It seems that every weekend I open the newspaper to read stories of corruption, violent conduct, racism and rather awful play acting. Yet, viewing figures are on the rise. Why, if all people do is criticise the sport, do we waste so much time and money on this sport? When looking at tickets to watch Chelsea vs. Manchester United, I found tickets being sold for over £400.00 for 90 minutes of football. For that fee, every minute of action is worth £4.40 (so if I were you, I would pray for added time). That is flat out extortion. I could never justify paying that much for a football game. It's not as if the players on show are honest citizens either! John Terry, involved in a recent racism row will be playing and no doubt the Chelsea crowd will fully support this individual, even though cameras caught him allegedly racially abusing Rio Ferdiand's brother.
The support of the managers is equally as farcical. "Harry Redknapp for England manager" is a phrase becoming all too familiar, but after recent allegations into his private life, evidence has been found indicating that Harry has accepted secret payments into an off shore bankaccount in order to avoid the tax man!
Howard Webb, the flagship of English referees, once again failed to spot and act accordingly to a serious incident this weekend, in the form of a Mario Balotelli stamping on Scott Parkers' head. This lack of competency and willingness to act due to the amount of money involved in the sport is absurd, and is ruining the sport as a spectacle. So is all the play acting and diving that goes on in the EPL, or as it has eloquently been dubbed by FIFA"simulation". It happens all the time in the Premier League, and although it can be argued the Spanish league, especially Barcalona have the biggest problems, the EPL sees its fair share of play acting, which in my opinion is pathetic! That may be due to the fact that I was brought up playing rugby, where you never want to show any sign of weakness, and diving will get you nowhere (apart from the subs bench). Yes, rugby had an issue with 'simulation' with the famous bloodgate scandal in 2009, but unlike the EPL, the player involved was banned for 12 months, the coach was banned for 3 years and the club fined £260,000. As far as I am aware, diving or 'simulation' has not been dealt with in a similar way in football (if it has bring it to my attention).
Therefore our national sport one day could be :
- A team full of people willing to simulate fouls for personal gain (i.e. cheaters).
- Captained by an (allegedly, trial pending) racist.
- Managed by a tax dodger.
- And Refereed by an incompitent individual.
And people wonder why the youth today are the way they are! One look at their role models helps to sort that out!
PER
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