The media has developed a set of non-standard units of measurement
over the years. Things like ‘this pool of sewage waste is the size of 15
football pitches’ or ‘the Amazon rainforest is shrinking by the
equivalent of the size of Wales every year’. To this pantheon of
not-very-helpful units of measurement, we should surely add the Gareth
Bale.
Thanks to the Welsh wizard becoming the world’s most expensive
footballer, for whom Real Madrid have paid Spurs £86million, we now have
a suitable embodiment of a large amount of money. So, for example, when
Nokia’s mobile phones division was bought by Microsoft this week, the
price was £4.6 billion, or 53 GBs. Welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith
has had to explain to parliament why almost 0.5 GBs has been wasted in
implementing his Universal Credit scheme. I’m waiting for the
Euromillions man to declare that the next lottery jackpot is a WHOLE
GARETH BALE. ‘Make your dreams come true! You can afford a talented
footballer with exquisitely bad dress sense!’
Indeed, there has been much handwringing about the scale of money
changing hands for footballers during the summer transfer window. This
year’s sum total spent on transfers was a whopping 7.33 GBs (or
£630million in old money). Even Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger shooed the
moths away from the club’s rarely opened wallet to blow £42.4million on
Mesut Ozil.
When money is flying around like that, how can the little
clubs compete? It’s neoliberalism gone mad, etc. Well, some people tend to find neoliberalism wherever they look for
it. In reality, football’s finances are an odd mix of new money, old
politics and globalised business - and it’s probably a lot better for
having a few quid thrown at it.
The new money is coming from billionaires looking for somewhere to
spend all the money they have made from digging stuff up. Over the past
few years, football has moved into the same realm as skyscrapers and
fine art as a way for stupendously rich people to bury some cash -
people like Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al
Nahyan’s Abu Dhabi group (Manchester City), Qatar Investment Authority
(Paris Saint-Germain) and Dmitry Rybolovlev (AS Monaco) have bought big.
Our beautiful game has just been turned into a plaything for the rich
and powerful, right?
Then there’s old politics. - - -
And then there’s globalised business. - - -
Does this mean, as some suggest, that the game is now boring,---? - - -
But money isn’t everything. - - -
If you think football has been corrupted by money, stop watching it, or at least stop paying for it. - - -
from Rob Lyons Full article here
So, this idea that football's 'only a game' is a misconception? If you're one of the ones who feel it's more important than life itself go ahead and read the rest. Either way access to sport, whether active or passive, should surely be freely available to all - as it will be in a world socialist society.
JS
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