Sky Has Changed Football More Than Any Billionaire Team Owner
SIMON Barnes, the Times’s Sports Columnist of the Year, is talking about Al Sugar, Manchester City and how football clubs have become rich man’s play things, as opposed to in those halcyon days of the minimum wage, when football clubs were, er, rich men’s play things.
Football is like a bird attached to a brick by a strong piece of elastic. The bird is flying skywards with all its might and there are only two things that can happen. Either the elastic will break or the brick will hit the bird up the arse. The bird is the billionaire owner, the brick is the supporters.
And the Sky in which it flies is the big money broadcaster which has done more to change football than any multi-millionaire, billionaire or trillionaire…
Not that Barnes notices. The Times is, incidentally, owned by the same company that owns Sky TV…
Posted: 15th, September 2008 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets, Money Comments (8) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
September 16th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Yes! Someone (a kind, kind soul) is going to loan me their copy of A Captain’s tale on VHS. It is apprently ‘crystal clear’ so I’ve been threatened with hanging, drawing and quartering if I damage it. Ripped straight to DVD and hey presto! God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world…and I’ve got some proper footy to watch.
[Gives in to maniacal laughter which quickly becomes a consumptive's cough. Then eerie silence]
[Followed by more coughing and laughing]
September 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I guess the Newcastle bird just got hit up the arse then….?
September 15th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Nice one, Percy.
I’d be even more impressed were it not for the fact that Microsoft wants to know if I’ve got 4 gigs free so that I can spend at least an hour downloading and installing Vista upgrade.
Why do they insist on doing these things to us?
September 15th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Nice pic of footballs latest fashion Anorak…….. “f*ck off ” shoes” …..by Nike…..Just do One.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
We no longer man our teams with the young talents from our home towns. I know that in the face of competition (and luvvery munny) this is no longer possible. I’ll give you that, sunshine. I’ll give you that. So why do these (insert word that will have mods scrambling to erase it) players not realise that they WILL have to share their victories, defeats, changing-rooms and ‘plane trips abroad with lads who are a bit of a different colopur to them. Assault on the pitch, especially when racially motivated, should result in the coppers hauling the offending player off to the hoosegow. If the crowd don’t like it, see how they like tear gas; cancel the match, don’t refund their tickets until they understand that racism should play no part in what used to be, and ought still to be - the beautiful game. Bring back real football.
[I'm done now, but I need a stiff drink]
September 15th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
If you can get your hands on it, or persuade Channel so-called Four to repeat it, I encourage all to watch A Captain’s tale; starring Dennis Waterman and Tim Healy. It’s about the first ever World Cup game between a team of Durham nminers and Juventus. Set back when they played a game of football in pit boots, kicking a twelve-pound rain-soaked leather ball afetr doing a twelve-hour shift down the pit. For **k all. Are you listening David Beckham?
[Forgot to rant about rant. Hang on]
September 15th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Nice picture by the way Anorak. It perfectly encapsulates the b*tch-men on the field who can’t play a game we played at school without grabbing an opponent’s top and pulling him to the ground - but then they wouldn’t get paid 60 grand a week to play trippy-uppies on the telly now, realistically.
[coming next - A rant about racist w**kers and dimwitted hotheads being unable to control their nandrilone-fuelled rage on, or off, the pitch]
September 15th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Not wishing to earn the enmity of my fellow men here, but I’ve hated football (at the top end of the scale anyway) since the 80’s when money came into it. I also think it is just as crooked and fixed as professional wrestling. The idiots who smash each other’s faces in outside their local grounds, and grievously insult their neighbours on Derby Days just don’t get that Taiwanese spread betting syndicates dictated the outcome of the match long before the players even got in their coaches and four-wheel drive über-mobiles. Don’t egt me started on grown men crying…f**king crying for God’s sake…because their team lost.