I like football. Well, I used to. It was easy. You just went and watched your team on Saturday and they’d win or sometimes not and then you’d watch Match of the Day and The Big Match to see how all the other teams did so you could abuse your friends properly on Monday. Then you wait a week and repeat. The FA Cup was the biggest event in the year. Life was simple. Football was simple.

Then Sky came along, invented the Premiership, La Liga, Le Ligue, Das Bestenfutballgrupen and the others and it all changed. Players swapped their bus passes for Bentleys, wives became WAGs, peroxide sales rocketed, Billy English lost his place to Johnny Foreigner and those hard-working beloved old club ‘owners’ either cashed in or were forced out by financial clout. An ongoing process, exchanging cash for vanity, reaching its apotheosis when Chelsea and Manchester City were re-born. Because, like Jesus before them, those two teams had suffered. For years, for decades, they endured ‘crucifixion’ on a
regular basis and learned humility and goodness as a consequence. Without the goodness.

And with money comes politics. The rules change so everyone tries to seek advantage. Money speaks and in football it tends to speak in an American accent, or possibly and Arab-oil one.

As I mentioned, the FA Cup was the most important event in the
nation’s sporting calendar. And now it is virtually nothing. Because when the European Cup changed into the Champions League, it was just bigger, better, more prestigious, and much, much richer than any national competition could ever be, being the greatest recipient of Sky’s massive cash inflow.

Yet that wasn’t enough cash to please the greedier of club owners. So they attempted a coup. Which would ensure more money but GUARANTEED EVERY SINGLE YEAR. With no squabble for ‘4th place’, no aspiration for lesser (financed) clubs. And they failed and died in 48 hours. Why did it take so long? That’s the only relevant question.

So Manchester United fans ‘protesting’ is fine by me. Even having their match abandoned as a consequence (which probably spared them the indignity of possibly losing to their greatest rivals and simultaneously handing the league title to their local neighbours) was ok. Something needs to be done and you can bet the Premier League won’t do it as they lack testicles.

But the violence? That immediately negates any good the protest mighthave achieved. Because the ‘cop-haters’ will attend any event that enables them to cause mayhem and hurt. Which is nothing to do with. football. But all to do with being some kind of ‘tosser’ who likes attacking the police.

What should have been a really great statement at the biggest club team in the world turned into a shit-storm of stupidity.

And then Spurs had a MASSIVE four nil win and that’s all that counts.

Happy Monday

A xxxx