Rarely have I ever felt so apathetic and even downcast about the imminent arrival of the new football season. It’s not just that football is essentially our winter sport but it’s also our spring and, most depressing of all, our autumn sport. Depressing, I hear you ask? In some ways, yes. Even today, on the first day of August 2023, the mornings are shortening, along with the evenings, and given our maritime climate things are getting darker, as they shall all the way through to Christmas. But it’s not just the growing sense of gloom I feel at this time of year, it’s how football has become and where it’s going.
I fell out of love with my very own Bristol Rovers several eras ago, in times when at least the club was owned by fans, albeit wealthy fans with unfeasibly large egos. Now the club is owned by a wealthy Jordanian Chelsea supporter, Wael Al Qadi, who now, it seems, is encouraging investment from the Sunni Muslim dictatorship of Kuwait. If the move goes ahead, I am not expecting Sharia law to be introduced at the Memorial Stadium, with alcohol banned, #hergametoo supporters wearing burkhas at home games, provided they are accompanied by men because women can’t go on their own, obviously, and, crucially, halal pasties. but I suppose when in Rome and all the rest of it.
Rovers are hardly the first club to embrace the idea of being owned by wealthy foreigners, are they? One glance at the so-called Premier League reveals that most of the giants are owned by billionaires from all over the world but commonly America and the middle east.
Ironically, I didn’t used to give a toss who owned the club I supported, or any other club for that matter because all I was interested in was the pre match beers, my article in the matchday programme (RIP), the craic and, last but least, the match itself. I found myself persuaded that actually it did matter who owned the club you supported while everyone else went the other way. I rather envy their position and my old one. Plenty of friends and acquaintances attend Rovers games without giving a flying fuck who owns, manages and plays for the club. I am sure they don’t miss me as much as I miss them, but a club likely owned and trousering money from within a Sunni Muslim dictatorship, or even from the Kuwaiti government itself, probably goes against my values of equality and inclusivity. Life would be so much easier if I hated women and the LGBT community. Silly old me.
While my old club lurches further into the mire of distant ownership, they only do so on a minute scale compared to the Premier League behemoths. Abu Dhabi money at Manchester City, dirty Saudi money at Newcastle United and oodles of money from elsewhere dwarfs what the Gas will get. It’s still the same thing, though, where money is king and can buy anything, as it has done in the blue half of Manchester. And rather than wishing all this foreign money would just go away, more and more fans dream it will happen to them, that some dodgy middle eastern billionaire will come in and they will live happily ever after, at least until the money runs out.
I find it disappointing – a massive understatement on my part – that a club with so many decent principles, Liverpool, should see such a major exodus to Saudi Arabia of former superstars with all the morals of Gordon Gekko. I cannot attribute blame to Liverpool, as some folk do, but I can be critical of greedy fuckers who used to be heroes who can never have enough money. And, Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Roberto Firmino, Fabinho and Sadio Mane, I’m talking about you. Liverpool are not my team – how could they be? I never go and see them play – but l like them and the way they play. The actions of a number of players has trashed my memories but moreover, I hope, their legacies.
The lower leagues are back this weekend, with the Premier League shortly to follow. And for the best part of the next year it will be non-stop football, with Sky showing a new record number of live games. Doubtless, I shall be watching a few of them on the telly but apart from the upcoming clash between Feyenoord and Go Ahead Eagles, I have no intention of attending any of them. This is not exactly a new feeling, just an exaggerated version of how I felt before. I never much cared for August football – sunglasses and shorts are inappropriate items for terrace wear, aren’t they? – but my disillusionment runs deep.
At least I was so apathetic that I couldn’t write anything about the new season, but I do so only with foreboding and slight dread. Football always threatens to eat itself but seldom does. I hope for everyone’s sake it doesn’t eat itself next season, but I have no appetite for it right now. Just an appetite for destruction.
