Something a little bit different this week in an attempt to scratch the surface of an interesting subject and try to define what the term ‘Against Modern Football’ (#AMF) actually means.
The quest here is to decide whether it is something that is truly understood. To perhaps get a bit of a debate going on the subject and to try and confirm whether this term is truly definable.
Does the term mean different things to different people and is this driven by the team that we support and the division that this team resides in? Is it something that has a common understanding across the entire footballing fan base?
Some of this is probably obvious but views on the subject seem to be drastically different in some cases and there are many grey lines and perhaps even enforced double standards that are evident.
Firstly, in order to identify something and give it its potential definition we need to look at where the origins of the phrase may have derived from even if the term ‘modern‘ would suggest that it has been a tag recently applied to the game.
Football itself goes back hundreds of years with vague references even being made as far back as medieval times but no mention of inflated spectating fees for peasant folk or foreign owners swanning in from across the globe with a pocket full of groats, gold or foreign artefacts to trade and purchase a town or village team from the locals.
Moving swiftly on. About 600 years in fact. The Football Association (FA) itself was formed in October 1863 and was initially only really set-up as an ‘Association‘ in order to bring together and define a clear set of rules or a common code that could be used across the game.
Back in those days it wasn’t about corporations or money and more about adding some structure to the game rather than it becoming the business that it is today.
Not until the formation of the Premier League back in 1992 in England does the term ‘modern football’ seem to apply on these shores to more of a degree. The Premier League came along over twenty years ago with its own unique marketing brand which has grown beyond belief ever since.
This was not only an English brand but a global brand with other huge brands desperate to hang off of it and get a piece of the commercial action and advertising rights. These past years have seen a huge upsurge in the televising of games, clubs cashing in on the money from these games, foreign ownership and increased global revenue from merchandise and sponsorship of just about anything that moves or can be seen on a screen by the viewing public.
An obvious example of the start of modern football as we perhaps know it today is of Manchester United who went public even before the Premiership as it was branded then was created in 1990 with takeover bids from the likes of BskyB. This was followed by the takeover from the renowned Glazer family years later and has continued up until the present day with the running of the club as a business.
The United fans at the time fought against the takeover due to the debts being incurred and some have even since broken away from the club with the formation of FC United of Manchester. You can see some of the logic but it is surely one of the grey areas mentioned previously where there is a so called break-away but the fans still go and pay large ticket prices to see ‘their’ team in their green and yellow scarves putting money into the pockets of the Glazers at the shopping mall of a stadium almost as a demonstration.
This article is not suggesting that it is as simple as that but there appears to be some kind of trade-off required if fans want to see their team play whilst opposing what the club and/or owners are doing at a higher level. This is just one high profile example of foreign owners taking over English clubs.
There are others such as the Venkys at Blackburn, Kroenke at Arsenal, Lerner at Villa, Abramovic at Chelsea, Khan at Fulham, Henry/James at Liverpool and Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Man City to name just a few. There is an urge to stop at this point but we cannot move on without highlighting the names of Vincent Tan at Cardiff and Assem Allam at Hull City.
These two alone have taken the whole thing to new highs (probably the wrong word) with a full on re-branding exercise of what they deem their new toy that they have purchased with their money.
Welsh club Cardiff City now play at home in red to enable increased marketing in Asia and the Bluebird has all but disappeared from the badge with the introduction of a red dragon. Owner Tan currently seems to be on a one man mission to undo a great deal of history at the club since it was formed back in 1899.
Up in the North East, Assem Allam is trying to re-brand Hull City for the same marketing and merchandising reasons with the introduction of Hull Tigers therefore dropping the City part of the name. The Egyptian tycoon who has pumped considerable money into the Humberside club has warned that he will walk away from the KC Stadium overnight if his controversial proposal to rename the club as Hull Tigers is not waved through by the FA.
With these words he appears to be holding the club to ransom. This re-branding has and continues to cause outrage among fans of the 110 year old club. It will definitely be interesting to see how this all pans out as it is actually putting the FA on the spot to do the right thing for the club (and football generally) but will it take on board the actions and views from the supporters and fans? We will have to see but this may well set the ongoing precident.
The issue is generally being driven further along this route by large businesses but also the people that run the game along with the FA such as UEFA and FIFA. I am not going to dwell of these areas but the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar is surely just giving into greed and market expansion to this part of the globe. We cannot suppose for a second that anybody or any organisations such as these are getting any financial reward from holding a World Cup in a country known for its ideal football playing climate and traditions can we? We move on.
Some of the biggest Premier League teams now have a worldwide fan base but you have to feel sorry for the fans from the actual towns and cities across the United Kingdom that have their core fans in the areas where they have grown up and where the team was formed. These are the fans that are truly affected by modern football but do we just accept that these exact people are now living in an evolving world and in love with an evolving game and that this is now all part and parcel of being a fan of a football team in the modern day?
The underlying issue is that we live (and in turn, football now lives) in a consumer market that is driven by branding, money and the requirements of the entire fan base rather than the older traditional model of it being driven by the local communities around the club itself. If you are in any doubt then travel up to Milton Keynes to see the team where every game is arguably an away day from their original home in the Wimbledon area.
Massive decisions about the club that directly impact the fans and in many cases the local communities generally are being made by the people in power with all the money. Decisions appear to be made by these people for the greater good of themselves and for others that want to make money from these decisions.
The game really does appear to be eating itself from the inside currently and these incidents appear to be showing an even more worrying trend for the fans of late.
With the modern football tag we are also seeing the growth in new fancy stadiums being built or re-named after airlines and sporting retail shops which is wrong on a number of levels but still nothing in comparison with losing the name of your club and its history as a whole. It is great that stadiums are being modernised to create safer viewing platforms to some degree for fans of all ages but not at the detriment of the atmosphere or the game itself which appears to be un-important to many of the cash-rich owners.
It is also good for the game that some of these changes have seen improvements with the move away from the old stadiums such as safety, reductions in racism and of course crowd trouble that was evident in the eighties and nineties. The option of safe standing still remains a very interesting and viable option and certainly meets the middle ground opinion for the best of both camps.
In order to meet the demands of the worldwide audience, games are also not played at traditional times so much these days. Recent years have seen a massive sway towards staged league games running from Friday evenings all the way through to Sunday and even on Monday evenings. Are these games being moved to these times at the request of us fans that go to see our teams in the flesh? Do these games suit the travelling fans wanting to see their team at their home grounds or away at another ground? Not in the slightest!
Ask any fan if they enjoy making the away trip from London to the North of England on a Monday night after work to see a game.
These games are scheduled to make the most of the remote control viewing audiences sat in seats supplied by such outlets as DFS and Furniture Village (other stores available!) and not those amongst us that want to live and breath the atmosphere, the excitement, the tension and the togetherness of supporting on mass.
The game of football was historically and still remains the game of the working classes but modern football is diluting this with more and more corporate areas within these stadiums making for dull, stale and soulless atmospheres. This has and continues to result with the real fans getting priced out of watching their team at their stadium from the towns in which they were born. This only compounds and encourages an avenue for the new travelling ‘tourist’ fans and business fans wanting a day trip at a football match with a three course meal on either side of the game. Ticket prices appear to only be going in one direction and the cost of merchandise continues to spiral upwards which again is pricing many fans out of being able to support their teams at their local stadiums.
A summary of the real obvious traits and definition of modern football is a mixture of the following in my opinion.
- Foreign ownership with no real affiliation with the club and one of its key assets – the fans
- Fans being treated as cash cows
- Games scheduled to suit the armchair supporter in any time zone
- Business like setups and the extravagant amount of money involved in being able to compete
- Soul-less stadiums created as no more than an extravagant advertising hoarding rather than a coliseum for fans
- Stadiums named after corporate brands
- Expensive ticketing
- Club assets being purchased and sold like cattle for the best price (e.g. players). This is a very strange one as you can see what is wrong but this is not assisted when many of the biggest players in the game are also brands too – Beckham, Ronaldo, Messi.
- Over priced merchandise
- Half and half scarves, jester hats etc worn by fans on day trips
The problem with all of this is that it is surely a balancing act for the clubs and in many cases the fans. We want to be able to go and see our teams for a fair price, wearing our club shirt and colours, in reasonable and safe environment with our friends, families and like minded people. But we also strive for varying levels of success and stability of our clubs which come at a price financially and emotionally in many cases.
The issue here is that we as fans seem to have to accept a level of the defined areas of modern football without losing our identities as clubs, fans and communities which is incredibly difficult in the current climate of a success or failure mentality and reality.
As a personal conclusion, it is difficult to be simply ‘against modern football’ as a black and white statement with a clear right or a clear wrong answer. I know that this statement may be controversial to some and perhaps slightly misguided in part with people that have very strong feelings on the subject. We as individuals need to set our own tolerances around what we think is correct based on our loyalties, ideologies and morals as individuals and in line with the greater communal principles where possible but they also need to be balanced against the relative level of success and stability.
Looking at the situation at Palace, the greater balancing act, where we are as a club and the modern football traits mentioned above, it appears on the surface that we have this about right at this moment in time. This is not to suggest that the wheels may come off at any time and these things can change within the blink of an eye. The situation at Palace is probably not perfect but will it ever be perfect to meet the needs of every fan and the club itself?
Will a club in the top divisions in England ever be able to fully tick all the boxes against what is deemed as modern football?
Despite going against some of the modern football traits mentioned we’re lucky in that we play our football at a good level, our stadium is still called Selhurst Park despite the sponsorship deal, the club does work with the local community and we have British owners that are local lads and are fans of the club itself.
The owners also listen to the views of the fans and ultimately they will not buy success at the risk of the club itself. The key areas are that we retain our true club name, we retain its identity and links to its roots at the actual Crystal Palace. In doing so we also retain and to a degree celebrate our history and the location it has nestled in properly since the 1920’s.
The main asset the club has are the fans that show total devotion for the club and the colours that link us all together. As many of the posters suggest ‘football without fans is nothing’ so it is about time the powers that be up and down the country listen to the views of the supporters and incorporate these in the plans of clubs and the governing bodies.
As a conclusion, I believe that modern football has been defined above as best as possible for my small brain but despite searching hard it is very unclear if we can claim to be against the term ‘against modern football’.
This is not to dispel the feelings of those that abide by these words but as an individual it is probably better to say that I am greatly concerned with the way in which the game I love is going generally. I am concerned about what this means for the fans, I am concerned about what it does and may mean for my club in the future. I know that I have a huge passion for my team that has grown over forty years and all I really want is to see my team regularly with the great atmosphere and support that we have in abundance but not at any price financially or emotionally.
I hope that this article has been interesting and thought provoking at the very least. This is not an area of expertise or great knowledge but the game I love is shared by many and it is all about opinions at the end of the day.
We’d be very interested in what you may have to say on the subject so let us know through Twitter and Facebook.
Article written by Paul Price.
