Hi,
I’ve posted my opinions on football before but since you raise the subject again that gives me an excuse to reiterate them:
Your loss of interested in football may have come from the realisation that as a true “sport” it’s pretty poor. Not a lot happens in your average football game; I draw a distinction here between a ball bouncing from one player to another and actual action. The game seems to derive its excitement from poor referring decisions, blatantly (when shown in slow motion) incorrect line calls etc… This fuels the anger and sometimes real hostility that is mistakenly reported as “passionate support” or “atmosphere”. The slowness of the so called controllers of football to adopt technology to insure correct decisions just underlines the fact that they know what will happen if they do, viewing numbers will fall. The real powers that control football are people like Sky, the business backers behind the clubs etc… these people I’m sure lobby to keep technology out. A similar argument can be made of disrespect for the match officials, this could be stamped out almost instantly if they choose to do it but they don’t because it’s “part of the game”.
For me there is far too much randomness in the results for football to be a good sport, to me a good sport is one where the best team or individual always wins. How often have you heard of a football game where one side has been all over the other for 90% of the game only to lose because of something against the run of play. If you like games of chance toss a coin. To some extent this isn’t a big issue in league situations because if you average these affects out over enough games what goes around comes around and the good teams will normally rise to the top but at a short knock out tournament it’s an issue. It needs to be easier to score points, so that dominance is reflected on the score board; games should finish with goals scoured well into double figures.
The plus point Football has is that it piss simple to play, like everything very hard to master, but piss easy to play. So just about everyone has given it a go at some time or another and can certainly pass comment on it if it happens to be on TV. Other games like Rugby are harder to understand and require a much higher level of knowledge before you can really enjoy watching (or playing) but like most things that take a bit of learning it’s rewarding when you do. Rugby is good enough to survive, correct decisions, respectful treatment of officials etc…. and this generates an atmosphere that allows opposing supporters to mix completely in the stands and in the bars etc…without trying to kill each other.
Anyway I’ll shut-up now,
Tim
