Here We Go, Here We Go, Here We Go!

So, after all the hype and expectation, England are out of the World Cup at the hands of Germany. No change there then.

All through the tournament England played like they were asleep and Germany played like they wanted to win. On reflection, I'm not surprised. What is surprising is why expectation is so high when it’s a lifetime since England were even thought likely to win. Also, why is it that players who perform perfectly well for their club consistently disappoint for their country? Pressure? Not likely, these guys are under a lot of pressure on a weekly basis in the Premier League. Another reason given is tiredness. I wonder how that sounds to fans who on average work a 12-hour day for a tiny fraction of what footballers get. Premier League footballers are fed the best nutrition money can buy and are (or should be) at the peak of physical fitness. They play no more matches a season than any other European team, so no excuse there either.

Why does the team fail to reproduce the football we see week in week out during the season? The reaction of some of the players to their poor performance may give a clue. Rob Green’s lack of remorse at his mistake, Gerrard’s calm acceptance of the lack of attacking play and Rooney’s petulance after the Algerian game is significant. The will just wasn’t there.

Nowadays footballers are nurtured and encouraged (some would say indulged) all their lives and their sense of entitlement is enormous. They have no concept of the reality of the lives of the majority of their fans and cannot conceive of real disappointment. They get paid whether they perform well or not (and even if the club goes bust) and the concept of personal or national pride is probably far too abstract for them to understand. So, they shrug their shoulders and go on holiday to the derision of the press and the whole round of inquests into the state of the game in England begins yet again.

The TV coverage hasn’t helped football’s cause. It’ll be interesting to see how many TV viewers in England continue to watch the tournament now that England are out. ITV will have to try to wedge even more ads into their coverage which has been poor to say the least. The standard of commentary, the pundits chosen to comment during the few moments that ads aren’t being shown and the general professionalism has been bad. I get the feeling Adrian Chiles will be regretting his decision to leave the BBC before too long. The breakdown of HD during the England v Slovenia match just at the time when England scored was appalling. I have to admit the thought crossed my mind whether someone had bet on that happening.
The last time the game was honest?

It has struck me watching the poor standard of refereeing during the tournament that gambling has had a huge impact on football for quite a while. I think it’s significant that a BBC documentary into this aspect of English football was abandoned some years ago. This documentary led into another on the finances of the game which resulted in Alex Ferguson refusing to speak to the BBC directly (a practice which he continues to this day). I’m sure there is some enterprising journalist out there with the resources and contacts to look into this with I would imagine some striking results, but I do think that the state of English football has needed close examination for some time. When you think how much money is poured into the game nowadays, I’d be surprised to find there’s nothing untoward going on. As my old dad used to say, where there’s cash there’s crooks. But how does this affect the national team? Without any values the game will always be subject to cheating and where you can cheat in a game, there’s not much honour in winning. So a young football player who’s seen backhanders, bungs, gambling syndicates etc is not going to be burning with passion to play for his country. You might say that this must happen everywhere, and so it might but it’s England we’re talking about here. The game invented here and played throughout the centuries in one form or another has been sold off to the best bidder.

Where do we go from here? There may be people inside football who are trying to improve things but you need to put things into context. With other young men facing injury and death in Afghanistan for no good reason (and doing so for a pittance) it might just dawn on the punters that watching a bunch of millionaires stroking a ball round a field is not really worth the money or the effort. We’ll see.

The End of The World Cup As We Know It

The End of the World Cup As We Know It

The hype leading up to the World Cup has been incredible and I pity anyone who has no interest in football; we’ve been drenched in ads for products and programmes all year. That said,I've been looking forward to a festival of the beautiful game for some time.

It follows then that after all this expectation the event itself has proved to be most disappointing so far. The so-called “big” teams have been lacklustre and according to the statisticians this has been the lowest scoring world cup ever.

So, what’s the deal? Part of the problem is the noise. The vuvuzela has drowned out any atmosphere. To most football fans and players, singing, drum banging and chanting are an integral part of the game and without these, the games feel sterile. Now I know it’s not done to criticise other cultures, but the vuvuzela is a fairly new phenomenon and has been latched onto by big business. I am really glad the World Cup has finally come to Africa, but the cacophony produced by these plastic horns has been distracting (according to some players) and irritating (from a TV spectator’s point of view). You could also say it’s drowning out any support a team would expect from its supporters.

The quality of the TV presentation is poor, a lot of the pundits are not fluent English speakers (Adebayor is unintelligible) and the puerile ITV post-match show featuring James Corden is appalling. ITV have obviously tried to catch the atmosphere generated by Sky’s Soccer AM with no success whatsoever. In the middle of a recession, I find it somewhat offensive to watch overpaid and in the main under-educated presenters and pundits enjoying a 5-week holiday paid (in the BBC’s case at least) by the license fee payer.
Since it’s pretty much obligatory to criticise FIFA, can I just say that half empty stadia has confirmed the worst theories about that organisation. For a non-profit organisation (who made £1.5 billion last year), FIFA has shown themselves to be greedy in the extreme. It just confirms that FIFA are all about the money and the poorer South Africans have been totally ignored. If I were organising an event like this, I would rather sell more cheap tickets than fewer expensive ones. The fact that FIFA are currently busying themselves suing half the small businesses in Cape Town and Johannesburg for selling flags and other World Cup paraphernalia says it all.

Why do I think the above means the end of football as we know and love it? The sheer greed of those involved (the fact that a ticket costs the equivalent of a week's wage in South Africa means that grass roots fans who support football year round cannot attend), the complete ignorance of the TV presenters about Africa and their lack of concern about the people for whom football is the only sport they can afford to play, is distasteful to say the least. I wonder how much, if any, of the money generated by the World Cup will actually find its way into the pockets of the ordinary South African? Very little, I would imagine.

Which leads to the obvious conclusion, football (or soccer as many are calling it, with an eye to the USA television franchise) is dying on its feet. This World Cup may be it’s death knell and although a life-long fan, I for one wouldn’t weep. The game has turned into one played by millionaires for the entertainment of the working poor.
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So is it really the end for football? For me, maybe. I’m getting a little tired of the stark contrast between the haves and have nots, not to mention the snide, patronising remarks made by the chattering classes on the obvious flaws in the game. When I was a child, the World Cup was a chance to see loads of football in foreign places and all your heroes playing at their very peak for the honour of winning. Now, you wonder if they’d do it without the huge financial incentives and advertising revenue it brings. Cynical? Perhaps, but maybe having the World Cup in Africa has shown us just what the game has come to.
Labels: Sport