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Home , Alan Pardew, Andre Marriner, Ashley Young, Craig Pawson, Gareth Barry, Mats Hummels

Negative Evolution

A scathing indictment of the state of modern football

Tommy

Football, in days increasingly few can remember, was the simplest form of entertainment. Every Saturday, at 3 o’clock, thousands flocked to grounds up and down the land to watch a game of football. Nobody was priced out of attending; the players fought to win every game, despite the lack of astronomical financial incentive; the idea of throwing yourself to the floor in a bid to win a decision was both unthinkable and laughable – the ridicule a player would receive for such behaviour would see to any consideration of cheating in such a way – and the season went on for a whole season, without any sort of need for a month off because the players thought it was cold. All of this took place on terrible pitches, with just one substitute and with teams full of players who often had terrible eating, drinking and smoking habits. Put simply, football was a game for the people, and as we watch the game today, with its massive financial strength, backed by the world’s finest technology and some of its richest corporations, it is impossible not to wonder if we have lost sight of what football should be about.

The Winter Break Idea

Less than 60 years ago, Blackburn Rovers beat Blackpool 1-0 in the final ever First Division game to be played on Christmas Day, in 1959, in what was a desperate, but ultimately failed, bid to restore an English sporting tradition: the Christmas Day fixture. Football used to be even more dominant over the festive season than it is now, with local rivals often taking each other on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day in front of crowds full of the spirit of the season. As recently as 1983, Brentford attempted to bring football back to the 25th, but protests at their campaign, centred around the idea of wives staying at home to cook while the men went to the football, led to their planned game with Wimbledon being brought forward a day. Fast forward to 2018 and you will see just how fast we have moved away from one of our oldest traditions, as the question of a winter break is introduced to the English game.

The concept is one that originated on the continent, with the top divisions in Germany, Italy, Spain and France all stopping for the coldest month. In , it is thought that the break would start after FA Cup 3rd Round weekend, at the beginning of January, as the popularity of the festive programme is far too great, and therefore too profitable for the people who now dictate how the English game is run – Sky and BT – to ever agree to sacrifice. Looking at this as someone who loves watching football, why would anyone want to have a whole month, which is already the worst month of the year, without any football? Apparently, it will help the national team to succeed. Undeniably, there is evidence to support this idea, as the last three world Cup winners, Italy (2006); Spain (2010) and Germany (2014) all feature in the list of nations above who have a winter break. Despite this, the England manager , who should have a better idea than anyone on what would and would not bolster his sides’ prospects at tournaments, is unconvinced as to whether or not it would be helpful, stating that he couldn’t remember the debate “happening when I was playing in 96 or 98”, when England reached a European semi-final. The pressure for the to follow the continental example stems from the league’s top managers, Guardiola at City and Mourinho at United. Despite the fact that the latter has a deserved reputation for being a prolific moaner, it was Guardiola who described how the winter schedule was “killing” his team – a suggestion not backed up by their firmly cemented position at the top of the table. Their main argument is that injuries are more common in the winter months, and because of this, to protect the players, the league has a duty to give them a month off. When this idea was first brought to the table, those of us of the school of thought that causes us to moan about how they should just get on with it never believed that it could ever come to fruition. However, a recent BBC poll reveals that 58% of fans believe this is a good idea, showing the true extent of the words of the biggest names in the game. These people are paid millions of pounds a year to play football, so they need to stop moaning and get on with doing just that – earning their millions by entertaining millions.

The Demise of the Cup

One solution to the winter break issue that has been mentioned is the idea that the FA Cup could become a midweek competition, to allow weekends to be solely devoted to the Premier League. In basic terms, this would be catastrophic. The FA Cup is the world’s oldest domestic club competition , and is undoubtedly one of the best. ‘The magic of the cup’, despite being a huge cliché, is undeniably true. The FA Cup creates stories which will be told for decades to come, as the legendary giant killings, from Yeovil Town (beating in 1949) to Hereford’s legendary defeat of Newcastle United in 1972; from Wrexham putting out Arsenal in 1992 and Sutton United slaying Coventry City (1989) all the way up to the modern day tales of Leeds United (at in 2010), Bradford City (scoring four at Chelsea and then defeating Sunderland in 2015) and Lincoln City winning at Burnley last season, are written into footballing folklore. The fact that anyone would consider murdering such an institution of the sport shows that we have reached a dangerous point. Thankfully, the FA are not keen on the idea and the FA Cup TV deal also presents a major barrier to those plotting the Cup’s sacrifice. However, even without the interference of the rich and powerful in the game trying to remove all inconvenient obstacles they face to turning over the greatest profits (City and United don’t want to play in Burnley or Stoke, they would almost certainly prefer a European Super League), the domestic cups in this country, and their importance, are on the wane.

In January, in the biggest upset of what was once, and to many still is, one of the best weekends in the football calendar – the third round of the cup, was League 2 Coventry City beating top flight Stoke 2-1. Coventry have suffered a pattern of demise that is becoming all too familiar in English football. Ask any Portsmouth fan, any Blackpool fan, and before long, any Sunderland fan, and they will tell you stories of a graceless tumble into the abyss of the Football League, with memories of Premier League football (and for Portsmouth, Cup glory and European nights at home to ) still fresh in the memory. They will tell you of hopeless owners, owners who simply didn’t care, and even criminal owners. Coventry’s downfall saw them forced out of Coventry, exiled to Northampton for financial reasons in what was a truly horrible time for the club. So, the visit of what was at the time, the Premier League’s most hopeless side, would surely provide an opportunity to write a new piece of the club’s recent history that they could actually be proud of. The players certainly saw it that way, but the sad thing about the day was in the stands. A crowd of just over 14,000 saw the game, including at least 3,000 from Stoke, which may sound a lot, but more potent is the alternative interpretation of this figure: on one of the best days in a big club’s recent history, there was over 17,500 empty seats in the ground, despite the fact that over 40,000 Sky Blues travelled to Wembley to see them win the Checkatrade Trophy last year. Yet, they cannot be blamed. In days gone by, this Cup tie would have been played in front of a sell out crowd, it would have been an opportunity to forget all of the suffering of the last few years and it would have been a truly classic Cup tie. These days, the Cup is a distraction. The financial importance of League football is suffocating the appeal of traditions such as the FA Cup, and soon, it will run out of air.

The Television Companies and the marginalisation of the fans

Anyone who thinks that English football is run by the FA is very much mistaken. It has transpired, in recent times, that control over the game can be bought with huge quantities of money – around £9.5 billion across the last two times it has been up for sale. The buyers? and BT Sport. The power they hold? The power to alter the schedule for their financial gain, considering almost nobody else. Without proper consideration, this may not seem like a huge problem. Every week, two games get moved to Sunday, one to Monday or Friday or Saturday lunchtime, and one to Saturday evening. No problems. Which, to these companies, is true. Nobody they care about is harmed by doing this, and huge amounts of revenue is brought in from the millions who tune in every year. As it is these millions – the armchair supporters – who the game is for in 2018. This has happened as they are not exploitable. On the other hand, the real supporters, who follow their team up and down the country, who have done and will continue to do so no matter what: these people are the suckers. They know they are being used, but they will not change, and so they will continue to be used.

For the armchair supporter, the product must be first rate, or they will simply stop spending. Therefore, football must be available to them at all of the before mentioned times. So, the rulers of football exercise their power to rearrange games for the benefit of the armchair supporter – after all, they are the consumer, who must be looked after. The damage can be huge. This season, Newcastle United have visited Swansea, Brighton, and Southampton on Sundays at 4 o’clock. If you are at Swansea station at 18:30 on a Sunday, after that game, it is impossible to arrive at Newcastle by train and it still be Sunday. Most people work on Mondays! This is a complete disregarding of the supporters, who are effectively being mocked by the TV companies. Their commitment is undying though, and the TV companies know this, so they will continue to get away with it. Even more ridiculously, Sunderland’s trip to Cardiff this season, in the Championship, was rearranged to 12:30 on a Saturday. This may sound perfectly fine, until you hear that the supporters’ coaches left the of Light on the Friday. The coaches left at midnight. The reason I say this is more ridiculous is that this was a televised game for televised games’ sake. Cardiff play a truly vile brand of football, and what Sunderland produce cannot even be described as “football”. Past supporters of the two clubs, who would ever want to watch that? Surely it would be better if the game had kicked off at 3, interfering with less people’s lives, leading to a larger crowd. But this is unimportant. After all, who cares about those who pay the money for travel and tickets to properly support their team? There is barely any money to be made from them.

This, of course, is where the TV companies will eventually come unstuck. A massive part of the drama of watching football is the crowd. The atmosphere can turn a game into something incredible. Take the 13th of May, 2012, as an example. Had Sergio Aguero scored that goal, the goal that ended City’s 44 year wait for a title, in the dying seconds, in front of a ground full of passionless tourists, would Martin Tyler have uncontrollably claimed we would “never see anything like this ever again”? Would hairs have stood on end up and down the country? Would that day still be one that I, someone with no emotional attachment to City, would have remembered for the rest of my life? No. The raw outpour of emotion in the stands, from people who had felt so much pain watching that team through the years, made that moment special. If those people are continually exploited, they will snap. Everyone has a point where they simply won’t take anymore. If they did stop going, that would be a disaster for the TV companies. They know the importance of atmosphere at football games. There can be no other reason why Leeds are shown more frequently than any other Championship side. They get big crowds, home and away, and they have incredibly passionate support. So, they are on TV. They certainly aren’t on TV for footballing reasons. They sit 11th in the league and I can confirm, having seen them in the flesh, that they aren’t very good.

At some point, the humble supporter is going to rise to the bait, and at that point, the product that Sky and BT can offer will be considerably worse. Before we reach that stage, which nobody wants, the importance of the attending fan must be acknowledged, and their interests must be protected.

The Price of Football

Football, initially, was a working class sport. The working classes played and watched football; the aristocracy filled their days with rugby and cricket. These days, the aristocracy continue to play rugby and cricket, while the working classes scramble around desperately trying to find the money to follow the clubs their fathers did, while their seats are occupied by the new breed of football supporter: the middle class family, the businessmen and their clients and the tourists. Why has the demographic changed so drastically? Money, to put it simply. These new groups can afford to go to games: the families often benefit from group discounts designed to encourage their attendance; the businessmen are rich enough and the tourists only go once so the money is no object. Now, there is no massive problems which stem from the attendance of these groups, but football, historically, has been the game for all people, not just the elites and the part timers.

The cheapest Arsenal ticket for an average Premier League game costs £36.50 for an adult. This is what they call category B, which includes everyone except the top six, and the pluckiest little clubs in the league, like Swansea and Bournemouth. If an Arsenal supporter wanted to see their side play anyone good, they would be forking out a minimum of £64, for the worst seat in the house. All that money to see a team whose record against the 5 sides currently above them in the table sits at 3 wins in 18 since the start of last season. This cost is extortionate and has frozen some of their most loyal supporters out of the club, in a situation replicated at the majority of the Premier League’s clubs.

Since the start of last season, there has been a cap on away ticket prices in the Premier League, placed at £30. This is an excellent initiative, as the travel costs incurred by visiting fans can lead to hugely expensive days out. This has prevented clubs such as Chelsea and Arsenal charging people in excess of £50 to see their side get absolutely hammered. Why would anyone go? Because they love it: football supporters are the ultimate captive audience. However, one truly horrible place that has been untouched by the price cap is the Championship. Away tickets in the second division still average over £30, with Wednesday comfortably the worst offenders, robbing those who feel they must go of £42, for what, based on personal experience of the Championship, is likely to be an awful game of football. It continues to happen as the Championship provides a home to some massive clubs, with huge fan bases. It is a sad state of affairs when there are two European champions – Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa – languishing in the Championship along with the likes of Leeds (3 First Division titles) and Sunderland (6 First Division titles), while Swansea, Bournemouth and Watford are playing Premier League football. It leads to clubs like Bolton Wanderers feeling that they are within their rights to sell tickets to Sunderland supporters for £32 each, so the visiting fans can watch their side stagger further towards League One against a side who are undoubtedly terrible, but still better than their own, on a Tuesday night in February. In Bolton. The cap should be across the Football League and should be lowered to £20, as even £30 is not cheap, the figure simply protects people from blatant exploitation. The worst part of it is that the income clubs generate from tickets are becoming a smaller and smaller drop in the ocean compared to the money brought in from TV deals; kit deals and sponsorships. The exploitation of those who love them is an insult, and an unnecessary on at that.

Jack

VAR

Personally, I believe that each team should be given 3 opportunities per game to have a decision they feel was wrongly awarded challenged by the use of VAR reviewing the situation again and then either revealing whether the decision should stand or whether it was incorrectly called. This particular method allows the referee to maintain his full control on the majority of decisions made by either himself or his assistant referees (in the form of the linesman) whist also allowing each team the chance to question either a free kick, penalty, goal etc. which they believe unfairly went against them. The way in which they inform the referee about a certain challenge they would like to make would be either the captain of the team can inform either a linesman or the referee himself, or the manager can speak to the fourth official who would inform the referee. Whether the original decision awarded by the referee is overturned or stuck with, the team will lose one of their opportunities to challenge. This will mean that teams and managers will have to be very confident that the decision should have been in their favour allowing the game to flow more and meaning that the crowd are not constantly left in the dark when the game is paused for no apparent reason. Another way in which that can be achieved would be to put a message on the big screens of the game informing everyone in the stadium what incident is being reviewed and by what team. Ultimately, this would eliminate the idea of the game becoming ‘perfect’ (in which it certainly isn’t and, in my opinion, shouldn’t be) but would allow crucial decisions which could be seen as contentious to be reviewed so the correct outcome can be achieved. No matter what way VAR is used, I don’t believe it will ever be mastered with extremely little error, but we can better the game by using it to the best we can without taking away from the emotion of the beautiful game.

Diving in Football

Diving. The despicable act of conning the referee into awarding a free kick or penalty when no contact has been made and the player has just dramatically thrown himself to the floor as if they are starring in the next James Bond film. A lot of the time now we do see the referee correctly notice when the player has dived and brandishes the more than deserved yellow card and when the dive is not noticed, after the match, the player is normally given some form of ban which can be between two to six matches. The question really here is how can we attempt to eliminate diving from the game altogether? Well there is no sure-fire way however the use of VAR in terms of diving becoming a ‘successful’ form of winning a penalty/free kick can become extremely helpful as it would allow the incident to be looked at multiple times from many different angles in order for the necessary action to be taken during the game. However, that will not stop players from attempting it. One way to massively try and stamp it out of the game is to award a six-game ban to the player whether the referee has taken action against the player during the game or not. That at the moment is the main problem because currently, if the player is given a yellow card in the game, it eliminates the ability for that player to then be given a further ban which should not be the case. No matter whether the incident is picked up on by the referee or not, the player guilty of diving should be given the six- game ban for attempting to con a referee. The only issue that could arise from this would be the definition of the word ‘dive’. The law of what classifies a dive needs to be cleared up because until that happens, there will still be uncertainty as to what amount of contact is enough to warrant a foul being given. Will the money ever stop?

Do footballers deserve the insane amounts of money they receive from the lucrative wages the top players are on? Obviously, they don’t do nearly enough to deserve that money compared to the heroic work of the doctors, nurses, soldiers etc. however the money they received shouldn’t be taken away because the amount of money that is drawn into the game through ticket sales, merchandise sales, television broadcasting and more, mean that those high-end clubs who bring in those unbelievably high sums of money are able to offer those top players more and more money. This means that those top players will play for their football club and help raise performance which will in turn help to repay the money they are spending on wages through the shirt sales and more. As long as the interest from people paying the money to go to these games, and television companies such as BT and Sky continue paying huge amounts of money to be able to show these games on TV, then the amounts of money the players are earning won’t just stay as high as they already are, but will continue to go rise.

Transfer fees within the game are without doubt one of the most talked about moments whenever a player who seems as if they only learnt to kick a ball three days ago then sells for £20 million which in today’s market is now considered a ‘reasonable price’. Since 2013 the world record transfer fee has gone from £86 million, paid by Real Madrid for Tottenham’s , to a staggering £198 million for the transfer of Jr to PSG from Barcelona in the summer of 2017. Since then another two players have transferred for over £100 million in the form of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £105 million and Kylian Mbappe to PSG for £128 (despite being only 18 at the time). Once again this comes as a result of huge amounts of money being poured into the game from television companies, sponsors and most importantly for the transfers, the owners of the big teams in Europe and that final point is the very reason why the money will continue to rise and could reach figures of up to £300 million before 2020. When these big players get purchased by the larger clubs in Europe, that money doesn’t disappear, however that money just gets put into the bank account of another wealthy owner who six months later will most likely spend all of that money on yet another player just causing this cycle of money to go around the big clubs. All this does is cause leagues to become dominated by one club as they mine the lesser teams in their respective league of any half decent players that may pose a threat and buy them simply because they can, which will be explained later on. As these extortionate figures continue to rise, the already prevalent divide between the top and average teams in the divisions will just continue to grow and the competitiveness of the beautiful game will slowly but surely start to disappear unless the so called ‘smaller teams’ find a way to catch up.

Robert

VAR

For certain, the largest talking point in recent weeks would be the inclusion of VAR at varying levels of professional football. Football has sought to improve its standard of refereeing and has taken a similar path to that of other popular sports such as rugby. While the positive intent is there, it has not had a smooth welcome into the beautiful game. Many fans and pundits alike have witnessed the drawbacks of the new system, and many seem decided that it is not welcome. Its introduction has been seen in certain FA Cup matches, such as Liverpool vs West Brom in the 3rd round.

Firstly, in principal, I am pro-VAR. As a football fan, the heartbreak of conceding a last minute goal, that clearly should’ve been ruled out overrides any drawback of VAR in principle. This and the dropping levels of football officiating in the Premier League make it seem like a necessary step forward in improving the quality of the game. Imagine it’s the World Cup final, and there’s a blatant offside goal which the linesman hasn’t seen, and this contributes to England losing 2-1 and therefore losing the World Cup (although unlikely). In this sense, I can see why it is being trialled and implemented, as it certainly has some crucial benefits. Also, I agree with the stipulations for when VAR will be used. It has to be a clear and obvious mistake, which I certainly agree with as it you wouldn’t want every single mistake to be micromanaged, and small refereeing mistakes should be ignored in relation to VAR. In addition, the help of external refereeing with new angles and cameras that the referee doesn’t have has undoubtedly led to an improvement in rugby, with decisions now being correctly made, and you could suggest it has had other pros, such as players not arguing with the referee, as the decision has been verified. Therefore, it seems logical for football to progress similarly. Or not – Rugby is an 80 minute game, with bigger slower men involved, which therefore means stopping and starting isn’t a huge problem in rugby. However, in football – a game for the fans – when a goal is scored, the crowd erupts with cheers and passion and the players go mental when they score. Now with VAR, the players will know that the goal has to be checked, and the fans will also know that the goal hasn’t been confirmed, resulting in less delirium when a goal is scored. This is a huge problem, and one that doesn’t seem amendable as it will always take time to carefully check the goals. However, in principal, I would still look to implement it, as the standards of refereeing seem to be declining, and it does seem like a justified development.

Now onto what we have seen of VAR in practice – which in summary has been shambolic and will not have turned any fans who were previously against it. In the Liverpool vs West Brom 3rd round game, the decisions simply took too long. Between the incident occurring with the Mo Salah penalty claim and the awarding of a penalty, it was more the 2 minutes of waiting. This distressed Baggies’ manager Alan Pardew, as he claimed “I don’t think it’s what we want to see going forward”. In this time, there was no communication with fans, leaving them in the dark, there was no communication with the managers, as Pardew confirmed, and the players were aching up with a 2 minute stoppage, after working at a high tempo – to nothing. Eventually, the correct decision was made, but at the price of a 2 minute stoppage, the price of an exciting and flowing game was paid. These stoppages continued throughout, with Albion believing they had scored another through Dawson after 19 minutes. After another 2+ minute wait, and came to the conclusion that Gareth Barry influenced play and was in an offside position. Once again, the right decision, but it took way too long. More recently, VAR came under heavy criticism in the 5th round tie, Manchester United away at the John Smith’s Stadium. Although the use of VAR had been quiet up until the 35th minute, it was about to spark controversy. was played through on goal by Ashley Young and calmly rounded the keeper to slot home. With the linesman not flagging for offside, the goal just needed the routine check by VAR. But once again, it was a lengthy process, with little/no communication with the fans/managers/players. But, this was just where the controversy started. The game was being broadcasted on BT Sport, and when at half time they checked live on air the images that were used by VAR, the offside lines looked like they had been drawn by a 5 year old, and even had the lines been straight, they weren’t aligned with the 18 yard box. This clearly wouldn’t instil any confidence in the viewers as it seems that the decision may as well have been a guess. Furthermore, Graham Poll, the live referee at the time for BT Sport who is also a huge fan for VAR, came out and said he couldn’t “support this one”. It was later confirmed that the squiggly lines were apparently not used, but questions are still unanswered, as it has to be questioned what the lines were doing there.

In conclusion with regards to VAR – I personally support its gradual involvement in football, as I believe that given time to be developed, it will improve the game, but all that the trial period has done is cement the position on the doubters, and breed fear into those willingly backing it. Rule Changes

On the topic of rule changes, I have one idea which I genuinely feel would instantly improve the sportsmanship of the game, would help managers, and fans hugely. When it comes to added time, there is nothing more annoying as a fan, as when your team is losing, and desperately looking for one goal that changes the game in the last minute – yet the opposition team is making 3 subs in added time, and the keeper is taking 20+ seconds with each goal kick. My proposition would be to have a rugby style clock for added time. When the board goes up to add time on at the end of the half, it is said to be a “minimum” time that is added on, yet with all the time wasted, the whistle is blown on the tick that takes it to the added time. This means that minimum added time isn’t actually played fully. Therefore, I propose that for every substitute that is made (only in added time) the clock stops. When the ball hasn’t yet been kicked by the keeper, the clock stops. This means that managers can’t complain with wasted time, players actually get their opportunity to play the game, and fans get more football. Proof that the previous method doesn’t work is that mangers choose to make subs in added time – this proves that they therefore know they can take more time out of the game without having to play it. Now, if managers made subs in added time, the clock won’t run, and if they make the subs in normal time, more time will be added on, and actually played.

League monopolies

In Europe’s top 5 leagues, a concerning trend has become apparent. This is the leagues becoming monopolies. It works quite simply – when one team has such great players, and a great manager, the other top players in the same league will aspire to play at that level, and therefore want to make a transfer to this club. Once the transfer is made, it will make the already good team even better, while removing the best player from a rival team, and distinguishing their league hopes. This results in complete dominance by the good team, since no rivals can sustain a challenge as best team over a series of years, as their best player will want to move, and the best team get better and better.

The most glaring example of a league monopoly is present in the . Bayern have won the last 5 league titles, and already have one hand on the trophy this year. They have 27 total Bundesliga wins, the most by any team. The examples of taking some of the best players from rival teams are endless…

-Mario Mandzukic (Wolfsburg 2012/13)

-Mario Götze (BVB 2013/14)

- (BVB 2014/15)

- (Stuttgart 2015/16)

-Mats Hummels (BVB 2016/17)

- (TSG Hoffenheim 2017/18)

-Niklas Sule (TSG Hoffenheim 2017/18)

- (Schalke04 2018/19)

These signings are not bit-part players at their previous clubs, with Hummels being BVB captain, Lewandowski being the top scorer in the league in 2013/14, Rudy being Hoffenheim captain and Leon Goretzka being the influential midfield maestro for Schalke. In addition, while Bayern have won 6 of the last 8 league titles, they lost 2 consecutively to BVB in 2010/11 and 2011/12. The BVB side contained Mats Hummels, Lewandowski, Mario Götze, all of which playing vital parts in winning the league, and a couple of years later, they are all at Bayern. This completely killed the core of the team, and therefore Bayern won the next 5 leagues. Something similar happened with Hoffenheim, who under young inspired manager Julian Nagglesman came 4th in the 2016/17 and showed lots of promise. But guess what... Bayern took their captain and most influential player, and their promising progress was halted.

The way that the Bundesliga has come to work benefits no one but Bayern Munich themselves. The players who would be influential at their previous clubs will now play less games, and their development will be severely halted- such as what happened with Mario Götze, and is already happening with Rudy. Therefore, German football suffers, as their talents aren’t playing as much as they should. Also, being a fan of any team but Bayern must have a depressing feel about it. Knowing that it is highly likely that Bayern will win the league, and that should they develop an exciting talent of their own, he will be taken by Bayern after showing any signs of promise.

Previously, I claimed that it was a trend, and this is becoming the case in Italy and Spain. In Italy, Juventus have won the last 6 league titles, and have won 33 trophies, the most out of any team. Not only this, but similarly to Bayern, they have a pulling power which attracts the better players from other teams in the league. For example, Napoli, a historically great team who consistently finish in the top 6, had their best player prized away from them in the form of Gonzalo Higuain. Also, The Bosnian, Miralem Pjanic was at Roma, another historically great team and was their key asset in midfield, yet was sold to Juve. Furthermore, Bernadeschi, Fiorentina’s stand out talent was snatched by Juve last summer. In Spain, Madrid and Barca have a similar pulling power. The perfect example of it was in 2013/14, when Real Sociedad had a standout year, coming 7th while they usually finish lower/ mid table. One of their best players, Illaramendi was sold to Real for a huge £30million. Also, Keylor Navas the outperforming keeper for Levante, went to Real to weaken another team and Isco – Malaga’s creative genius - was instantly sold after a promising year. The same applies for Barcelona, who are able to pick players at choice, for example, Paco Alcacer, star striker at Valencia, who left just to sit on the bench behind Luis Suarez. Furthermore, he wasn’t the only player from Valencia to leave for Barca, with Jordi Alba and David Villa walking the same path. Valencia are historically a huge team, yet when Barca click their fingers, the players move.

European ticket prices

Lastly, I would like to quickly talk about European ticket prices. For any Liverpool fans travelling to watch their away tie vs Porto, it would cost them over £70. Meanwhile, home end tickets were available in the region of £20-30. This act of exploitation has done neither side any favours – with the Reds looking to UEFA for guidance. Unfortunately, nothing was done about the extortionate prices, and what will almost certainly end up happening, is Liverpool will subsidise the cost of the ticket, and then charge Porto fans similarly high prices, to make up for having to subsidise their fans. Therefore, the extra money Porto made charging high prices will simply go in towards helping their fans go to .

So what is gained?

Absolutely nothing. Neither side makes anything out of this, and all it does is cause hassle, firstly for the fans, who will maybe reconsider going due to such high prices, and secondly for the clubs, who have to deal with the hassle. All it does is create a sense of hastiness between the 2 clubs, which is simply not needed. Like the Premier League has done, there needs to be a cap for what home clubs can charge away fans. In the Premier League, an away trip at the Emirates will cost £30. So will a trip to Old Trafford, and the Vitality Stadium. This simply has to be agreed for both the Champions League and the Europa League, to stop fans from being exploited and to stop a quite simple issue.

Conclusion (Tommy)

Football has become a good to be consumed, so like all consumer goods, as it is developed and it’s quality rises, so does it’s price. However, it is this rising price that then causes a reduction in quality. The huge money in the game ruins atmosphere inside , as tourists flock to games, demanding beautiful football. The huge money in the game leads to monopolies, making seasons dull and predictable. The huge money in the game leads to people doing anything to win, be it diving, trying to influence referees or just parking the bus. We, the consumer, are left with a premium price for a less than premium product. At this stage, something has to change.