The Beautiful Game: Renamed

By Arun Crowe

The story of how, through heavy investment and influence, football is being made increasingly appealing to our neighbours across the Atlantic, and what this means for the sport as a whole. 

Football. Footy. The beautiful game. The people’s game. This ubiquitous sport goes by many names across the globe, and using any of these would see you accepted into 90% of all conversations that occur in an English pub. Except one: Soccer. 

Although, contrary to popular belief, this term was first coined and created in England in the late 19th century, it is now much more commonly known as the name used by Americans to differentiate their ‘American football’ to our ‘European football’. And as the latter’s popularity increases exponentially in the States, the term is being used more and more on that side of the ocean, whereas over here it remains almost a taboo; like uttering the name ‘Voldemort’ in Hogwarts. But when you take a step back away from the fervent matchday drama and the elaborate transfer speculation that we all love and hate so much at the same time, you might realise that with every new format, each fresh broadcasting feature, our sport is changing, and it is becoming closer and closer to the very thing we loathe. 

It is an immutable fact that Americans have a large influence in football. They are the richest country in the world with the largest economy, and as football has become inextricably entwined with business over recent decades, it makes sense that Americans would be inclined to get involved. And further than that, as expenses in football rise every year, clubs will always be looking for owners who can cope with that, and it makes sense that many of those will be American. And so it will not come as a surprise that in the premier league, around 50% of those twenty clubs are American-owned, while across the rest of the football league, around a third of the wealth is attributed to American businesses. But this number seems to only grow and grow, and the subsequently surging influence from them has led to a number of subtle and not so subtle changes… 

For example, this season marks the introduction of half-time interviews, where the TV broadcasters are able to get the insight of players and coaches in the middle of the match. And despite the fact that this will inevitably prove amusing and perhaps occasionally insightful to the audience, it cannot be anything but a considerable nuisance for the unfortunate player, as they are given just fifteen minutes of respite amidst a gruelling ninety, and now may have to spend that undergoing the even more taxing task of speaking to Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. Not only that, but it robs them of crucial time for conversing with teammates and coaches, or receiving treatment from physios. But big broadcasting companies have decided to take a page from the American handbook, implementing them across all competitions this year. 

From broadcasting back to business, perhaps a more subtle change has been the emergence of multi-club ownership groups, some of which include several of the world’s biggest clubs, such as Manchester City (City Group), Chelsea (BlueCo) and PSG (Qatar Sports Investment). While these groups are in no way restricted to merely American owners, they are largely driven from an American model, and although I am far from qualified enough to tell you the details of how they work, with every court case, club acquisition and Chelsea to Strasbourg loan that takes place, they are slowly becoming a growing point of contention in football. The business infrastructure of this sport was not designed for them, and so to many, their introduction and prevalence seems like not only trying to, but insisting on fitting a square peg in a round hole. 

But ultimately, whatever your opinion may be on changes like those, and while they may prove inconvenient to various fans, players and backroom staff, they do not undermine or impede the core values and cornerstones of the sport. Not even the expansion of the Club World Cup wearing away at players’ legs, or the various pre-match and half-time performances that feel horribly out of place, challenge the foundations of football. But they do all seem to point in the direction we are heading, or rather, the direction we are being shepherded in. 

All of these changes, far beyond the few mentioned here, are aimed at driving narratives and appealing to the changing expectations of younger fans, while also maximising profits and ultimately turning football into a lucrative business opportunity. They are ideas derived from the financial phenomenon of major American sports such as American football, baseball and basketball, and as football has a bigger audience than all three combined, the scope for profit is far greater, and so it is very hard to imagine that we will be altering from this trend anytime soon. But what does that mean for football? 

It is, of course, impossible to say for sure what the game is going to look like in five, ten, twenty years. No one can know whether the imminent changes will continue to entail small, largely harmless introductions, or if they will prove to be more controversial. The coming World Cup is set to be held in North America, while MLS viewership continues to rocket two years on from the arrival of Lionel Messi, both of these further sparking the fire of American interest in football. And if further US sport policies are adopted such as removing the concept of relegation, and if that fire of interest spreads into more investment and influence and hunger for money, it may soon lead to a proposal not too dissimilar from the thing all football fans united to fight against in 2021, and although we managed to vanquish the beast back then, who’s to say we would be successful in dispelling another attempt at a Super League in a few years’ time? 

And if that does happen, unfortunately, we may have to concede that it is not the beautiful game anymore, no longer the sport of the people, and that football would have been succeeded by soccer.