The Big TV Football Rip Off

It is 18 years since the Premiership took over from the old Football League Division One as the top tier league in English football. That was the point that Sky Sports won the bid to show live games each week and effectively changed the game in England forever. If you listen to Sky Sports commentators, other sections of the media (usually those that benefit financially from Sky through advertising and sponsorship), and even a significant number of fans, you’ll hear nothing but gushing praise for Sky, its ‘wonderful’ coverage and the huge benefits it has brought to English football The actual truth is that Sky needed football far more than football needed Sky.

RTG recognises that Sky has contributed a significant sum of money into the English game. The original deal in 1992 was worth £191 million over five years. The most recent deal starting at the beginning of this, the 2010/11 season is worth £1.72 billion. However, for all the plaudits Sky receives for its contribution to the game in this country in making it the richest league in the world, this money has just gone straight into the pockets of agents and in players’ salaries. Precious little of it has gone towards developing the game at grass roots level. Few supporters would argue that the England team has grown steadily worse during this period and there are fewer English players playing at the top level than there has ever been.

Those of us who grew up in the days when the only live domestic football on TV were the FA Cup Final and England v Scotland, can remember the excitement that was generated when live football league games began to be shown in the 1983/84 season. There was one match live per week and coverage alternated between ITV and BBC. RTG accepts that we can’t go backwards now, but that was probably enough to satisfy the needs of the average TV watching football supporter. In the modern era, where there is so much more live football available, this model, that forces us to watch the games they choose, at times that they also choose (often inconvenient to the travelling spectator), is not meeting the needs of supporters. For this ‘privilege’ we are forced to pay in excess of £50 per month to watch (probably overpaid) ex-players sit around a table analysing controversial incidents from 20 different angles interspersed with as many commercial breaks as is humanly possible. After which we then subsidise minority sports like Nascar Racing and Darts to fill up the airwaves when football isn’t on.

Supporters might have thought there was some light at the end of the tunnel when, in 2007, the European Union decided Sky’s monopoly on football on TV was unfair and forced them to open up certain packages to other companies. As usual, when politicians get involved, they messed it up. What happened was that supporters had to pay yet more money to watch every game in which their club was shown live on TV, while matches were scheduled at even more inconvenient kick off times.

In years to come, people will look back on this era in amazement that we were ever prepared to go along with it. It will rank up there alongside the astonishment felt by younger generations now that TV used to actually shut down during the daytime. The fact that pubs in England are being forced into the courts by Sky for showing games live on TV, via foreign satellite channels, at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, shows that supporters in the modern era want to watch their own team live, or the match of their choice, not that of the TV channel. That’s something that RTG believes supporters would be happy to pay for and could be done, whilst generating equally as much money to the benefit of all clubs and the grass roots of the sport. We know there will be problems in implementing what supporters need rather than what they are being served up but it is better that it is controlled by supporters’ needs rather than those of the TV channels. This goes towards illustrating what RTG has always advocated which is that TV is wagging the football dog rather than the other way around.


“I think it’s unjust. I think it’s a greedy private company trying to dictate to the small people what they can and cannot do, purely for profit. The law needs changing. If I don’t fight who is going to fight?...

...If I wanted to go and buy a car, I could go to any garage I like. Me, as a publican, if I want to show football, I can only go to the Sky garage, and have to pay 10 times the price of anybody else [in Europe]. I don’t believe that’s fair.”

Karen Murphy, Landlady of the Red, White and Blue pub Southsea, Hampshire, 5th October 2010

We’re being held to ransom and it is time that the myth that, supposedly, lucrative football TV deals have been a revelation for English football and a real bonus for supporters, is finally put to bed. We’re paying all this money, so give us what we want. At the very least, the powers that be could ask us how we would like to watch our football on TV rather than giving us Hobson’s choice. Without us there is no professional football and as long as this status quo is maintained we’re just going to be ripped off yet again.

The Keeper
....still doesn't understand offside!

The Keeper was one of the few who didn’t believe that Wayne Rooney would ever leave Manchester. It’s long been known that Wazza is one of those gentle souls who like the comfort and security of knowing that a loving family is close at hand. Close by too are the familiar hookers (young and old), the old watering holes and urination spots…….Still the Keeper is sure that United’s lack of ambition will be more than compensated by the doubling, or trebling of his pay.

Yet more news of financial transgressions by FIFA officials were revealed by a Sunday Times newspaper sting, alleging that world cup votes could be bought from voting FIFA officials. For once Sepp Blatter has sprung into action, suspending the officials concerned and ordering a full investigation. The Keeper does recall previous FIFA investigations being conducted by FIFA themselves. The old jokes about Dracula investigating a theft at the blood bank, or, Bernie Madoff looking into Wall Street financial irregularities, spring quickly to mind.

Apparently, John W Henry’s wife, Linda Pizzutti, was the driving force behind her husband’s successful takeover of Liverpool Football Club. Her pestering of her husband to buy was inspired by her love of the Beatles. Subsequently, after doing a tour of the city and discovering Abbey Road wasn’t actually in Liverpool, she’s changed her mind!

The Keeper used the recent international break for a spot of his own R and R in sunnier climes. Imagine the Keeper’s surprise when he bumped into a less than sober Joe Hart dancing on the table of a Spanish bar. This less than 36 hours prior to the game. Still, after the deadly dull offering of the England team those few hours later, the Keeper was happy to give up his Club England seat for a cold beer on a beach. Clearly, Joe Hart was longing for the same.

Back to the Classroom for Lessons Not Learnt

In just a few hours the game which will have a huge bearing on the future of football in this country kicks off. As usual, there are unlikely permutations which would allow England to progress with a draw, but basically, England need to win to get through to the last sixteen, and they need to win well to really get this world cup campaign back on track. Even a good win will not alter the feeling that 2010 is not going to be England’s year and, yet again, will stumble out limply within a couple of knock out rounds – at best.

As usual also, there will be the post mortems, the finding of a scape-goat to hang the nation’s angst onto and some more mindless optimism just before England embark on the Euro 2012 qualifying competition. Most people in football and knowledgeable supporters felt that there were grounds for optimism: we had the right manager and the world cup qualifying rounds went very well, and there had been an impressive win on German soil with an essentially England second XI. From the matches played since England’s only defeat in qualifying and especially the friendlies this year, it’s been downhill ever since.

Now press stories are circulating that irrespective of what happens, Don Fabio will be off, to be replaced by an Englishman, Roy Hodgson. There seems to be a pattern emerging here. Hire an expensive foreign manager, don’t give him the infrastructure and support to do his job properly, sack him amidst murmurings of disquiet over foreign managers, meanwhile continue to pay lip service to developing the game at lower levels and ignore the parlous state of football’s finances. Get another English manager, spurred on by the ‘little Englander’ media faction, and repeat process as before.

The truth is that millions of inches of column space and TV air time have been devoted to discussing where things go wrong and how to put them right. These have been discussed since England’s 1970 exit from the Mexican world cup. Managers have come and gone. Some were blatantly the wrong choice (Taylor, Keegan, Hoddle). Some were overlooked (Clough), but whatever and whoever the choice, RTG just can’t help coming back to the same conclusion: it’s yer basic raw talent, that’s the problem.

Clearly the ‘Golden Generation’ was totally oversold and optimistically assessed when coming through the ranks. Judging by the number of public relations gaffes that the current squad seem to be making, maybe they’re using the same PR outfit as Tony Hayward, BP’s beleaguered CEO! Let’s face it, most English footballers are pretty thick and even make a virtue of their gauche bling culture. When you see how most foreign players in England are better in English than many of their native counterparts and how English players abroad rarely pick up their local language, you realise how English players have largely ignored their off-field development. Indeed, reading an interview response by Jamie Redknapp, he boasted how his dad would encourage him to bunk off school to go training at Bournemouth.

What has resulted over the last forty years are successive generations of England players who are so singly dimensioned that you can’t really sense that any of them is going to read a game tactically and change things in real time on the field. They’ll just wait until half time and wait for the ‘hair-dyer’ treatment to be told what to do – that’s according to what all pundits say. And perhaps, RTG is finally coming to the nub of the problem. A failing education system in this country which rates the UK as one of the lowest in the developed world, allied to a celebrity culture which extols and promotes worthless people are taking their toll on our poorly educated footballing souls. Basically, England just can’t get clever players who have developed their minds to cope with adversity, to embrace change or to rationalise and deal with the pressures exerted on them by modern British society.

The Keeper

…it’s gone right through his hands

The Keeper has managed to prize himself away from his new HD TV (special offer at Tesco) to bring you his first report since the start of the World Cup. And what a week it’s been. After getting over the shock of seeing a Hyundai car drive on and score England’s first goal, the Keeper has maintained an almost permanent vigil in front of a festival of football – well, three football matches a day anyway and more of a village fete in the end than a festival. But surely the standard can only improve.

At the BBC it’s a case of recession, what recession? The Beeb seem to have upped sticks and headed mob handed over to South Africa for a last choo choo on the old gravy train before the cuts kick in. The Keeper entered into this televisual feast thinking that it was all about football but how wrong you can be. Chris Hollins has shown him that South Africa makes wine; two blokes who he’s never heard of are driving around in a bus to show that there are also exotic wild animals in South Africa and, favourite among favourites, Gabby Logan, reported live from the townships to show us that some poor people live in South Africa too, ‘you know’. What a shame that, when the Keeper wanted to learn something useful about football, all he had was Mick McCarthy, who, with the dourest of manner, sought only to repeat exactly what had just happened in full view on screen in a drab Yorkshire drawl - “Aw naw. Yer see ‘ees just missed t’pass and the chance of a counter by giving t’ball away again.” Yep, I just saw that Mick. Glad the licence fee is working hard for us over there. The Keeper’s viewing experience was also enhanced considerably by the presence of that doyen of football analysis, CBBC at Wayne Rooney’s live press conference when their incisive questioning revealed that, yes, he was missing his first born child.

The Keeper had serious reservations about the BBC’s choice of music to introduce Japan’s opening game against Cameroon – the soundtrack to ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ which, for those who don’t know it, starred David Bowie as a rebellious PoW in a Japanese camp during the Second World War who dies a horrible death buried up to his neck in sand in the blazing heat of the day. Or, as Mick McCarthy would expertly summarise it: “Fer me ‘ees let isself down by getting ‘imself buried in t’sand up to ‘is neck and ‘ees 'anded the initiative right over t’ Japanese.” Aside from adding a huge oil slick to the fire of opinion that popstars can’t act to save their lives (see also Phil Collins in ‘Buster’, Mick Jagger in ‘Ned Kelly’), the film is a graphic illustration of the enormous cruelty exhibited by Japanese soldiers toward their captives in the appalling conditions of the PoW camps. The Keeper felt it was a rather lazy choice of music given the enlightened mood of friendliness and reconciliation of modern times (or pretend we do eh Major?) and perhaps one that should have been given a bit more thought by the BBC researcher as he sipped a glass of Stellenbosch Shiraz in his Cape Town hotel room.

The Keeper couldn’t get through his first World Cup report without mentioning the signature sound for the tournament, the vuvuzelas. Now, there have been rumblings afoot that certain viewers are not happy with the constant buzzing, resembling a swarm of angry bees, that provides the backing track to all the games. So much so in fact that there was talk of a Fifa ban on taking them into the stadium and the BBC (yes them again) were even prepared to offer a vuvuzela-free broadcast via the red button. The Keeper was astonished at this blatant disregard for the cultural heritage of the host nation. After all, what else is going to drown out the sound of that bloody awful brass band that insists on following England around?

There was more good news for the people of Southern Africa this week when it just happened that Princes Harry and Wills, who are known to love Africa ‘with a passion’, stopped by to do a bit of charity work in the region at the same time as the World Cup just happened to be taking place. What’s more, some ITV geezer just happened to have a couple of spares for the England match in Cape Town, where the Princes just happened to be at this point in their charity tour. Better start looking for a charity in Brazil in four years time, eh chaps?

England Further Away from the Prizes Than Ever

It is now just over 41 years since England had its finest footballing hour when we won the World Cup. Now in 2007, and with only two losing semi final appearances in all competitions, we find ourselves further than ever from being able to make realistic bids to win any tournament.

In 1974 when we failed to qualify for the World Cup, and with the subsequent failure to qualify for the '76 Euros and '78 World Cup, many reasons were put forward to explain England's failings:

1. Lack of appropriate coaching at grass roots and other levels
2. Poor 'technique'. Yes this was the moment when that term became standard excuse-speak in footballing pundit circles
3. Too many non-English players. Don Revie, when England Manager, was quoted as saying that his effective pool of players available for selection numbered 54 only!

Surprise! Surprise! These exact same issues are still put forward today. But now add to that:

1. Even less English players available (with Scottish, Irish and Welsh players being replaced by everyone on the planet). And many of those that are available are, or have been bit-part squad players - Joe Cole, Steve Sidwell, Peter Crouch, Sean Wright-Phillips, Glen Johnson, Scott Parker, Jermaine Pennant.
2. Less kudos associated with appearing for your country. Look at the early retirements of players such as Scholes, Bergkamp, Carragher, Shearer. Take the example of Frank Lampard's early 'taxi' home (actually a hired private jet) from the England squad after being dropped from the first team.
3. The diminishing authority and effectiveness of the FA. It is interesting that in 1958, a post Munich Manchester United team released Bobby Charlton for an England friendly tour rather than playing him in a European Cup semi final.
4. The fewer number of pupils playing football in schools coupled with lack of facilities.
5. The continuing absence of a policy on youth development as illustrated by the demise of the FA school of excellence after years of debate over its requirement in the first place.

We're not saying anything here that hasn't already been written and discussed at great length elsewhere. But the underlying point is this. For the generation that grew out of the post-war optimism of 1966, it was still a Britain of empire that was accustomed to being the best at what it set its mind to. That included football. The tragedy is that, in 1974, we still clung to the hope that English football would get to the bottom of its problems, sort them out and move on to another victory.

But in 2007, those who can remember those days, now find themselves not only contemplating the possibility of never seeing it happen again in their lifetime, but that of England moving even further away from ever achieving it. Yet, there have never been more financial resources available to the powers that run the game to address this problem. However, when you read Sir Trevor Brooking's pessimistic view of the future for the development of young players via the club academy system, it doesn't appear that the FA have either the will or the competence to do anything about it.

If, unlike the British Empire, football should survive another 1000 years, we have to contemplate the fact that 1966 was, and will remain, it's finest hour. If it is not, then it really will owe so much to so few!

Reclaim the Game - The week's Events

• Well done to the Football Supporters Federation on finally persuading the government to reconsider the reintroduction of terracing (safe standing). Though a black mark for them for not updating their website at time of writing. The majority of those who back the campaign appear to believe that this will mean cheaper prices and a return to good atmospheres in grounds. Sadly we believe neither will actually be achieved. In the short-term, the most likely outcome is that we'll end up paying £40 plus to stand at a game. In addition, most club owners seem reluctant to reconvert seating areas they paid to have installed already. It's good that a body has managed to sway government opinion on behalf of the football supporter. But as we have already stated, decisions made by people who run football clubs tend to be made for their own benefit, not those of suporters.
• Alan Hansen's appearance. Now a beard? The mystery deepens.
• Predictions are rife. Will England beat Israel and Russia in their forthcoming "must-win" games? Do you want our prediciton? Well let's just say, we don't think you should book your flight to Austria or Switzerland next year.