Matthew Bazell
For many of us, the Olympic action has been inspiring to watch over the past fortnight, to the point where it will be a bit sad once it’s all over. As a football man, I’d like to think that the upcoming season will be a consolation to any post-Olympic depression. However, if anything, football has been well and truly shown up by the brilliance and dedication of the athletes involved in London 2012. To some, that might sound too black and white, but the contrast we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks has been real. No shades of grey. Yes, I am using the Olympic athletes to bash footballers, and I feel totally justified in doing so. If the beating-up on footballers (or top City bankers) is easy, it’s for a reason - their greed and vulgarity has reached the point where it’s hard to have anything but total contempt for what they’ve come to represent.
The organisation of the Olympics may now be as corporate, commercial and slimy as football has become, but the contrast between the sporting competitors couldn’t be starker. There seemed a genuine desire by the Olympians to achieve something, not just for themselves but for the country, and, when interviewed, they came across as humble, friendly, intelligent and proud people. How different that is to the typical modern footballer who is media-trained, cold and robotic-like in interviews. Footballers are conditioned, usually by their agents at a young age, to sound modest but it’s bland and insincere. Enduring one of their interviews is like being put in a metaphorical sleeper-hold.
The gulf in wages between footballers and the typical Olympic athlete is an even bigger contrast. The highest-paid members of the GB team, in terms of weekly earnings, would have been the football squad by a huge margin. And doesn’t their brilliance just deserve it? On the Super Saturday when Team GB won a record six gold medals, these jokers got knocked out on penalties by a mediocre South Korea team. Great stuff guys, you’re worth that £50k a week, and don’t let any £15k-a-year grant-relying gymnast try and tell you otherwise.
The Team GB footballers who you’ve hardly heard of are millionaires, despite being young and only a few years into their careers. Just being a professional in the top division is enough to obtain enormous wealth, and you certainly don’t have to make a great impression or be successful in the wonderful world of football. Chris Hoy might very well be a millionaire, but it’s come about through commercial endorsements as a result of being better than anyone else in what he does. He’s one of the few exceptions, as most of our athletes make do with small grants and have the same financial concerns as most people in society do.
I’m not demanding that the state should award them higher grants (though there is a good argument to say that they should) but their dedication and spirit in what they do is genuinely admirable. Waking up before daylight, putting in an eight-hour day of training, sacrificing a regular form of social life and living on a lower-than-average income is a normal experience for athletes of other sports, many of whom succeed in winning Olympic medals for their country. Compared to footballers, they are the heroes, even though it’s a word that gets bandied about on a regular basis by sections of the football media (for example England became ‘heroes’ for reaching the Quarter Finals of Euro 2012). There’s nothing heroic in a group of people being so greedy that their demands have pushed the common man out from a sport that was once known as the People’s Game.
So, instead of being inspired by the upcoming football season, a major part of me feels totally underwhelmed to a return to what’s now become the most vulgar show on earth. I was recently interviewed by Talksport about my book Theatre of Silence, in which the presenter asked ‘So what’s wrong with modern football?”. I was totally stumped by that question – only because there are so many things wrong that I just didn’t know where to start. So where do you begin, what comes top of the list? Diving perhaps, ticket-prices, player-wages, all-seater stadiums, lunchtime kick-offs, Clive Tyldesley’s match-commentary? I was so stumped that I reversed the question: ‘What’s right with modern football?’ Virtually nothing. The game is glaringly messed-up on every level; therefore, from now on, this football fan will be taking more of an interest in other sports where an element of soul still exists. I’ll certainly keep a keen eye on the developments throughout the football season, but this will probably be the first time that I have no worthy emotion to give towards what transpires.
