The "Beautiful Game"

tim_wand

Post Jubolympic euphoria got many of us on here (Well the odd few) who follow the game of Football commentating that having just witnessed some of the finest sporting endeavour and achievement in a long time: that our "National Game" had really got something to live up to on its return.

Can I be the first (And I am a true football nut. Player and Supporter) to say that now we are at the half way point of the season, I dont think it could have failed any more comprehensively if it had scripted its own demise.

I really really am at my wits end with football, you just couldnt make it up.

Terry/ Suarez/ Cole/ Serbia , even the sacking of Di Matteo it just goes from bad to worse.

crescent

Couldn't agree more. I used to be able to sit and watch any game as a neutral, loved watching MotD, Champions League etc. Now, the whole sport just annoys me. The ridiculous sums of money that get bandied about, the lack of sportsmanship, the fact that it is run as a fairly cut-throat business now instead of a sport, the overexposure on TV, the fact that cheating has been allowed to become "part of the modern game". I rarely watch it at all now.
And I'm Scottish, so believe me, when it comes to football I have low standards, and I'm still disappointed by it .

Jerseys for goalposts. Mmmm? Isn't it?

Cleat Eastwood

Totally agree - it seems to have lots its sheen - this is what Everton fans must have been feeling for years.

alihisgreat

United are top of the table so its not all bad

and I can get my fix of Spanish football tomorrow - Barcelona vs. Athletico Madrid will hopefully live up to the hype!

cornerblock

You forgot the Clattenburg affair, Cole's Mum and her terrible tweet, Chelsea target Fellani's disgusting headbutt, the boorish behaviour of some Chelsea fans towards Rafa, I'm sure there are more things to have a pop at Chelsea for but I can't be arsed.

As for your main point, I agree completely. It was always going to be difficult for the new season of football (mainly Premiership) to follow what was an amazing Olympics. Which showed sport at it's best and all the great qualities in human nature.

I too have loved the game since childhood, but I feel myself becoming more and more disillusioned with the game as I get older. I'm sick of the way players will cheat at any cost, then afterwards you"ll have to listen to their manager* defend them and moan about the quality of the refereeing! Here's an idea, get your players to play the game in the right spirit and the referee just might have an easier job. Stop insulting the fans intelligence (football haters can insert their own gag here) and just be honest.

I've also said before that there is less humour in the game. In the past you were certain to hear funny comments from someone in the crowd or very witty chants. Nowadays it all seems a bit spiteful and nasty.

For the last couple of seasons I have come close to giving up the season ticket, thinking of the lovely bikely stuff I could get with the money. That day is drawing nearer.

* Fair play to David Moyes tonight for being straight over Fellani. The way it should be done.

crispybug2

To truly judge how low football (and to be blunt I went off it long before the premiership came along to totally corrupt every aspect of the game) is watch the reaction of supporters behind the posts when a member of the opposition scores a goal against their team. It's a mixture of pure hatred and venom with murderous intent (was that a bit over the top?) It is like watching the worst aspects of the human condition on prime time television.

dynamicbrick

If you want a really good sport ruined, fill it full of money.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/spo ... 2120351606

Rugby Union, Northern Handball (Rugby League), F1, BTCC, and so on, stand as shining examples of how to take a great sport and completely wreck it with accountants. Let's be honest, Sky did a very good job of making the Tour pretty dull this year; could you imagine how monotonous it would be if all there were five or six teams that ran like Sky? Only Crikkit seems to have escaped the curse of over-professionalisation.

daviesee

As a Scot, trust me, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The game up here truly imploded towards the end of last season. I gave up at that point.
It is still there in the background but I don't care and if you don't care, what is the point?

The whole sport is corrupt and the only light of hope I can see is if the implosion returns the game to it's roots.

And crikkit? Have you seen some of the attitudes to the Indian league? Or the betting cheating? Far from clean.

simona75

I agree. Like others have said I used to watch most of the televised prem. games but now I don't watch any. I still enjoy the Championship as that's where my club (Leicester) play and that division still seems to have a degree of equality and excitement about it.

The NFL, while it has its problems, is a good example of a sport that has heavily regulated itself to preserve equality (salary caps, player drafts etc). I think our version of football could learn something.

dynamicbrick

daviesee wrote:

And crikkit? Have you seen some of the attitudes to the Indian league? Or the betting cheating? Far from clean.

Didn't say it was clean, and I only watch county games.

Bringing the Indian league into it is like comparing the premiership with some of the South American leagues.

wheezee

You can't really compare the week-in week-out professional game with the Olympics. Best you can do is compare it to the international tournaments. The brilliant Spanish side made the last one a pretty enjoyable occasion.

It can also be true that whilst the "party" tournament/Olympic games can be entertaining, you don't get to invest a lifetime's anxiety and misery into the outcome, like you do supporting a football team.

finchy

Maidstone United talk of the Ryman League South. Gyori ETO top of the Hungarian first division. Happy days.

Pity about Bolton, but I can't have it all.

Frank the tank

I used to love playing football and watching my beloved Hucknall town.

However I finished playing in 1995 and town are now on the verge of folding. I don't bother with the premiershit or euro carnival balloney. The powers that be bang on about respect and they don't even embrace technology or penalise the cheats, they're a bunch of hypocrits.

pinno

They do bang on a lot about 'the most exciting league in the world'. It isn't the best, it isn't the most technical and its definately not the most tactical. If there was a mainstream choice between L Liga and MotD on a Saturday night, MotD would be forgotten pretty quickly.

daviesee

dynamicbrick wrote:

daviesee wrote:

And crikkit? Have you seen some of the attitudes to the Indian league? Or the betting cheating? Far from clean.

Didn't say it was clean, and I only watch county games.

Bringing the Indian league into it is like comparing the premiership with some of the South American leagues.

How many English players play in it?
More like comparing the Champions League with the Championship. Money has twisted the ethics and that was the main point.

cornerblock

pinarello001 wrote:

If there was a mainstream choice between L Liga and MotD on a Saturday night, MotD would be forgotten pretty quickly.

Absoluto cojones! I don't buy into the 'best league in the world' tripe but there is no way football fans in England would choose to watch Osasuna v Granada ahead of their own teams on a Saturday night. Besides that if Gary Lineker was any more tanned I'd have to adjust the colour on my TV.

GiantMike

I gave up on football years ago. Too much diving and bad sportsmanship.

Stevo_666

I dunno, I think it's easy to forget all the shyte that went on in years gone past and think that it's getting worse. I can only remember a few myself from the past - Cantona's Kung Fu kick / Dennis Wise beating up a taxi driver / Merson snorting coke / Newcastle players spit roasting some rohypnolled girl etc etc - but footballers have never really covered themselves in moral glory for a long time now.

True there's been some right crap this season but I just concentrate on watching the games then it doesn't matter half as much .

cornerblock

But it's the games that are the problem! The diving, feigning head injuries to stop the game, trying to get your fellow professionals booked or sent off, the histrionics, it all just poisons the actual match. As for off the pitch, not saying I don't care what they do, but I don't think anyone should be looking to footballers as moral leaders.

Stevo_666

Cornerblock wrote:

But it's the games that are the problem! The diving, feigning head injuries to stop the game, trying to get your fellow professionals booked or sent off, the histrionics, it all just poisons the actual match. As for off the pitch, not saying I don't care what they do, but I don't think anyone should be looking to footballers as moral leaders.

I did say it didn't matter half as much Fair point, I'm all for a big clampdown on that sort of on-pitch cr@p you mention - also the sheer disrespect shown to the refs boils my p1ss and needs to be stamped out.

DrKJM

The fixing of football is easy, on pitch anyway. It'd take six weeks at most. Instruct referees to book every single challenge to their authority, every dive, every attempt to get another player booked. Then book them again if they do it again. Then send them off. Each week, if games get down to the minimum number of players, abandon the game in accordance with the laws. Six weeks is the time I reckon it would take Sky, Barclays, Anheuser Busch etc to threaten to pull their sponsorship if things don't change. Won't happen of course, because the FA don't have the leadership. I have long since given up on watching because of the behaviour of players. Sadly in my eyes the poison has spread to rugby union and that's serious for me.

BigJimmyB

Crescent wrote:

Couldn't agree more. I used to be able to sit and watch any game as a neutral, loved watching MotD, Champions League etc. Now, the whole sport just annoys me. The ridiculous sums of money that get bandied about, the lack of sportsmanship, the fact that it is run as a fairly cut-throat business now instead of a sport, the overexposure on TV, the fact that cheating has been allowed to become "part of the modern game". I rarely watch it at all now.

Rather than me have to type my own PoV, this ^
Sums it up for me.

ddraver

DrKJM wrote:

Sadly in my eyes the poison has spread to rugby union and that's serious for me.

Woah Steady on Old chap!

The biggest difference between football and RU such incidents ARE punished severely (unless you re an All Black)

capt_slog

It's not been a true sport for a long time, most of the time you're watching two businesses play each other, might as well support KFC or MacDonalds.

Bunneh

Haven't watched football in years. Find it utterly crap these days, the over coverage of what is nothing more than a money laden quagmire of media frenzy.

Used to love Bolton Wanderers but once they moved to the Reebok I lost interest. I would occasionally check how they were doing, but most of the time I'd just never take notice. I flattly refuse to pay Sky for any sport, and I don't even watch TV now, just stream anything I'm interested in via one of the many streaming sites out there.

morstar

DrKJM wrote:

The fixing of football is easy, on pitch anyway. It'd take six weeks at most. Instruct referees to book every single challenge to their authority, every dive, every attempt to get another player booked. Then book them again if they do it again. Then send them off. Each week, if games get down to the minimum number of players, abandon the game in accordance with the laws. Six weeks is the time I reckon it would take Sky, Barclays, Anheuser Busch etc to threaten to pull their sponsorship if things don't change. Won't happen of course, because the FA don't have the leadership. I have long since given up on watching because of the behaviour of players. Sadly in my eyes the poison has spread to rugby union and that's serious for me.

Seems a reasonable argument but...

I'm an ice hockey referee. Probably about twice a season I'll have a game going completely south at which point I get both the captains to one side and threaten to completely kill the game with penalties (sin bin, not shots at goal) if the idiocy doesn't stop. About 80% of the time, the threat works perferctly.

However, believe it or not, about 20% of the time, it makes absolutely no difference. So, you start calling penalties for everything, no matter how minor and all the teams do is bitch about killing off the game. Some people just don't get it.

I also think progs like MOTD should have a referee on the experts panel. Might educate some into subtleties of rules interpretation that you simply can't appreciate if you haven't lived and breathed it

Frank the tank

DrKJM wrote:

The fixing of football is easy, on pitch anyway. It'd take six weeks at most. Instruct referees to book every single challenge to their authority, every dive, every attempt to get another player booked. Then book them again if they do it again. Then send them off. Each week, if games get down to the minimum number of players, abandon the game in accordance with the laws. Six weeks is the time I reckon it would take Sky, Barclays, Anheuser Busch etc to threaten to pull their sponsorship if things don't change. Won't happen of course, because the FA don't have the leadership. I have long since given up on watching because of the behaviour of players. Sadly in my eyes the poison has spread to rugby union and that's serious for me.

I've said this so many times in conversation, I always refer to the time the ref was persued by half the Manure team and he fell over. What he should have done was show each and everyone of 'em the red card and abandoned the game. Thing is had he done that he'd have been struck off the list. Spineless hypocrits the FA are.

DrKJM

ddraver wrote:

DrKJM wrote:

Sadly in my eyes the poison has spread to rugby union and that's serious for me.

Woah Steady on Old chap!

The biggest difference between football and RU such incidents ARE punished severely (unless you re an All Black)

True. What I should have said is *started* to spread. Ashton's showboating and increasing instances of people other than the captain talking to the referee for example.

verylonglegs

It could be done retrospectively quite easily, a player is found to be diving on video evidence then say, 10 game ban. Second offence should be the real kicker...points deductions for the club.

When you know UEFA take returning back from half-time more seriously than racism in the stands you know the governing body is rancid. So yeah, stick me down as another one who finds his interest in the game on a downward trajectory. Another couple of years and I should be entirely football free which as someone who played twice a weekend for over a decade is quite a change. Does anyone involved with the game care...no, not really as there are plenty of mugs willing to cough up and ensure it continues to become a farce.

Frank the tank

Heard on radio Fellini (sp) got a three match ban handed down today after viewing an incident on camera with Shawcross of Stoke city.

Perhaps the penny is slowly dropping. :shock:

onehipwonder

Fellaini was wrong by reacting, but he was being manhandled by the Stoke defender at every corner, and just snapped in the end. Referees need to clamp down on the blatant holding by defenders at corners, free kicks etc. Anywhere else on the pitch, and it would result in a free kick, so start dishing out some penalties and that would put a stop to it. Also, start retrospctively punishing players for blatant diving, like Cazorlas' dive for a penalty last week.
I used to have a season ticket, but can't justify the cost and time these days, but have always been a massive football fan, and still feel like my weekend is ruined if we lose. Old habits die hard :oops:
As for watching La Liga over the Premier League, what have you been smoking :?: If you don't like the diving and cheating that goes on in the PL, you would be kicking the telly in after watching too much La Liga. Danni Alves, the worst diving cheat I have ever seen, makes you want to get on the pitch and put him in row Z.