13.06.1996

Eat football, sleep football, drop dead

Football is a great game, but it is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the stench of corruption and greed surrounding the sport.

The European championships started in England this week amid a deluge of jingoism and greed that are attached, limpet-like, to the occasion. On billboards everywhere we are invited to eat football, sleep football and drink coke - after eating a MacDonalds, I suppose, then going to the pub and drowning our sorrows (usually the latter with England) by getting pissed - witness the ad where three blokes are unable to think of anything else to talk about except football. There is a yawning gap between how fit and healthy you need to be to play football and all the unhealthy products whose manufacturers pour money into the game.

Then there is the greed of the media, the football association and all the hangers-on wanting to make a fast buck. Ticket prices have soared recently, supporters are being asked to take out share options to help prop up their team and increasingly matches are opportunities for corporate sponsors to entertain their clients. Is it any wonder then that a graceful game like football is losing its spirit and beginning to resemble the products that pay for it? There is no choice - if these are the rules controlling the game then inevitably they will be the rules the game is played under.

Capitalism is hell-bent on tearing out any feelings of communality and play. This means wrenching football away from its active working class roots and repackaging it in the form of a nasty, expensive product of profit and jingoism.

Phil Rudge