Football admission prices continue to rise unchecked. Matthew Foreman wonders why
“Anyone need tickets… Olympic Gallery? That’s £660.91… ” Unfortunately it’s not a tout on the make but the official price for the England v Argentina match. Of course, you could save a bit of cash by buying a Wembley season ticket, only £1,751.25 for ten games. Such extortionate prices for a ground about to be levelled leaves the government with what spin doctors euphemistically call a “credibility gap”.
With footballers receiving unprecedented levels of public attention, Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, talked to WSC about the things that keep him busy
There has been a series of violent incidents in high-profile matches lately. Are footballers getting out of control?
It’s always been difficult. We have tried all sorts over the years. We’ve worked to make sure that players know the laws of the game, we’ve got referees to visit clubs, we’ve tried to have ex-players as referees. One thing I was disappointed about over this past weekend [February 12 – involving the games at Chelsea v Wimbledon, Newcastle v Man Utd and Leeds v Spurs] is that referees lately seemed to have grasped that we were out of touch with the rest of the world and that not every foul deserved a caution. We saw some great games as a result, then the wheels came off. Someone asked me, where do you see football today, on Valentine’s day? I said, well, we don’t want any more massacres. But football is a microcosm of society. They’re saying to me “oh this is a really sad time for football” as though there is something we could do to make sure it would always be on the straight and narrow. I said we’ve had prisons since civilised society began and we’ve haven’t got less now. You can fill the prisons up but it doesn’t mean to say you’ve got law and order.
Sam Hammam's players have ruffled a few feathers, but their team spirit and his shrewd management have kept Wimbledon above water longer than anyone expected
It is rare for all the newspapers, tabloid and broadsheet alike, to run the same picture on their sports pages. But it happened at the end of February when they all featured an image of a middle-aged businessman sitting in a puddle. Wimbledon’s former owner Sam Hammam had just sold his remaining 20 per cent stake to the Norwegian millionaires who took control of the club last year. The players marked the event by soaking him at the training ground. As has often been the case with Wimbledon, it was probably fun for those directly involved.
Wednesday 2 “There was nothing kick and rush about that,” says Martin O’Neill as a Matt Elliott goal takes Leicester to the Worthington final at the expense of Villa. “We had our chance and we choked,” says John Gregory, who also claims that Leicester are about to take Stan Collymore off his hands, though the clubs are yet to agree on a fee. Swindon, eight points adrift at the bottom of the First, call in the administrators. They are currently losing £25,000 a week. “I believe we’ll be the first of many,” says chairman Cliff Puffett. The football authorities lobby the government to bring in restrictions on the number of non-EU players used by English clubs to two per team. “A Premiership team without one player from the UK sends out the wrong signals,” says the PFA’s Gordon Taylor. Ears burning, Gianluca Vialli says: “A quota might protect young English players but clubs won’t be able to compete in Europe if we stop some non-EU players joining us.”
Dear WSC
Just a pedantic correction to Matthew Taylor’s piece in WSC 156 about foreigners in Britain throughout the century. Danish international Nils Middleboe did indeed play for Chelsea from 1913, but not just for one season. He made 46 appearances for the club between 1913 and 1921, a period encompassing five seasons. As an amateur, he reputedly never even claimed his expenses, rather like today’s foreign contingent. Incidentally, and though I’ve got nothing in particular against Germans or Germany myself, I was interested in Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger’s suggestion in the same issue that the Belgians have never forgotten the German invasion of 1914. The similar over-running of their country in 1940 probably didn’t help either and may be fresher in some elderly Belgians’ memories.
Peter Collins, London SW17