This is a "O for the old days" thread.
The future of football?
- Thread starter jdmufc
- Start date
Sorry for throwing my 'oldie wet blanket' over the thread, but I don't think that was the idea of the OP at all. Just a very interesting question - 'Where do you see football 25 years from now?'
Please post how you envisage football 25 years on -- I know I could do with a positive vision of the future.
Football with definitely need a re-vamp in 25 years in my opinion. In fact it could do with one now, the premier league for example is quite a boring league when you think about it. I'd much rather watch most championship games over the likes of Stoke v. Bolton.
I can foresee some of what Waltraute's getting at. But fans can always start things from the ground up again, like FCUoM and there may be a revival as such.
Sorry for throwing my 'oldie wet blanket' over the thread, but I don't think that was the idea of the OP at all. Just a very interesting question - 'Where do you see football 25 years from now?'
Please post how you envisage football 25 years on -- I know I could do with a positive vision of the future.
Charming as always WaltrauteI think that at the highest levels, the current growth of football is unsubstainable. You have clubs struggling under massive loads of debt, while wages and expenses are skyrocketing. Either it all comes down like a pack of cards, or somehow a fragile balance is maintained, with strict supervision from UEFA and FIFA. Will it ever become accessible to the fans again? Unless fan ownership occurs, no. There is too much money to be taken from visiting tourists, cable subscribers and the like to let it slide.
It's the lower levels/amateur/semi-professional levels of football that will retain the bond they have with the fans of football. That divide between these and the top leagues will continue to grow.
I don't buy the idea that there will be a limited amount of clubs able to compete as with American football. At every new frontier in football - money men, big money transfers, Sky Sports, etc - people will say it will cause the death of the sport but it never does. Its such a dull cliche but these clubs were here before the Glazers, the Sheikhs and the dodgy Asian businessmen, and they'll sure enough be here afterwards.
The money keeps pouring in and fans can keep moaning about it (this isn't an attack on the OP) and how it is ruining their sport and making it hard for them to go to games (I understand this) but ultimately the money is here to stay because it is the same as most other businesses and indeed most sports - it has been over-inflated.
The important thing is for the love of football to continue as a tradition - as my father taught me, and as his father taught him. As long as this continues - as long as people love the game - there will never be a problem.
The money keeps pouring in and fans can keep moaning about it (this isn't an attack on the OP) and how it is ruining their sport and making it hard for them to go to games (I understand this) but ultimately the money is here to stay because it is the same as most other businesses and indeed most sports - it has been over-inflated.
The important thing is for the love of football to continue as a tradition - as my father taught me, and as his father taught him. As long as this continues - as long as people love the game - there will never be a problem.
The issue is that the people involved in the game right now, are creaming it for all the money they can get. Rulemakers, owners, CEOs, broadcasters, everyone down to the players - their only interest is money.
Only when the people at the top of the game turn their attentions away from how much money they can make will football turn around for the better. Until then, us 'fans' are just the people that pay the wages.
Only when the people at the top of the game turn their attentions away from how much money they can make will football turn around for the better. Until then, us 'fans' are just the people that pay the wages.
There is also, which I think would halt any potential slide into pure corruption and further widening of the gulf between clubs with money and clubs without, a burning desire for some sort of government or FA regulation on the sport. It would be sad to see, but often necessary options are like that.
I suspect it is more likely to be 16 sides in Europe. There are only four clubs in England capable of competing for the title without relying on a sugar daddy - and Chelsea in there for that reason only. The same situation is developing in other influential European leagues.25 years ago was probably about the lowest point for my interest in football. Partly an age thing - you know the stuff: mortgage, job, family - all at their most intense. But then it all came rushing back, a second childhood really.
25 years on. I think we'll see robot players and we'll get to the match by personal flying machines. The viewing visors we'll have fitted in our baseball caps will show instant action replays of the best bits. Games will last for 6 halves for advertising break reasons (the periods will still be referred to as halves though as a matter of cultural respect). All referees will wear goggles and assistant refs will be genetically reengineered to have laser alignment systems and 4 eyes.
Or not.
More likely it will be commercialised into a high end product with maybe 16 professional teams in the UK and TV will have been overrun by internet streaming.
I think in initial league of, perhaps, 16-20 invited teams after bids are submitted. There will be no promotion or relegation so that investors have certainty. Over time this will expand in much the same way American sports have.
In 25 years 3weeks and 4 days Toyota will announce that their Manchester Red Devils franchise will move out of the stuggling English economy and be relaunched as the Bucharest Red Devils in the now richer Romania, the country's first European SuperLeague club.
How far-fetched is this? If you suggested, 25 years ago, that an average-wealth, established mid-Premiership team with brilliant younger players (early twenties, not youth) had no hope of winning the league because they had no hope of keeping the players you would have been laughed at. Nowadays everyone knows thats 'just how it is'.
Dicko mate.... what am I having for dinner tonight?