I sometimes wonder why the really big Premiership clubs still bother with football. They are so rich that they could name a "squad" of simple beneficiaries of some sort of trust fund.
The fashion, the glamour, the gossip, the drugs, the drink, the sex, the lot could then just carry on as before, with no need for training sessions or what have you. Such as there still are, anyway.
Who would be able to tell the difference?
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I'm so tempted not to actually comment on this, because it's clear that you don't know anything about football (a proper working class sport, at that) and are just trying to be provocative (badly).
ReplyDeleteBut at a guess, the millions of people who watch it every week and make it the single biggest pastime in the UK (and much bigger in terms of followers than things like church attendance) might spot if it stopped.
Yer what! Which decade are you living in?
ReplyDeleteHow and why football continues to enjoy any working-class following at all has long been beyond me. Super-rich, spoilt, petulant, mincing meterosexuals who would, if they were anyone else, be lucky to escape alive from the watering holes of their far nobler fans.
But then again, who really DOES follow football these days? Who can afford the season tickets? Only the "lads' mag" crowd depicted in Carlsberg advertisements. They may not yet be super-rich. But they want to be. And they are already spoilt, petulant, mincing meterosexuals who would be lucky to escape alive from the watering holes of the football fans of old.
It is very telling that Attlee attended precisely one football match in his life. Compare his record to that of the football-loving New Labour lot, described above.
The worst thing that ever happened to football was the abolition of the maximum wage. Having thus established its view that any sane person would want to leave the working class as far behind as possible, and to do so as rapidly as possible, it duly turned itself into what it is today, with season tickets far beyond the means of the working man, with very low pay and poor treatment of “menial” staff, with routine “do you know who I am?” behaviour of the most outrageous kind, and so forth. A pay cap would, at least, be a small step in the right direction.
And see this, from the Fair Pay Network (http://www.fairpaynetwork.org/football/):
"The Barclays Premier League is the most lucrative football league in the world. The combined revenues of Premiership clubs stood at approximately £1.9 billion last season and the twenty clubs spent an astonishing £600 million on players. Revenues are set to rise dramatically owing to ticket price hikes and new broadcasting rights.
Yet despite this affluence poverty pay remains endemic throughout the premiership. As a result, every single club-despite fortunes being paid at the top end-is condemning many of their workers off the pitch and away from the spotlight to a life of working poverty.
According to the Greater London Authority, a person living in the capital must earn at least £7.45 per hour to avoid living in poverty; with a national figure estimated to be around £6.80 per hour. However, fair pay is not just a matter of fairness. It is also hard-headed business sense. It is for this reasons that many large businesses-including official Premiership sponsors Barclays-now as a matter of policy pay all staff a "living wage."
On this basis the Fair Pay Network and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) are calling on all premiership clubs to pledge themselves to a Hatrick Gold Standard of ethical employment terms. These consist of:
A fair wage of at least £7.45 an hour in London (London Living Wage as designated by the Low Pay Unit of the Greater London Authority) and £6.80 an hour in the rest of the country (estimated national living wage - 60 per cent of gross, median full-time pay (equivalent to £13,100 or £12,376 a year for a full-time working week)
The right to paid holiday (a minimum of 25 days) and paid parental leave
Equal treatment of all staff, whether directly employed or on an agency contract
We want to encourage every Premiership club to become a fair wage and ethical employer. In doing so they can ensure that those at the bottom who contribution so much to the commercial success of their clubs do not have to live a life of poverty.
We want our national sport to set a national standard for fairness."
Don't hold your breath.
Football is "a proper working class sport"? I've heard it all now!
We can put the "working class" bit on one side, if you like. Surely Noggin's point that "the millions of people who watch it every week and make it the single biggest pastime in the UK (and much bigger in terms of followers than things like church attendance) might spot if it stopped" is simply unarguable?
ReplyDeleteI like football. I'd notice if it stopped.
ReplyDeleteThey could watch proper football in the Championship and further down instead. And the national teams could thus be improved no end, not that that is really saying anything.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm an Arsenal fan. I'd notice if they stopped.
ReplyDeleteMeckler how would anyone notice if Arsenal stopped?
ReplyDeleteBa-doom.
ReplyDeleteDavid is middle-class enough to understand the people who follow the top end of the Premiership.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am not convinced that they are significantly more interested in football as such, rather than as a social and cultural phenomenon, than I am.
ReplyDeleteA season ticket, or a Sky subscription, or a full evening's drinking every time you want to watch a match. But remember, you are getting down with the common man. "Call me Tony..."
You shouldn't really write about football. You are so much better than that.
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind, but, as I said, I am interested in it as a social and cultural phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, with a name like yours, you will know what I mean when I say that the lazy media assumption that the North East is completely obsessed with football has done, and continues to do, almost incalculable harm to social and cultural life here.
I can't afford a season ticket, or Sky. I very rarely go to matches. But I follow football closely, on the radio, newspapers, the internet, and on TV when I can, and I go to the pub to watch matches on Sky. There are thousands, even millions, like me. I don't want the Premiership to stop - I enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteSo it's still costing you a session at pub prices every time you want to watch a match.
ReplyDeleteThe Premiership despises you. It is run by and for people who despise the players, who are, frankly, Uncle Toms:
"Aren't those chav boys such fun to watch? They can barely read, can't control their drinking, beat their wives, take drugs, get into bar room brawls, and carry on with prostitutes. But they are so very, very good at a pointless and purely physical activity for our amusement. Bless them."
Football fans rarely understand that it is a game between 22 players with a ball and goal area. Most goals win.
ReplyDeleteI support Newcastle, and feel bad at their current plight.
When 60,000 fans cram into Old Trafford to watch Rooney & Ronaldo every week, generating £3 million + in revenue, you cannot blame footballers agents for demanding reimbursement of £100,000 a week.
The problem I have is the reserve palyers on thousands a week. Because of the millions involved, the lucky 100 or so that play top level every week deserve to be well off. The pay should be more performance related.