While certainly not a new topic of discussion, it is rather intriguing to me that football (on a global scale) is being catered to middle-upperclass fans more and more. I say this for multiple reasons; one being season ticket prices across the board for the highest leagues in Europe. For this blog, the focus will be mainly on the Premiership. A quick look at 2010's ticket prices for the English Premier League shows that the cheapest Arsenal FC season ticket goes for about 900 pounds (almost 1500 US Dollars). Chelsea and Manchester United's cheapest season tickets will run you about 900 dollars; far cheaper, yet still a solid dent in any common man's checkbook. These three clubs do indeed represent the upper echelon of expensive tickets in England, yet there remains a steady increase across the board for all English teams despite the quality of the product being given back to the fans. Recently relegated Wolverhampton, for example, have even more expensive tickets than Man United, Everton, Man City, and other much better clubs.
The above examples serve to illustrate the ongoing motion to remove the purest and most enthusiastic fans from football grounds in favor of those who possess the largest coffers. Since its very creation as a sport, soccer has served as a battleground and spectacle for those less fortunate in society. To play the game, one only needs a ball; goals, sidelines, and teams themselves can be improvised. As such, the original costs of creating and running a club were miniscule, with most expenses going towards travel. The modern era continues to alter this though; in order for clubs to succeed, global superstars need to be purchased and paid for by the club owners and its supporters. The Glazer Family takeover of Manchester United was met with overwhelming disdain by the Old Trafford faithful, yet those cries have been ignored as the club continues to have massive success in the modern era. Essentially, what is happening (at least for the biggest clubs in the world) is that working class men and women are being removed from the stands in order for the club to continue to be competitive. Some are OK with this notion, others continue to rebel against it (i.e. the fans who continue to wear green and yellow 'anti-Glazer' scarfs in Manchester). At any rate, as ticket prices continue to rise for the biggest teams in the world, football becomes ever more a rich man's spectacle.
Why the above claims are so strange, though, is that the game remains one played and dominated by poor, or lower middle class players. It is often an anomaly for a player outside of perhaps North America to begin his footballing life surrounded by the comforts that a middle-upper class live style affords. Brazil's Kaka, for example, is one of the only national team players in his country to come from a well-off family. The previously-blogged-about Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Neymar, Pele, Garrincha, and most other Brazilian legends came from impoverished and destitute cities, some even living in Rio's infamous favelas. In England, similar circumstances produced many of the Three Lion's best players. Wayne Rooney's father, for example, was a simple laborer, and he grew up in a council house. Great players, it seems, are still often produced from circumstances that create a drive and purpose within the individual. They see football as a means to live beyond the lives that their parents lived.
Alfredo Di Stefano, perhaps Real Madrid's greatest player of all time, was once asked what makes a great footballer. His answer was simple, "You have to be hungry". In America, we might read this as meaning you have to be driven, you have to be motivated and stay motivated. Señor Stefano meant none of these things; he was talking about literal hunger. Perhaps the best fans also are created from this literal hunger, but they won't be able to watch their clubs from inside the stadium, will they?
*Bits taken from : http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=509122&root=europe&cc=5901
http://www.footballfancast.com/2010/06/football-blogs/premier-league-season-ticket-prices-a-tad-unfair
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