Hello all, just a quick one today, you lucky things. Soccer. I've mentioned it before. It's one of the worst things, other than the weather, about living in the United Kingdom. It's all everyone talks about, and it's incredibly boring. It's also made a number of people with no talents other than the ability to chase a ball around richer than anyone should be. Wayne Rooney is on £250,000 a week, every week, and he'd be in jail if he wasn't a soccer player. Instead he's a role model of sorts. This isn't right. My main problem now is that whoever is in charge of making soccer ubiquitous is seemingly doing the right thing. this is especially true of Australia. The national team is famous, and the domestic league is thriving, there's talk of expansion. It's also commonly said (though I couldn't find a source to verify it) that soccer is the most commonly played team sport in Australia. this isn't good, for any number of reasons. first of all, soccer is, as has been said before, largely boring. For every 4-4 thriller there are several thousand 0-0 draws. For that reason it's not fun to play or to watch. Secondly, it's a game for wusses: the game stops for injuries, or even feigned injuries, and the incentive to lie on the ground, pretending to be injured is high. It's not manly, or womanly, to lie on the ground asking for a penalty, badgering the referee. It's awful.
Secondly, the chances of success are low. Australia's chances of winning the world cup are practically zero, because it is so many countries favourite sport, and other countries have a better system to develop talent. this leads on to the other point, that talented youngsters will be diverted into soccer rather than the two rugby codes, basketball, swimming or AFL. Australia doesn't have the population to support that, and other sports will suffer as a result. One could argue that this has already happened, with Australia's poor showing in the 2012 Olympics being evident. Michael Clark, Australia's cricket captain, was touted as a soccer player first, before turning to cricket. Would he be playing cricket if he was born a decade later? Is an internationally average Socceroo team worth diluting the talent for the kangaroos, wallabies, boomers, opals or Olympic team? Absolutely not.
Worst of all though, is the increasing gap between the player and the fans that the huge amounts of money makes. Any sport which makes people like Harry Kewell, who despite achieving nothing as players in terms of trophies, can retire with more money than they know what to do with. If you think Kurtley Beale is bad now, as a relatively wealthy man, think how bad he would be retired from everything at 28, with more money than he could possibly spend.
I hope, against all hope, that soccer will price itself out of interest in the next few years.
Pascal.
Secondly, the chances of success are low. Australia's chances of winning the world cup are practically zero, because it is so many countries favourite sport, and other countries have a better system to develop talent. this leads on to the other point, that talented youngsters will be diverted into soccer rather than the two rugby codes, basketball, swimming or AFL. Australia doesn't have the population to support that, and other sports will suffer as a result. One could argue that this has already happened, with Australia's poor showing in the 2012 Olympics being evident. Michael Clark, Australia's cricket captain, was touted as a soccer player first, before turning to cricket. Would he be playing cricket if he was born a decade later? Is an internationally average Socceroo team worth diluting the talent for the kangaroos, wallabies, boomers, opals or Olympic team? Absolutely not.
Worst of all though, is the increasing gap between the player and the fans that the huge amounts of money makes. Any sport which makes people like Harry Kewell, who despite achieving nothing as players in terms of trophies, can retire with more money than they know what to do with. If you think Kurtley Beale is bad now, as a relatively wealthy man, think how bad he would be retired from everything at 28, with more money than he could possibly spend.
I hope, against all hope, that soccer will price itself out of interest in the next few years.
Pascal.
No comments:
Post a Comment