- Celebrating one of the key moments in Arsenal’s history – without Arsenal
- How Arsenal have topped the tree when it comes to revenue from Europe
According to Fifa, the football market is under-exploited: our desire to watch games unendingly and eternally, plus our ability to be led knows no bounds. Thus our willingness to let those who run football tell us how to feel, what to do, where and how to spend our money, is eternal.
And this train of thought has a major implication. Because if you buy into it, football is going to go on and on getting bigger and bigger in financial terms. Which is why ludicrously rich people keep on buying football clubs, knowing that year after year they will lose money.
These owners and shareholders don’t do it to cuddle up to fans and make the fans love them. When push comes to shove they don’t care that much about fans, other than as people who will pay to come into the game, and create an atmosphere, while of course always remaining within the boundaries of decent behaviour that the owners have survived.
No, this whole current market situation is based on the notion that clubs will make a profit, and that Uefa and Fifa are out there to help them do it. So bring on another silly tournament, and the fans will turn up because they are stupid, the clubs will earn more, and that club someone bought for £200m will be worth £400m.
To achieve this, owners manipulate and will always manipulate at every level, as we saw in the first visit of PSG to Arsenal this past season where once again we watched a member of the crowd at their end of the ground, faced away from the game for the whole 90 minutes. Instead, standing in the front row, he faced the fans to lead the singing and chanting. He had the list of songs and chants that were there to be “performed” (there really is no other word for it) and like an orchestral conductor, he took the assembly through what was clearly a pre-scripted programme.
And now, I rather suspect in the forthcoming Club World Cup we are about to get the same. Although the cheerleaders might have a bit harder job of it, since mega-enthusiasm for the show seems to be missing. The first game is (I think, and I may have got this wrong) Inter Miami against Al Ahly, and it kicks off at 1am (UK time) on Sunday. Apparently it is on DAZN which, if you just want it for a month of middle-of-the-night kick offs will cost you around £25.
However recently it was reported the club had still sold under half of the tickets for the game, so you might be watching a game with a half-empty stadium – which in turn will mean that the producers and directors will be told not to show the crowd.
It also means that Fifa are virtually giving tickets away – which is going to annoy the odd person who originally paid €306 who might well find the person who is next to him and who just picked up an entry card only paid €10. That sort of thing tends to make people frustrated.
Anyway, Fifa has now decided not to set actual ticket prices for future games, so instead what they have is a variable price based on demand. You go on line, and see how much each game is today. Then you buy, or don’t buy – the latter if you think the price might go down as the game gets closer.
I don’t think anyone has done this before for football (sorry sock her) so it will be interesting to see just how it all goes.
Anyway, there are some real bargains out there, although the word “bargain” is really dependent on what you are used to paying to watch a game. Whereas prices for the final few games were originally around €1,200 they are now going for a quarter of that. Apparently not every football fan who fancied going has been able to get a visa.
However, one of the key points to remember is that no matter what happens it will never be Fifa’s fault because… well it never is. Not enough fans in the ground? That’s because of over-pricing. Total lack of interest in the event? Because those English fans are so insular they will only watch tournaments with their own teams deeply involved.
But here’s one you won’t hear. That there has been enough football for a while, and we are having a break, going on holiday, or simply having a sleep in the middle of the night. Outrageous I know, but well, these things happen.
Tony Attwood
Football was only ever going to eat itself eventually . I have loved the game for the best part of 75 years but really you can have too much of a good thing.
The FIFA ticket pricing fiasco is eerily similar to Jürgen Klopp’s recent Trivago adverts.