SOYLENT SOCCER

Nothing comes for free and football is no exception, no one should expect to watch it without a cost. In these strange times many people have been struggling with health, mental and otherwise, day to day problems and of course finances. It’s a changed landscape but even so the rich have still got richer and private interest has muscled in on Covid related opportunities to earn. Then there’s The Premier League, and therefore Sky & BT. They have a product that people want and they are cynical having that knowledge.

Just when you thought that they had squeezed as much juice as they could out of the beautiful game they come up with new ways to get more money.

How far does it go before the fans say “hang on a minute! You’re mugging me off?”

The product is not the same, the product lacks the atmosphere and emotion that a crowd brings to the party but the broadcasters want top dollar to watch it. The so called Top Six want to ensure that they never have to face the possibility of being thrown off the gravy train and have concocted a, far from cunning,  plan to make that happen under the guise of protecting the football pyramid.

Basically these people are profiteers reaching into pockets that they know are not bottomless. On top of rinsing fans the game itself is sometimes farcical and often frustrating with VAR (in my view a way to introduce opportunities for commercials),frequent ambiguous changes to the laws of the game and mixed messages about financial health of clubs and commitment to pay high wages while sacking staff.

2020 will always be remembered for one major thing but in the footnotes will it be remembered for the year that football ate itself?