Long gone are the days when a game of football was just a matter of twenty two stout yeomen pitting their wits & skill against each other for the glory of simply winning.The beautiful game has changed in all recognition since those halcyon days of heavily laced balls toe poked towards goal by equally heavily bylcreemed Inside Forwards,as they were quaintly known back in the day.
These days it's all about the money money money---As ABBA would have it, but not Jessie J----The glory of actually winning games and trophies has taken a back seat in the pursuit of the new goal of muscling into the heaving pigs to join the trough of avarice...
Clubs now regard us fans as "Customers" and the simple pleasure of going to the game with your pals as a "Matchday Experience".We are now regarded as consumers rather than supporters.Which is ironic considering that if any retail outlet treated it's customers as clubs in England treat their fans they'd be closed within six months...The Disneyfication of our football is well under way and Micky,Minny and Pluto have their hands firmly on the tiller...
With that in mind it's time to crank it up and make the game more interactive for the TV watching viewer---The fans the clubs really care about after all,the ones that actually bother to turn up for games can go swivel----If the football authorities want the game to become just another arm of the entertainment industry rather than an intensely tribalistic phenomenon---A sort of X Factor/Jeux sans Frontieres with balls---then that's what they'll get...
Goal Line Technology: Don't worry boys and girls it's coming courtesy of the Blatterman himself but is it enough? Yes it will conclusively prove that the ball was either a)Way over the line b)Nowhere near the bloody line or c) Maybe,maybe not,hard to tell really.Come on, how long is this going to take? the pub's open.....It's still pretty boring in all fairness.My idea is to have a Judge Judy impressionist behind every Premiership goal,complete with gown,gavel and Mahogany desk to be Judge,Jury & Executioner.Her decision will be final and any player disagreeing will be shackled in leg irons and paraded round the pitch dressed in Guantanamo Bay orange...
Twitter: (anti)Social Media is becoming more and more intrusive into our everyday lives.Every football club has a twitter account along with many popular footballers,and Joey Barton.Yes it's highly entertaining to witness a Diva like player clearly losing his marbles as he watches his career disintegrate due to an ill judged Tweet at 4am but imagine how much more fun it will be to actually witness it live during a game? A sort of cross between Rollerball and You've Got Mail...Every ground has at least one large screen,many have more.Every players twitter account will be posted on the screens at the game and on TV so they will get live feeds during the match(Incidentally all players will have to have a twitter account or get paid minimum wage, tops) This will be interactive Football at it's rawest...Nobody will be spared,only those with the thickest of skins will survive, and the illiterate...Piers Morgan will of course be blocked.
Silverware: Be honest now,there just are'nt enough trophies to go round for all those mega rich clubs who surely deserve something shiny at the end of the season.They should'nt be expected to toil for nine months(Ten if you count that lucrative far East tour culminating in an exciting 0-0 draw against Stoke in a steamy Kuala Lumpur) for nothing should they? of course not.Every Premiership club will now receive a trophy at the end of the season.However the Silverware they win will diminish in size the lower they finish in the table, from the gargantuan Premiership trophy to the title winners down to an inch high aluminium cup to the lucky 17th place winners.The proviso is that all clubs must celebrate their winning of silverware in time honoured fashion of fireworks,crappy jumping up and down to Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" and open top bus tour of their city.If not they lose all their TV money from that season...The relegated clubs will receive an oversized cheque for their parachute payments presented by a reality TV star...
Discipline: Naturally any dangerous play will be dealt with by the proper authorities,after all we're not turning the game into a circus ---Yet---However any good show deserve's a pantomime villain and football is no exception.What the paying public and the soporific armchair audience demand is humiliation of those miscreants who bring the game into disrepute on the pitch,a mere yellow card is not sufficient in these days of instant justice.For instance player's caught diving will be subjected to a giant hook pulling them off the pitch where they will spend five minutes in the stocks being pelted by rotten fruit.Any player waving an imaginary card at the referee will have a custard pie thrust into their face by the opponents mascot...Whenever Liverpool play Luis Suarez will sit in the stocks for the whole game to save time..
Points: The current system is outdated.Three points for a win and one point for a draw? I mean come on.We have lost sight of what football is really about, which is how much money each club makes in total from any given home game.So in future the points will remain for the tiresome spectacle of actually playing the game but extra points will be awarded for TV audience,shirts sold and prawn sandwiches consumed.The accusation that this will widen the gap between rich and poor is clearly nonsensical.But if some clubs go to the wall so be it...After all we all know there are only four clubs that really matter anyway.To that end we will be reorganising the league structure thus; 1)The Super Duper Pan European Champions League Premiership 2)The Premiership Lite 3) The Lower Premiership 4)The Under Premiership.This we feel will give all clubs a sexier identity and stop the bellyaching when they go bust...Also the big four clubs in The SDPECLP will join the FA Cup at the quarter final stage to free up weekends to play exhibition games in the far east and USA.This proves we value the traditions of this great competition.They will not enter the league cup at all.Those places will be taken by teams in the SPL...
Managers/Coaches: The final part of the revolution concerns these outdated behemoths of the game.Are'nt you just sick of seeing the same tired old faces year in year out running our great football clubs? We are going to have bosses on a monthly contract then at the end of each month a phone vote(Premium rate) will install a new manager at each club.This will keep things fresh and more importantly make a shed load of money for the FA(Twitter & Facebook voting will be invalid as it's free) *In the event of a tied vote our panel of experts will decide who takes the appointment.The panel will be made up of footballing luminaries Richard Branson,Al-Waleed bin Talal and Cilla Black.
Mark my words.The football revolution will be televised...
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