Bored Of The Premiership? Take Action...

[Electric ~soul~]

What a lovely respite an international week or two offers from the usual frenetic fat-man-careering-down-a-frozen-sidewalk pace of the Premiership - a time to reflect and put things into perspective, to separate your Moyes from your Mourinhos and to think back over the past couple of weeks and ask yourself: Was it really that boring? And if so - why?

 

There's been a great deal of whinging about this over the past three weeks, and the last thing I want to do is come along and rehash the tried and trusted cliches - 4-5-1 formations, Chelsea's monetary dominance, overly defensive and super-cautious managers etc.

 

Instead, I'll ask if this really surprises anyone? Has it not been heading in this direction for a couple of years now?

 

At the risk of sounding insensitive and uncaring to the plight of football fans everywhere: We only have ourselves to blame.

 

It's been coming for a while, and the Chelski style of football and financial dominance is inevitably built into the very system that spawned it. It's a product of cultural and financial hegemony that the west has all too readily embraced over the past decades, and now that it's started showing its ugly backside, we're trying to complain.

 

This is how capitalism works. You take a product that people love, be it food, movies, art or football. Then you see how much money can be made by milking it in every possible way. But soon enough the problem of guaranteed profits emerges. Making an exciting, innovative movie for instance will only appeal to a select section of the market, or in some cases to no-one at all. So how to guarantee a return on your investment? You start changing the product.

 

Enter the formulaic Hollywood blockbuster. We'll have plenty of explosions, a syrupy sweet love angle and the hero always triumphs over incredible odds and a bad haircut. Saturation advertising and media hype should ensure that millions of sheep-like zombies fork out their dosh to see Tom Schwarzewillis punch some stunt doubles effetely while groping a brainless American bimbo in a faux erotic fit.

 

How does this relate to football, or more specifically football in the UK?

 

Well, the Premiership was essentially created to generate filthy amounts of cash for the participants. It may not have started off as a purely cynical exercise but in the 13 years since its inception we have been moving steadily closer to the precipice that is the McDonaldisation of the game we love.

 

Teams have more readily been following similar styles of play, not even attempting entertainment as they desperately try to stay afloat in the choppy sea that is the financial imbalance of the Premiership. The shareholders don't want exciting football, they want a profit margin that causes them to auto-ejaculate with glee. So it becomes imperative to stay in the Premiership at all costs. The guaranteed television revenue is more important than the supporters.

 

How far are we from a day when players start being chosen for their looks instead of their playing ability? Football Idol anyone? We'll have eleven magnificently-coiffed pretty boys running out in an Armani-designed kit while their pop star/actress girlfriends wave photogenically from centre-stand, their surgically-enhanced breasts bobbing joyously in the sun while their boyfriends play out a scripted 12-all draw (the punters want goals, Jim) followed by a nail-biting penalty shoot-out which is decided by Sony Manchester Coca Cola United's goalkeeper making a heroic save with a broken leg to win the heart of his true love.

 

Wayne Rooney would have to go for an extreme make-over before being allowed anywhere near a football field, of course. Can you imagine Alex Ferguson after an advanced course of Botox treatment? Hello sleepless nights.

 

It may sound ridiculous but this is where we're heading. Those pesky Americans have gotten their first toehold in the English game and they are not in the business of taking risks or leaving anything to chance.

 

Have you actually watched a game of basketball? Sure, the athletes are skilful but the rules are designed so that one team gets given the ball, they hoof it to the other end and score a basket. Now the other team gets the ball and does the same. Repeat this process till the clock runs out or someone falls asleep while playing and loses the ball to the opposition. End result? A 98-97 score line without even a semblance of drama. We should all be very, very afraid.

 

There are any number of rich men with ill-gotten millions sniffing around the Premiership at the moment and it's only a matter of time before owning a British football team is the new Lear jet in the circles of the filthy rich. Rumour has it that Robert Mugabe is about to launch a bid for Liverpool, purely so he can wave munificently from the Kop as the players run onto the pitch in military garb and genuflect to him every time they score a goal. They'd all have to grow little Hitler taches and pledge their hatred of Tony Blair before evicting their opponents from the visiting dressing room and...

 

But I digress.

 

There is one element in football that I think the money men have either left out of the equation or perhaps they were hoping to advertise the problem out of existence. The fans.

 

Football is not like food or the movies. Your dad didn't teach you from birth that you always had to support Steven Spielberg because his dad did before him. Unless you're a true saddo you've never obsessed over camera angles in Die Hard as you have selection and formation policy at your club. Even when your team is pants you still come back time and again to support them, it's about more than winning or results, it becomes part of your psychological make-up. Nobody keeps going back to a restaurant that offers food that tastes like warmed-over papier mache, but Everton and Bolton still have supporters.

 

Much of the beauty of football lies in it's sheer unpredictability. Even at their peak one always had the feeling that ManYoo or the [****!!****] could be beaten by anybody on a bad day or after a couple of key injuries. Somehow I don't feel that about Chelski with their two first teams. And this is boring.

 

I don't think any true football fan finds their winning as such boring. We've always had dominant teams. It's just the sheer metronomic predictability of it all. Had they not had such a huge squad one could imagine Terry, Makelele and Lampard suffering injuries on the same weekend and being replaced by some of unproven 21-year-olds and suddenly it's game on. Not now.

 

We don't like predictability in the game, never have, never will. I'd rather see my team lose a thrilling 4-3 encounter than grind out a soul-destroying 0-0 draw. For God's sake, even 0-0 draws can be exciting if the two teams are actually trying to score goals as opposed to preventing the other team from scoring one at all costs.

 

This is why fans are moaning and this is where the power to turn things around lies. Vote with your feet. If your team starts playing boring defensive football for no better reason than hoping for a draw, don't go. No amount of Sky presenters screaming at you about how fantastic it all is should convince you otherwise. Gate takings are a drop in an ocean of blood money, but even on TV, with an over-excited commentator baying in your ears like a hamstrung donkey, a game played in a cavernously-empty stadium lacks atmosphere and the television revenue will eventually drop.

 

Remember this people, the players, managers and owners are there on your sufferance. We indirectly employ them to entertain us. They should earn their keep.

 

So let's have no more moaning. As long as you keep spending your money the downward spiral will continue until it all implodes horribly and we have to start from scratch. If, for instance, you're a Portsmouth supporter and they're playing Chelski and Alain Perrin decides to rest key players cause they'll obviously lose, walk out of the stadium. If you feel that having four away kits which cost £100 each is a cynical money-making scheme, don't even buy one of them. Wear last years one with the curry stains on the stretched-out bit where your beer gut fits so snugly.

 

Excitement or a catchy slogan masking an empty vessel? It's your choice.

[CANV EFM]

im bored of the prem and bored of international football as well