- The fanatical secrecy of the Premier League’s refs put to shame by the Swiss
- Does fouling a lot and scoring a lot always take a club up the league?
By Tony Attwood
Following on from my last piece about the exploitative nature of the media and the way in which young men are being manipulated, a rather interesting video turned up, which I would commend to you I don’t often copy videos but this one really is worth seeing – all the way through.
https://x.com/i/status/1902679006706802935
Now my point is not that this one video denies the point in the previous post on football taking another wrong turn, but rather that sometimes it is football itself which allows itself to be manipulated by sponsors and advertisers, and so gets things wrong. Situations which normally the media does nothing to sort out, although as here the players act to put things right. It is not a major story, but it shows that a certain amount of decency and feeling arises among the players, even though as I say, yet again the organisers and commercial sponsors of events, can’t think further than how many minutes of exposure their products are getting. In essence, products are money, children are fodder.
But of course, matters could be put right very quickly if only there was any thought anywhere about how young people can be helped. One might actually start with the schools, which as far as I know, generally speaking in England do precious little in terms of helping young men come to terms with their emotions and the pressures of society. But then the schools are underfunded, and secondary schools have a prime focus on passing exams, not on creating decent, responsible, understanding human beings.
In contrast to the experience of young people, especially those who aren’t particularly good at sports, I could talk about my way of keeping fit which since I reached middle age has been dancing (my choice is modern jive), and so I go five nights a week to various clubs in my area and have a very good time on each occasion dancing with women of all ages, and from all backgrounds. It is a totally non-challenging experience because we have people of all different ability levels at the clubs, and almost everyone there remembers how naff they were at dancing when they started.
It gives me a reaffirmation that even in old age I can do something to stay fit, and I mix with people from all different backgrounds and all different ages. But although many youngsters do play sport, there are many more who just don’t seem to have anything going in their lives which in any way can be seen to be of benefit to them.
I’ve written here about how bloggers and journalists make up football stories up in order to help cope with their own psychological problems. The thought is that by claiming they have got an insight into a forthcoming transfer that makes them feel big and important. Of course, the story is false and the transfer doesn’t happen but they then blame the club for being too slow or too inept, with the suggestion that their fantasy transfer was actually real and there for the doing if only those running the club could get off their collective arses.
And how does that make young people who support the club feel? The answer is obvious. It makes them feel powerless. Their club could be so much better if only they had better people running it.
So yes, I’d agree there is a big issue that football isn’t dealing with at all, and that is that the media has turned football into a mechanism to benefit themselves. Arsenal, it is implied, could win the league, if only those running the club could get their act together and do the transfers that (according to the media) are just waiting to be done.
We, the valient supporters, are being let down. We do our part in supporting the club, but those in charge don’t, and we are powerless to remove those in charge, since football clubs are not democracies in which we all have a vote.
So of late we have been told by the media that Manchester United and Manchester City academy players are at the centre of age-fraud claims, with photographs that seemingly show evidence that at least six foreign-born players have lied about their age, and that some of those playing in age-based teams are actually adults!
The question then arises, how does this affect the already alienated supporters? The only thing I can think is that it will make some people angry, that their club is being disadvantaged by the cheating of other clubs yet again. And what can these fans do about it? Well, actually nothing other than chant and shout, and if that doesn’t work, well there is always violence.
The fact is the rise of social difficulties, and the decline in feelings of self-worth in many young people come almost totally from the media and its raising of expectations as to what life is and can be all about, and the ceaseless portrayal of a world in which those with power, endlessly let us all down.
But the fact is the only people who could put these things right are the people who are causing the problems in the first place – the media. And the media in this country are not really well known for reforming themselves.
