Mes: febrero 2022

For fifteen years now, media moguls, TV corporations and, latterly, self-interested millionaires and billionaires have ploughed cash into English football (or soccer, if you prefer), changing the upper echelons of the game beyond all recognition.

Top Premiership clubs report annual profits running into tens of millions of pounds. Players take home weekly pay checks that exceed the average annual salary in the UK – with the top players getting four or fives times that.

And the British Government mops up too, taking an estimated £4.3 billion (yes, that’s right, £4.3 billion) in tax from the sport every year.

So, you’d think, with all this money flying around, everyone would be a winner? Well, no. Unfortunately not.

Whilst blank chequebooks are being waved at Premiership clubs by investors from the US, Thailand, Russia and even Iceland, only a fraction of this money trickles down to the lower leagues. Whilst the top clubs have gone from strength to strength, the clubs in the lower leagues are, if anything, slightly worse off than they were 15 years ago.

Not a season goes by without half a dozen smaller clubs having to be dragged back from the brink of bankruptcy by a last-minute deal. This season is no exception with Coventry City & Luton Town already having accepted the 10-point penalty that comes with going into administration. Bournemouth are rumoured to be close to doing the same, just as Leeds United and Boston United recover from the same experience last season. These clubs are some of many that hover dangerously close to going out of business completely – tragic endings to centuries of football tradition.

The simple fact is that the commercial aspects of lower league football in England no longer add up. Spiraling costs, ridiculous player salaries, agent fees and fierce competition from an ever-increasing number of televised games which serve to reduce gate receipts are all making the smaller clubs tighten their belts season after season. No wonder some clubs are reporting weekly losses running into thousands of pounds.

A bleak picture that is repeated at clubs up and down the country. But, amidst all the financial gloom, there are a few tales of optimism that football fans everywhere cling onto for comfort. Indeed, it is the fans themselves that are often the forgotten but essential ingredient to any football club’s success, something some of the Premiership clubs could do well with remembering.

Increasingly it is the fans and, more specifically, supporters groups that are helping and orchestrating the survival of the smaller clubs in professional football.

Over 60 English football clubs are now supported financially in one way or another by a supporters trust. Some teams, such as Exeter City, only exist today because they were saved from being dissolved when supporters groups invested their own hard-earned money into their clubs.

The idea of supporter’s trusts is not new. In the early 1900s, clubs such as Leicester City invited local residents to raise a ‘working man’s subscription’ to enable the clubs to attract better players, but it’s only really in the past 20 years that the concept has really been considered as a viable means of financially stabilizing a football club.

Such has been the emergence of supporters groups, that in 2006, the then UK Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, petitioned UEFA to consider the benefits of fan ownership of football clubs, not only in the UK but across Europe. Top of the list of considerations was the idea that Supporters Trusts could be used to supplement or even take full ownership of football clubs. With Mr. Caborn known to be a fan of Supporters Direct, the company that has orchestrated the creation of many of the trusts already in place, the likelihood is that more trusts will be formed over the coming years.

Indeed, at fifteen UK clubs, supporters now hold 100% of the shares and own the clubs outright and the past six months has seen this concept evolve yet further still. The emergence of fan-based web enterprises such as MyFootballClub and www.thepeoplesclub.com are once again pushing the boundaries of fan ownership in football further still.

These initiatives not only allow the fans to own the club, but also to run it on a day-to-day basis. Through online voting, fans are able to make wide ranging decisions about the club including choosing the team for each match and even hiring and firing the manager.

MyFootballClub’s acquisition of Ebbsfleet United in the autumn of 2007 was a groundbreaking step towards this new form of fan ownership and ThePeoplesClub.com are expected to follow suit at the end of the 2007/08 season with their own acquisition. Similar models to this have already emerged in other European counties including France, Denmark and Israel.

Whilst football traditionalists frown upon the schemes, primarily doubting the fans’ ability to run the club effectively, these schemes all have the potential to bring significant levels of investment to the clubs they acquire – often upwards of £1million per annum. There are very few clubs in the lower leagues of English football that could afford to turn down an annual injection of cash of that magnitude.

In the commercialized world of football, these kinds of schemes are no longer a fad, but a necessity. Whether you agree with the concept of web-based fan models, or simply love standing on the terraces at your local club every Saturday afternoon, there may come a time sooner or later where you will need to put your hand in your pocket and invest your own hard-earned cash in order to ensure that your club gets to play another season.

There is no doubt that the billionaires and large corporates will continue to pump money into the top end of English football, but could it be that fan ownership is the way forwards for smaller clubs allowing them not only to survive, but also to prosper?

There are six African nations participating in this summer’s World Cup, so it is an endorsement of the continent’s footballing strength that Egypt, a team who will not be present when the big one kicks off, won the recent Africa Cup of Nations.

It was the Pharaohs’ third consecutive victory in that competition – a period of dominance that goes some way to compensate for their absence from the forthcoming World Cup that was painfully enforced by a bitter play-off defeat by rivals Algeria.

Algeria endured a tough Cup of Nations campaign that started with a 3-0 defeat by a weak Malawi outfit and ended with a 4-0 revenge hammering by Egypt in the semi-finals. Their presence in the last four flattered them and they must improve drastically if they are to be competitive in a World Cup group that contains England, USA and Slovenia.

Ghana were runners-up to Egypt last week, but like Algeria, they will not necessarily gain much confidence from that performance – they were outclassed by Cote d’Ivoire in a group that was hit by the absence of Togo and their whole campaign was undermined by a lack of goals.

However, the Black Stars were missing some of their key players, most notably Michael Essien and their good showing in the 2006 World Cup, when they reached the second round, means they should not be discounted this time around.

Nigeria have qualified for their fourth World Cup in five attempts and, along with Greece and South Korea, they will make life tough for Argentina. The Super Eagles are defensively sound and capable of advancing to the knockout stages.

South Africa’s absence from the Cup of Nations shows how weak the hosts are going into the big one. They need to find some of the inspiration South Korea found in 2002 when they staged the tournament. Sadly though, a first round exit seems inevitable for South Africa.

Cameroon showed flashes of their old brilliance in the Cup of Nations, but proved they are fallible at the back and still over-reliant on Samuel Eto’o for attacking inspiration. Netherlands, Japan and Denmark should prove too strong in the summer.

All this means Cote d’Ivoire, quarter final losers to Algeria in the Cup of Nations, are the African team best placed to prosper in the 2010 Football World Cup. They qualified impressively and their strength in depth makes them a good bet to cause an upset in the group of death that comprises Brazil, Portugal and North Korea.

However, there is still a long way to go before the start of the World Cup and many African players are fighting for domestic honours in England.

John Pantsil, who plays for Ghana, will be hoping that his club side Fulham win some silverware this season.

The club are set to face Shakhtar Donetsk later this month, but the UEFA Europa League betting odds suggest the London team are unlikely to progress to the next round of the competition.

Soccer is one of the most widely watched and played games across the globe. If you review soccer statistics over the past few years, you will observe that soccer features among the highest-paying games. It is played at a professional level and for fun. Additionally, it is enjoyed by men and women of all ages. In countries other than the United States of America, soccer is better known as football.

The game is played between two teams consisting 11 players each on a rectangular field with a black and white ball. The objective is to send the ball into the opposing team’s goal. Throughout the game, the ball can only be kicked; players, except the goalkeeper, cannot touch the ball with their hands. Other players are allowed to use their hands only for throw-ins. Play time is divided into 2 halves each lasting 45 minutes. There is a 15 minutes break in between. The team with the maximum number of goals is declared winner. All said and done, one often wonders about the origin of soccer. Some contend it came China while others debate it belongs to England. You can find out where soccer came from right here.

The Chinese Roots

It is stated that a game similar to football was first played in China. It was around the 2nd and 3rd century B.C. during the rule of Han Dynasty. Players dribbled leather balls and drove them into small nets. The Greeks and the Romans too played different versions of this game.

The English Ties

After the earliest evidence in China, the next activity was traced in England. Soccer became popular in England around the 12th and 13th centuries. Spectators used to throng the fields to watch the sport. Traditional soccer has a very crude form. There were no rules to regulate this sporting activity. Also, kicking, gouging, punching and biting were acceptable. The sport was banned in early-1300s because of the growing instances of violence and increasing military interference.

The sporting activity was partially revived in 1848 with the creation of «Cambridge Rules». The set of rules were created by the Cambridge University to control and standardize the game. The first Football Association was formed in 1863 in England. Countries such as Countries New Zealand, Chile, Holland, Denmark, Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Uruguay formed their respective football associations. It soon spread to the different parts of the world within the next 50 years. World Cup competitions, regional competitions, formation of local clubs and increasing media exposure contributed to the game’s growing popularity.

In 1886, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) was established to decide the official rules of the sport. Federation International Football Association (FIFA) was set up in 1904. It adopted the IFAB laws as its manifesto. Till date, FIFA operates as the international governing body of soccer. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Confederation of African Football (CAF), Confederation of North Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) and Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) are the six regional confederations included in FIFA. The FIFA World Cup is one of the most prestigious competitions in soccer. It is played every 4 years.