.
Fans must use their most powerful weapon – their money. It is unrealistic to expect people to follow a different team because they play more attractive football – although floating voters may have drifted from Manchester United to Arsenal to Chelsea over the last five years – but they should withdraw their support if they are not seeing the game played the way they would like: they can refuse to buy the replica shirts, duvet covers and season tickets by which their clubs make their supernormal profits. But as soon as this does begin to happen people complain about a crisis. Hardly. The desertion of football is the necessary trigger for it to change.
The fashionability and unprecedented exposure that football has enjoyed over the last ten years have led to unrealistic expectations. At some point the warming sun would drift away from the Premiership and something else would become popular – and at that point football would have to change to become more attractive or shake hands amicably with the departing fans and agree that we’d always have Barcelona. I suspect that “real” fans of clubs do not care too much how their club plays, as long as they are winning, and that it is the casual viewer in search of entertainment that bemoans the lack of goals. Well, maybe it’s time for those of us who know the name of Chelsea’s first choice left-back but who would never go to a game to just piss off out of it and cast our money-votes in favour of La Liga, or cricket, or Celebrity Wrestling – anything that fulfils our search for something exciting to watch. The Premiership is not for me, nor should it be. This could be goodbye.
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