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Volume 1 (1999/2000)
Issue
1 (March 1999)
Issue
2 (Nov. 1999)
Issue 3 (Dec. 1999)
Issue 4 (Feb. 2000)
Issue 5 (March 2000)
Issue 6 (April 2000)
Issue
7 (May 2000)
Volume 2 (2000/2001)
Issue 1 (Sept. 2000)
Issue 2 (Oct. 2000)
Issue 3 (Jan. 2001)
Issue 4 (March 2001)
Issue 5 (April 2001)
Issue 6 (May 2001)
Volume 3 (2001)
Issue 1 (Sept. 2001)
Issue 2 (Nov. 2001)
Categories
Sport: 1
2 3
Lifestyles: 1 2
3
Commentary: 1 2
3
Review: 1 2
3
Writing: 1 2
3
Event: 1 2
3
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Patrick Nulty
Riversdale CC
Former Liverpool manager Bill Shankley once said famously
"Football is not about life and death. Its much more important than
that". While this comment was made in jest, after recent events you
could be forgiven for thinking that it was meant literally. Calls to pospone
the Leeds match following the shocking murder of two supporters in Turkey
fell on deaf ears. This tragedy is symptomatic of a sport that has lost
touch with its grass roots and has become dominated by the greed of big
business.
From its very beginning football has been the sport of the
masses. Thousands of people flock to see their favourite team in action
and the emotional ties a supporter has to their favourite club creates
a sense of loyalty and camaraderie which cannot be expressed easily through
words alone. However professional football has become a victim of its
own success and the loyalty of supporters has been exploited time and
again by businessmen and profit-driven shareholders who now run most big
football clubs.
Seeing the popularity of football, business and especially
media corporations like Rupert Murdoch's Sky have turned a sport that
for many is an emotional roller-coaster ride, into just a simple business
transaction. This can clearly be seen through the rapidly increasing season
ticket prices of most of the top clubs, which are now beyond the means
of many committed supporters. As well as that most clubs have hyperactive
marketing departments which use the loyalty of supporters to sell merchandise
bearing the club's name at exorbitant prices. The fruits of this income
rarely go into improving the football team, instead it helps fund bonuses
for directors and huge dividends for major shareholders. While this may
have short term financial benefits for a select few such a situation cannot
continue. Many people now feel that coverage of football on television
has now reached 'saturation' and the demands placed on the players both
physically and psychologically have resulted in a poorer quality football.
To conclude, football is a sport which means so much to people across
the globe and therefore its administrators must not allow the link with
the ordinary supporter to be broken. If they don't, everything that makes
football such a wonderful expression of cultural identity will be lost
to the self-serving greed of those who see football as being just another
way to line their pockets.
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