Everything that’s wrong about football
This is followed on from yesterday’s piece on footballing myths.
Last night’s BBC Panorama’s “revelations” on managers taking bribes are sadly nothing new.
In fact, what we saw and heard (and in my case, read) was just a slice of all the underhanded activities going on in football today.
Do you seriously believe that shady financial deals are NOT a part of football? Considering the exorbitant sums of money involved in player transfers, it would be shocking if the whole system was transparent and clean, and not the other way around.
From the Tevezcherano move to West Ham, to Chelsea’s deals for Obi Mikel, United’s sale of Stam and countless others (how many shady deals have Arsenal made? That’s not a rhetorical question but an actual one), transfers are just one example of how agents and clubs can make staggering amounts of money thanks to a player’s talents.
The Premier League’s statement in response is predictable - they have to take such accusations and ‘evidence’ seriously. Unfortunately, the system is too far gone and the people in charge are not strong enough to bring about lasting change. The “authorities” have known about agents and their growing strengths (financially and otherwise) for years - but because they are dealing in a shady area of law and are able to use loopholes to get out of trouble, no steps have been taken to curb their activities.
Here’s a look at all that’s wrong with football today, starting with the most obvious culprit of them all, money.
Money
A common cry of football fans is that money has ruined the game. They are right, but not in the sense they think of it. The turning point comes when clubs start valuing money more than football (and with the elevation of football from a casual, amateur sport to proper, big business, this has happened across the board) and the bottom line becomes more important for club owners than the sheer spectacle and joy of football itself.
There is an unfortunate trade-off between a club’s popularity and how charitable it is towards its fans. The analogy I made yesterday about football clubs being real-world businesses and fans being customers is key to understanding the money problem - expansion of the sport has certain costs attached to it, and increasingly those costs have to be paid by the fans.
Like it or not, professional football is a product. The sad reality is that this is the price we have to pay for our entertainment needs.
Media
I absolutely loathe the hype-creating media that twists facts and tries to mold public opinion.
How is Soccerlens different, you ask?
As much as I’d like to think that we are somehow more noble than the rest, that’s not the case. We are biased and weighed down by our own opinions. However, what I want to do, and what I’ve tried to do, is challenge the biased views of others and in the process wear down my own bias as well.
In our subjective realities we’re always right - however in football as in other areas of life, opinions will always differ. And considering that a majority of our discussions are based on memories (which are unreliable to begin with), is it any doubt that we are always in disagreement?
My gripe is with blatant hyping and attempted manipulation of public opinion. I dislike misreporting and lying. If you have a different opinion (a la Rob Smyth or Arseblog or UnitedRant or ChelseaBlog or even, sometimes, CaughtOffside), I’ll call you stupid at worst and respectfully disagree with you at best.
On the other hand, if you are lying, you are fair game in my book.
And the news media (and to some extent the blogosphere) thrives on lies and manipulation.
Fans
If the money-hungry players, agents and executives aren’t bad enough, we have militant fans to worry about. Read yesterday’s post for more on this.
Some day I’ll do a full feature talking about this particular subject, but the bottom line is - while football would be nothing without the fans, the fans themselves have a responsibility as well. A very vocal but small minority ignore that responsibility, and like in business, these are the fans that must be fired.
Laws
More appropriately, the refusal of the “authorities” to improve / change laws.
Like cricket, footballing authorities have an irrational fear of using technology to aid referees or to change laws to suit the changing conditions under which the game is being played. Today, cricket is largely a batsman’s game and it seems set to stay that way until laws or conditions change. The later is very unlikely, which puts all the pressure on the authorities to take action.
Football has problems of its own - glaring issues such as diving, bullying referees and the worst bit, bad calls by the refs and the linesmen. A lot of these issues can be fixed by using video replays and handing out punishments retrospectively.
I have a theory on why the respective authorities don’t want to change laws - it has to do with the officials in charge of the games (referees / umpires) and their “authority” on the field.
With video replays, a ref’s role becomes largely ceremonial - he’s there to blow the whistle and keep time. His authority is seemingly undermined. Tradition is a hard habit to kick.
The reality is that football players will always respect authority on the field (they have a captain, don’t they?) just as they respect authority off it (the manager) and that authority is not eroded because you try to help refs make better decisions. The referee cannot be replaced - but his job can definitely be made easier.
The other issue often raised is that video replays are inconclusive - and that’s true, but how many times have you seen refs make bad decisions that could so easily have been corrected by a 5-second vid replay of the incident? Yes, having more time to ponder on a case that is inconclusive does not help you make a better decision, but giving up correct decisions on even 5-10 percent of bad decisions just because video replays could not help 90 percent of the time (the actual percentages are more like 20/30-80/70) is an immature reaction.
Another thing - something as simple as ensuring that only the captain is allowed to approach and talk to the referee will solve a LOT of problems. Common sense? Lack of it?
That’s enough for a day, methinks.
What do you think is wrong with football?
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Interesting article.
Just a counter argument on the Video replays that need to be taken account of as well.
Using video replays will solve a lot of issues regarding bad refereeing decisions, BUT, it also have the potential to kill of the “spirit” of the game…
Think about it, what will people moan about in the pubs afterwards? “Should have been a penalty…”, “if only the bloody ref gave the free-kick…”, “we were obviously the better team, but the ref favoured them…”, “if the ref wern’t so blind, we would have…” and so on, and so on, and so on…
At least with the ref having the authority that he currently has we always have someone that we can blame…
I think that the evening afterwards in the pub is also part of the game. At least this way, we’ll have some controversy to argue about to make us feel better. Only to make us believe that our team aren’t really that bad and we were dealing with an unfair blow.
Ahmed, again there is a more serious issue at stake. For me, it is not a question of whether video replays could facilitate correct decision-making. That is very much a given. However, there would have to be very well defined boundaries with regards the usage of video replays (something like the ‘challenge system’ which has just been introduced in tennis). Otherwise, with one contentious incident ocurring every couple of minutes (this can only be a guess-timate) and players desiring to challenge calls on every occasion, the game is going to become horribly disjointed. Equally, a decision would have to be made as to which scenarios need video replays. Do offsides count? The ball crossing the line? General fouls? There are lots of possibilities. I think that before video replays are introduced, we could do with ridding the game of the burocracy surrounding the use of video evidence to retrospectively judge yellow and red-card offences. I mean why the hell can an event only be looked at again if the referee sees the incident? Typical FA rules.
That should have read ‘if the referee does not report the incident’
lol karl, then ask ppl nt to complain abt diving(or cheating) for its part of the game. what crap.
dar, Is it really crap? Think about it…
Why are you on the Blog site? What do people ‘blog’ about most (now that the transfer frenzy is over)? Personally, I would say that the majority of the talk are bout incidents (diving, cheating, bad ref desicions, etc). Is this not what feeds the “spirit” of the beautiful game?
I’m not saying that videos should not be used, all I’m saying is that care should be taken not to break the “spirit” of the game.
Ahmed mentioned cricket in his article. When last did you hear an interesting, passionate cricket conversation in a pub relating to a particular game? I’m not saying video replays killed that, but it sure helped a lot towards it.
TEST MY THESIS
If I ask you to recount the most memorable or interesting game between Manchester United and Spurs in recent years? Which game comes to mind first? Why?
According to “most” ranters on this site, United’s shitty performance this past weekend are basically down to 2 things (to summarise / reword):
Rooney and Scholes’ “under-matchfit” and the rest of the teams’ “over-matchfit”. For my point I would like to take Rooney and Scholes’s issue…
If camera’s were used during the Porto game, then they would most probably not been sent off. If they didn’t, then United could most probably would have won because they would have been either “match-fit” or perhaps “over-matchfit”. Regardless, they were sent off…millions of newspaper articles were written about it (money)…this created a hype…this hype caused a lot of people to talk about it…everybody was waiting on their return…commentators even compared Rooney’s return to his Champions Leauge hat-trick…ultimately, it was blamed as the reason for the loss to Arsenal…
So, to sum it up…
Were cameras to be used in this isntance, United might have won, but would there really have been such a worldwide hype over the game?
i see no harm in video footage being used if its near instantaneous (if thats a word) no waiting a minute to check, if the referee wasnt sure he could ask yes,no or unsure and thats it, there would still be mistakes but it would help without slowing the game or killing the fun off,
other then that goal line cameras/ preferably sensors are a must!
gotta say not overly impressed with the beebs panorama show, after all the hype about redknapp we discover andy todd is the type of player he’d like in his team!. thats it!?, so on the evidence that he’d like andy todd on his team he’s corrupt?, thats a pretty naff assumption.
yes corruption happens, there are almost certainly bungs here and there, but it would be easy to sort out if anyone had the guts to go through with it. which the FA have never had.
but whats this with the (how many shady deals have Arsenal made? That’s not a rhetorical question but an actual one)
what exactly are you going on about, what is with the anti arsenal bias around here?, why was that thrown in, chelsea are involved in a dodgy transfer/coaxing players/strange incidental meetings on yachts or in hotels an average once a week yet i keep hearing arsenal dodgy deals this and that, the investigation into beveren was completely exonerated as with edu and silvinho despite the media fury
that comment is in there because while I know about United’s and Chelsea’s shady deals, I’ve yet to hear anything about Arsenal’s. I can’t say they HAVE been involved because I don’t know the facts. I haven’t even heard many / any rumours bout them.
So yea, apart from the beveren issue, are there actually any instances where Arsenal made a ’shady’ deal? That’s not an anti-arsenal sentiment, that’s just a question.
Flamini and Baptista come immediately to mind in recent times regarding Arsenal. They had\have a transfer ban hanging over them as a result.