“Built by Shanks, Raped by Yanks”

I don’t write much about football, in fact only one post has been about football thus far and that was the World Cup, which if you think about it, doesn’t really count. I have decided to break this tradition however, as the last week has shown that not only is football a waste of everyone’s time, but so is 24 hour news coverage.
We all know that football has become a business, if you didn’t, you do now, and it’s a shitting awful business, no club seems to be making a profit and even the biggest of them are in millions of pounds of debt. Footballers are often criticised for their stupidity, but evidently it’s the owners of the clubs that are the real morons, if there is one thing you don’t want to invest in, it’s football.
Only earlier today did Portsmouth announce that it’s very unlikely that they will still exist next week, and this makes you think, where is the money coming from? The general goal in running a football club is not making a profit from being thrifty and frugal, but through success and the riches it brings. Portsmouth are a perfect example that success doesn’t bring money so why even bother? Perhaps it’s easy running a football club, it’s just that the people doing it aren’t very good at it, or what’s more likely, is that you just simply can’t.
There is a lot of talk about the much dreaded player power, and how the players are ruining the game with their ridiculous wage demands and how they won’t go out on the pitch until they’ve fucked at least three prostitutes. While this is true, they only have as much power as you give them, and it’s the owners of the clubs who are enabling them to be such colossal cunts, and in Portsmouth’s case, putting a lot of ordinary workers at the club, out of a job.
The most recent example of player power comes from Wayne Rooney. Claiming Manchester United not to be as ambitious as he was, demanded a transfer, obviously forgetting he wouldn’t be able to leave until January and any such public statement would make him a hate figure until he left, and even then he would still be hated. Earlier today he signed a new contract, stating his rejuvenated love for the club, which definitely didn’t have anything to do with a pay rise.
How far will this go? If it works for one player, it will work for another, they kick up a fuss and get a pay rise, or, they move clubs and get a pay rise, it’s a win win situation, never mind that you’re team mates hate you, you’ve got loads of money, and you certainly didn’t have enough before.  
Its often noted that “the kids” are the future, and a lot of kids look up to the likes of Wayne Rooney, and when they see him pulling a despicable stunt like this, or repeatedly cheating on his wife (a well respected journalist!) with prostitutes, they will think that this is the right thing to do, and in fifteen years time we could have a scary number of Wayne Rooney type adults littering the country. Would it hurt if he was photographed reading a book every now and again? He wouldn’t have to read it, just pretend. Or he could be photographed in a children’s ward, pretending to treat a cancer stricken child. It might be a lie, but it’s certainly better than being sucked off by a prostitute in the back of a 4X4 in broad daylight (that was Jermaine Defoe), and by the way footballers, a “high class hooker” does not make it acceptable.

The media doesn’t help the situation, and any seemingly irrelevant piece of sports news is seen as IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS! The 24/7 news channels have covered nothing but Rooneygate for the last two days, Sky News literally running the story again and again, showing the same footage over and over, it’s not even news! Wayne Rooney isn’t going to play football for a different team, surely that can be said once and we all get over it.
Perhaps there was no other news today, but we had a football story running non stop last week, the buyout of Liverpool football club. With the coverage it received you would think that it would have at the very least a tiny consequence to the world, but no, a football club was sold. Liverpool fans took it seriously though, as if it was some kind of anti-war march. Hundreds of fans (clearly unemployed) were stood outside the stadium shouting at the American owners to shit the fuck off. There were banners that said things like “Thanks but no Yanks” and “Built by Shanks, Raped by Yanks” (or something like that). There were celebrations when the club was finally sold, though none of the fans seemed to mind that another American had bought the club, they probably didn’t notice the link.
It’s this 24/7 news coverage which is annoying, there is never enough news to be spread out over 24 minutes, let alone 24 hours, and as a result the same news is repeated every ten minutes, and this brand new trend of football dominating the news channels is turning the news (remember its aim is to be informative) into a 24/7 reality show starring Wayne Rooney. And why does all news have to be breaking news now? Surely it’s only breaking news for the first ten minutes and then it’s just normal news?
If football is to become even more prominent in the news then maybe we should incorporate actual important things into it. If we want to go to war with Iraq again we will play them at football. The next election will be decided with a football tournament, or more realistically, how many prostitutes Cameron and Milliband can fuck in 90 minutes.