Re: Football Rant
The point of this thread was football - love it or hate it and I'm not a fan at all. In fact I rarely ever watch any sports BUT I appreciate that some do get enjoyment from football and do get rather het-up about it but that's fine by me. Live and let live.
Someone made a comment about big business and that is true but it's not just sport, it's
everything these days. Even Residential Homes for the elderly are run for profit!
I don't really know when this all started but I think that it was around about the same time that salaries began to spiral out of control so the relentless quest for more and more and more profits is simply filling management coffers and
not benefiting the general public and / or society in general. It's a bit like a return to feudalism and some claim it all started in the days of the Yuppies - greed is good etcetera and that would be the early Eighties - the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession put paid to them in popular culture but they're still there but now they're senior managers, bankers, directors, CEOs and chairmen of major companies.
I personally think that the big business side of football has spoiled it in some ways because players used to want to play for certain teams but now they pick who pays the most money. Years ago, in Doha, Qatar I went along to the National stadium to see a friendly between England and Qatar.
When the England side came on my Arab mate turned to me and asked if this was really the England team because they were 75% black players so I had to explain that to him but I did wonder about that myself, like athletics - where are all the white guys?
What I think is wrong with UK Football is the employment of foreign players and the limited opportunities for home-grown talent. A few years back I saw some 11 year olds in a Junior Sunday League playing and I was absolutely astounded at the level of skill. I went with a mate because he wanted to show-off his son's abilities but 5 minutes there convinced me - they were ALL brilliant.
He told me that he was prepared to go deep into debt if necessary to give his son a shot at the big-time and he wasn't the only one there saying the same thing but they all agreed that clubs taking on foreign players reduced their chances by 75% and that's sad.
So, finally, I've got to say it; if all you football fans got together and started supporting and pushing for the home talent for your clubs instead of imported players that would be a great thing to do for UK football. stevmk2