In about 6 weeks time, the Premier League and other major European Leagues will stop for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The players will then join up with their various international teams and the World Cup will start 7 days later on November 20, 2022. The Premier League resumes again on December 26, just 8 days after the World Cup final. Other European Leagues have a similar schedule with the exception of the Bundesliga that chose to have a 10 week break instead and resume on January 20, 2023.
I don’t know which is worse; that the World Cup is interrupting the organization of Leagues that have stood for many years or that the players have such little time to perfect their World Cup plans, play in the World Cup, and somehow avoid burn-out between the World Cup and the continuation of the Leagues. I am however not surprised. It is another highlight of the corruption that has plagued the beautiful game of Football for the last couple of years, starting from the very top. Awarding hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup has been shady from the bidding process right down to preparations for the showcase itself. From day 1, the legitimacy of the whole process has been questioned with allegations of corruption within the FIFA senior officials. Even an internal investigation by FIFA that appeared to absolve the hosts of any wrongdoing could not douse the fire. In addition, the 2022 World Cup will be the last to involve 32 teams. Instead, 48 teams will compete at the 2026 tournament to be hosted in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against change. Change is afterall the only constant in life but when that change is made to such a precious thing as the World Cup with money being the foremost motivation, then as a passionate fan, you must worry. I mean, FIFA and UEFA condemned the proposed European Super League for the greed that it was only for them to turn around and announce 48-team World Cup and The Europa Conference League themselves. It’s all about the money, not the love of the game. The 2022 World Cup and all the mysteries behind it is one of the many factors that makes me worried about the future of the beautiful game of football. Frankly speaking, I do not think the future is very bright.
Asides the corruption at the very top of the game, another cause for worry is the ridiculous amount of money being thrown around, especially in transfer fees and more ridiculously in agent fees. When Real Madrid paid a world record £80m for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009, it made headline news around the World even though Ronaldo was the reigning best player in the World at the time and had won everything there was to win at Manchester United. That amount is no longer regarded as a lot of money in Football these days. In recent years, Manchester City paid £100m for Jack Grealish of all people, Atletico Madrid paid £112.5m for 19-year-old João Felix, Barcelona paid £107.6m for Antoine Griezmann, Manchester united paid £80m for Harry Maguire, Chelsea paid £97.5m for Romelu Lukaku and Arsenal paid £72m for Nicolas Pepe. Most recently, Chelsea even paid £75m for Wesley Fofana, a player with less than 85 appearances in his career while Manchester United paid £85m for Antony, a forward with less than 35 career goals so far. More worrying is that while the rest of the World struggles with worldwide recession especially following the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Football is not slowing down on spending. This summer, Premier League clubs alone spent a whooping £1.9billion on transfers, breaking the previous record of £1.4billion from 2017. A huge chunk of that amount was used to procure players like Antony, Wesley Fofana (£76.5m), Darwin Nunez £71.5m, Alexander Isak £66.7m, Richarlison (£55m), Kalvin Phillips for (£46.7m) and co. Those amounts are seriously ridiculous for this caliber of players if you ask me. Do you realize how silly it sounds that Everton spent £100m to buy Gylfi Sigurdsson and Richarlison? Or that West Ham value Declan Rice at £150m? Bloody hell! As the English would say, “the game’s gone!”
A major cause of this can be traced to the continuous rise of ownerships of clubs by oligarchs in the game especially by those with access to oil money which appears to be, you know, endless. Ever since the success of the Chelsea and Manchester City money-fueled experiments by oil oligarchs, there has been a rise in the demand for the purchase of traditional clubs by other oligarchs and the inevitable result has been the proliferation of the game by money. As transfer fees exploded, so did players salaries and crazy bonuses. Neymar reportedly earns around £600,000 every week at oil-rich PSG, yet he’s not the highest earner at the club because his 23-year-old teammate Kylian Mbappe reportedly earns about £1m every single week on his new contract. That’s beside the £100m bonus he was also reportedly paid for signing a new contract at PSG. He was also promised to be included on matters behind the scenes at the club and even some decision making powers. Mate, let’s face the fact - Football’s gone!
If you think the transfer and salary fees were ridiculous, how then would you describe the power wielded by football agents and the fees that they command in today’s market?! The continuous rise in the amount of money being splurged out by football clubs gave birth to another shady industry within the game - the agents. As players began to command higher amounts in salaries and transfer fees, the need for agents began to increase dramatically. This directly resulted in the emergence of super agents who negotiated multi-million dollar deals and began to command huge commissions in the process. The late Mino Raiola who represented several high-profile players such as Ibrahimovic, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Balotelli and Paul Pogba proved difficult for many clubs to negotiate with. Raiola reportedly made €25 million from Pogba's €105 million transfer to Manchester United from Juventus. Several other agents including Jorge Mendes, Jonathan Barnett and Pini Zahivi have continued to grow in influence and power so much over the years that they effectively hold clubs to random during negotiations with their hard-ball styles. These days, players go against clubs wishes on the advice of their agents, sometimes speaking against their managers, teammates or even their clubs during interviews to demand bigger contracts or force through moves. Many clubs have been rendered powerless by these super agents, succumbing to their demands or their client’s demands. Imagine your club being held to ransom by a player acting on the advice of his agent? Loyalty in the game is now a thing of the past. It is again all about the money. I am sick of it. So sick of it!
Lastly, the game itself in my opinion has lost its overall quality in terms of entertainment and raw talent. All that investment has brought about the demand for instant success on the pitch. There is no longer time to hone talents and skills. Players are now like robots, barely completing a dribble or beating opponents with skill. Even the Brazil national team today seem to have abandoned their famous “ginga” style of play that incorporated an entertaining mix of dribbling, juggling, agility and accuracy that made them famous and successful. The 2018 World Cup in Russia was the worst showcase of the World Cup I had ever witnessed. It was clear that tactics were strictly to win at all costs. No total football, no entertainment. That’s why so many of the games were decided by penalty shoot-outs. I dread what is in store for us as fans at the World Cup this year.
The loss of entertainment in favour of end product and statistics gave birth to the new breed of boring players who are only concerned about topping scoring and assist charts instead of honing their skills. Erling Haaland is a fantastic striker but in my opinion, very boring to watch. I grew up watching the likes of Ronaldo De Lima, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Jay-Jay Okocha, Juan Roman Riquelme, Rivaldo, Dennis Bergkamp, Kanu, Kaka, Luis Figo, Rui Costa, Totti, Andres Iniesta and lately Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Forgive me, if I say I do not enjoy watching Erling Haaland, Mo Salah, Kai Havertz, Marcus Rashford, Darwin Nunez and these new age forwards. Even Cristiano Ronaldo only started getting recognized when he abandoned his dazzling, entertaining style of play in favour of goals so forgive me again if I say I preferred the early days of Cristiano Ronaldo to this new one that is the highest goalscorer of all time. There was a time the game had so many talented and promising youths distributed all over teams in Europe and the World. Nowadays, you can count them on one hand, the ones that have enough ability to be among the best of the best.
The advent of technology most notoriously VAR which was supposed to bring about better officiating has made the game worse in my opinion. Officiating is at an all-time low in most leagues and the game has lost that sense of unpredictability that made it so unique. I laugh these days when players score a goal and are afraid to celebrate because the goal might be ruled out by VAR. We even had a unique case where Manchester United were awarded a penalty AFTER the final whistle had been blown. If you want to know how bad things are right now, log on to Twitter after a match and see the kind of banter being thrown around. Cheap, weak, lazy banter with shouts of Penaldo, Pessi, and idiots bringing up useless statistics like pre-assists or number of Instagram followers. It sickens me!
FOOTBALL’S GONE, MATE. Where has it gone to? I don’t know, but the future of our beautiful game is not in good hands.
