The Not So Beautiful Game

This summer has seen football reach a whole new dept of depravity.

You have our Toby Alderweireld supposedly looking to double his £50k a week salary because he “deserves” it.

There is the boy from Brazil,Neymar, the half a billion pound footballer. A £200m transfer fee, £520k a week just for starters.Then you have the talented 18 year old Kylian Mbappe, a prospect who has only 41 senior appearances under his belt & whom will cost PSG a whopping £180m & £200k a week after an initial season long loan. He’s a talent for sure but not the finished article.

John Bostock was a talent when we got him, David Bentley was the new Beckham, & not 2 seasons ago Alex Pritchard was the next big thing but where are they now? Mbappe though talented could tail off, there are no guarantees.

PSG are also clearly manipulating the loan system, & sticking 2 fingers up at the rest of us with UEFA & FIFA standing idly by and watching the cash role in via various brown paper bags, not re-invested in grass roots. Instead going to pay Aleksander Čeferin (UEFA) , Gianni Infantino (FIFA) & other Football dignitaries inflated salaries.

However for me the buck does not stop with players, clubs, managers or any of the fat cats in football, it stops with us, the fans.

One of the biggest bug bears for fans like me, as far as I can see, is the rising costs within football. Fans complain at the price of tickets, the insane prices you pay for replica jerseys, training gear & to watch your team on Tv, the cost of having to watch your team abroad, everything basically but they keep on paying them!!

The main reason this is happening is purely because of the demand being there. We’ll complain about the prices, but we will go, we’ll complain of the price of a shirt but buy it, we’ll buy that £5 pint of warm muck, the indigestion burger. We continue to feed the clubs & that is what they want, they in turn fuel the players egos, wallets & everything else & so the ugly cycle continues.

The Toby Alderweireld story going around at the minute . His agent supposedly told a tabloid his client is worth at least £100k p/w. Really?

A very decent player but double his money? Nope,im sorry not for me.

I then see on social media our own fans demanding Daniel Levy “pay him what he wants” Giving off the impression that if he leaves somehow Tottenham Hotspur will somehow cease to exist!!!

Get a grip. Those will say oh it’s how the game is gone, that we must accept it.
It is disgusting that in this poverty laden world we find ourselves in that footballers or their agents are complaining that £50k a week is not enough? It has to stop, it really does. Clubs up & down the country are going out of business & we, by demanding Toby or anyone else deserve their money doubled, are just adding to that.

We as fans are as guilty as they are and that is a fact, by paying for the inflated tickets, merchandise, and by saying pay him what he wants, we are just adding fuel to that fire & contributing to the rapid death of our “beautiful game”.
I actually agree with what Alan Shearer said the other week on MOTD, at Spurs we have a talented squad that has won nothing, why reward players for failing on the biggest stage? Our lads buckled in the champions league & Europa & the Cup semi final. When the pressure was on they did not deliver.

I am a firm believer in Daniel Levy & his methods for the long term viability of our club. No one player is bigger than the club, not even Daniel Levy is but he is laying the foundations that we will have a club to go to & he should be applauded for not being dictated to by anyone.

Graham Roberts said “The crest on front of the shirt will always be bigger than any name on the back” and he’s right.

Players have come & gone the only thing constant is the existence of the club & that’s the most important thing of all. Something will have to give if the game continues the reckless way it’s going.

Clubs like Tottenham should be applauded for adapting a model that is sustainable & not ridiculed by fans, even their own & media alike.

Football has become an ugly cash hungry industry, taken over by unscrupulous money men,who have an agenda & use people’s pride & loyalty to fill their own back pockets. Stop letting it happen, stop filling those pockets.

The beautiful game is dying, don’t finish it off.

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