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Alun Parry Blog
Football Looks After Everyone But The Fans
Two things have happened in the world of football this week that underline to me just how incidental the game treats its supporters. None of this is new of course, but it is getting worse, and nobody is calling a halt to it.
The first thing that happened is that Liverpool Football Club beat Chelsea to reach the final of the European Cup (or Champions League as they now call it). This is considered the most prestigious cup final in the world.
It will be played in Athens on the 23rd May at The Olympic Stadium. UEFA, the European football governing body, has issued 64,000 tickets. Liverpool fans however get just 17,000 of them ie about a quarter of the tickets. Milan's supporters also only get 17,000 tickets.
The rest of the tickets, just under half, are kept from the fans of the teams involved. 30,000 tickets in total which the fans of the two teams playing are not allowed to buy!
The bulk of these tickets will end up in the hands of people who don't really want to go. The supply of tickets to the real fans has been limited so much that these tickets will command a huge price. Already, there are internet ads offering match tickets at a price of £1,200 per ticket.
It is a tout's paradise. Instead of simply selling the tickets officially to the real fans who want to go, those fans will now face the choice of paying through the nose to a tout or not going at all. It is outrageous.
But hey, who cares. It only affects the supporters.
Liverpool Football Club, knowing that they have way more than 17,000 people who want to go to the game, have appealed to UEFA for more tickets. There will be more than 17,000 reds in the stadium, they argued, so let's do this properly. It will be safer and it will be fairer. UEFA, in their typical corrupt wisdom, said no.
This means that even if you are a season ticket holder at Anfield, and even if you attended every single European home match, you're STILL not guaranteed a ticket.
And all this despite 64,000 tickets going on sale. At best this is idiocy. At worst this is corruption. You make your own mind up.
But if those 30,000 tickets are sold at £1,000 each by the touts who will ultimately get hold of the bulk of them, then the tout industry will have made £30 million off the backs of genuine, loyal fans.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
The second thing to happen this week in football is Manchester United winning the league. Despite being a Liverpool fan, they deserved it. They play great football and purists more neutral than I will applaud the fact that they won it instead of Chelsea's less eye catching displays.
But the thing that irritates me on behalf of United fans is that they won it in absentia due to TV scheduling.
In the old days of Saturday afternoon kick offs, United would have beaten City 1-0 at the same time as Chelsea failed to beat Arsenal. As United's match ended, they would have been awarded the title. This is how it should be.
Instead, for the third time in fact, they won it in their absence. This, for the fans, is a really unsatisfactory way to win anything.
The joy of being a football fan is bearing witness. It is the sense of being there at a momentous occasion. That is why people are so desperate to be at the game in Athens that they'll sell their worldly goods in order to pay tout prices.
It really isn't the same to reminisce about how it felt getting the text message that told you Chelsea had failed to win, as it is to reminisce about how it felt to be at the game where the title was clinched.
Any football supporter will tell you this.
But who cares about football supporters anymore?!
10:06 AM | Permalink
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- Thank you - Rhetta Won!
- Defend My Mate Rhetta Moran
- So Much For Selfishness
- Payday Playtime Launch Night
- Introducing Mr Chad Draper
- Enough With The Love Songs Already!
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Alun Parry is regarded as Liverpool's most respected radical musician.
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WELL SAID!
It was much the same when we won the European Cup for the 5th time in Turkey 2 years ago...
Come On You Mighty Reds!!!
You'll Never Walk Alone...
Posted by
Chas York |
Monday, May 07, 2007
I thought no other LFC fan would rather see the mancs rather than Chelsea win. I was so glad they won it, despite being a red, as the league went to a team with history, not just one with a corrupt (probably) sugar daddy who treated the league like a game of monopoly where one player gets three times as much money as the rest.
But now I am hoping that our beloved reds can claim number six and this be the start of a league challenging renaissance for us, as its's been so long since we won that treasured league.
Not a bad post for a musician, that blog of yours mate!
Duff
Posted by
Anonymous |
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Hiya Duff
I wouldn't say I was glad they won it :-) But I do think they deserved it. Their football was superb to watch.
What irritates though is that too often the fans are no longer allowed to witness the title being won, and its solely to satisfy Sky.
Its a long hard season. When your team wins the league you should get to see it happen.
Posted by
Alun Parry |
Tuesday, May 08, 2007