Why be a Soccer Fan Prt 2
When I first read your comment, Ed, I had to go back and re-read my article. I didn’t realise how much it came across as so dark on the A-League. When I sat down to write I had in mind a bit of a comparison of the two soccer experiences of the day, highlighting the simple joys of junior and amateur league soccer. Clearly more than that came out.
The fact is that I too would be heartbroken if the Roar folded, and even moreson if the A-League suffered collapse. That neither of these things is impossible is of major concern.
Thanks all for your comments. I love the idea of a state champions / A-League top 6 Cup, or something. And you’re absolutely correct Guido to point out that the reasons people follow a sport can be very diverse and personal.
I want to write more about these sorts of topics – trying to really scrutinise, from a consumer’s point of view, what the A-League is. There’s a lot of unfiltered optimism about the rise of soccer in Australia, but if you read the introductions of soccer books from Australia going back to the 1970s, this optimism is nothing new.
Les Murray was quick this season to talk up A-League crowds, but we all can see the A-League isn’t in the clear yet. Why? What can be done? Does it matter?
I want the A-League to survive forever. Connectedness to the communities, however that is developed, is very important in my view but so is quality. When people follow Rugby or AFL in this country, or for that matter cricket or motor racing, they know they are watching the best in the world; the elite. I mean if you’re going to dedicate a lot of your discretionary spending to something, not to mention emotional energy, you don’t want it in the back of your mind that you’re really watching a second division league.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan. ‘Fan’ is a shortening of ‘fanatic’ and in the football world we tend to wear it on our sleeves. The important realisation is that we are not the game’s locus of growth, or even survival. Fanatics do not a mass-movement make. Fanaticism, as we are often heard to candidly celebrate (see Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch), is a disease. It’s not even particularly healthy.
I’ll digress more. I am a ‘new fan’, as I’ve said. On the face of it, the FFA should see a bloke like me and say, ‘cool, a new fan; hope there’s lots more like that’. But they would be mistaken. You see I am someone who is guilty of having been utterly fanatical about various religious and political ideologies throughout my life. I may not have been a fan of soccer, but I have been previously diseased nonetheless. From my own mental health’s point of view soccer is a wonderful way to live out my disease with minimum adverse impact, a sort of ideological methadone program. So the FFA should not see me as the thin edge of an ever-broadening wedge.
The FFA also must know that to get people interested in the A-League you have to get them interested in the game of soccer, but their immediate dilemna is that an interest in soccer can exist in its own right, and they have only one product available, for which they’re asking real money. Back to quality.
I reckon the salary cap needs to be a) kept permanently, and b) raised, a lot. To begin with I think it should be doubled. Basically the criteria should shift from “What sort of figure could all the clubs afford?” to “What sort of figure could the four wealthiest clubs realistically afford?”
I think about the ‘market’ for Clubs. Not tickets, TV subs or merchandise, but actual Clubs. Dudes like Clive Palmer or the various Russians and Arabs who are buying European clubs for fun. A bloke has to have his train set doesn’t he? I think having a salary cap, and a set of reasonable restrictions on foreign players, actually makes the prospect more fun for your average fun-loving billionare. It’s just part of the game, and it keeps costs down to the merely stupendous. I’d like to see salary capping across the world for this reason. Note that a high cap can still allow for really amazing teams.
In ancient Athens there was apparently no business taxes and there was hence a very wealthy merchant class. Although these individuals paid no direct tax, they had burdens as citizens. It was normal for an individual to fund (and command) a warship for example, or a production of a play, or a sporting festival. There’s a certain sense to this, and there’s no real losers.
To have quality teams you need to be able to buy the best in the World. As Ed points out, the A-League is improving and there’s no doubt that every top player who comes into the league makes it more attractive for other top players. Lifting the cap on teams like Sydney and the Gold Coast, who can afford better players, would accelerate this process.
Of course these rich teams would come to dominate the league. It’s common knowledge that playing against superior opposition helps lift your own game so the result would be a better quality league and the extra drama of actual, rather than merely statistical, ‘David and Goliath’ stories. And then there’s always that other bored billionare…
Finally here, can we allow ourselves to be as ambitious in the long term for the A-League as we dare to be with regard to the Socceroos? We do dare, don’t we, to dream for our countrymen the Socceroos to be in the top 10 in the World? Top five even? I have had halucinagenic moments of even thinking that they could, just could, with a mixture of luck, terrible luck for various other teams, and perfectly timed form, win the World Cup! Admit it! You’ve done the same.
Shouldn’t we be aiming to have one of the top 10 leagues in the world? Top 5?
Just as a post script, I also said in my last article that ‘Queensland’ teams meant nothing to me. What bullshit! Queensland teams all in the top 3 by season’s end, and I will be hyperbolically happy.
2010 plans upset South Africa’s taxis
By Lucy Fleming BBC News
As South Africa rolls out new buses in Johannesburg ahead of the 2010 football World Cup, thousands of minibus taxi-drivers in Cape Town want to put the brakes on a similar plan to revamp the coastal city’s transport system.
They fear the government’s intentions to improve transport for football fans and leave what has been termed a “legacy project” in the cities hosting the tournament will cost them their jobs.
They only care about their pockets
Minibus taxi passenger
“This soccer World Cup seems like it is coming to just chop our necks off, because it’s taking our bread from the table. They’ll push us out of a business,” says Mandla Mata, chair of the Western Cape National Taxi Alliance (WCNTA).
But the City of Cape Town says such worries are unfounded and the World Cup is an opportunity to introduce a bus-based public transport system that is reliable, scheduled and safe, while improving services to some areas.
This would be a relief to many commuters who feel their needs and safety are not always central to the taxis.
“They only care about their pockets,” one passenger travelling between Khayletsha and Bellville said, pointing out that the window next to him could not open.
“You mustn’t trust these guys if they lose their temper,” he added – and related a story about how a female passenger lost her eye after she was attacked by a driver for not having the fare.
Improved public transport may also encourage drivers to leave their cars at home, which would help ease the city’s terrible rush-hour traffic jams.
Taxi drivers worry about their future as they eat breakfast
City planners have said Cape Town’s Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) system will be based on the existing minibus and bus industries.
“They will be the drivers of the system. In the first phase we want them to form two companies – so we have a competitive element – and they operate the IRT system for the city – the feeder buses and the trunk routes,” explains City of Cape Town spokeswoman Kylie Hatton.
Minibus owners would be given shares in a company based on their current market share.
And if anything, Ms Hatton says, the IRT would mean drivers who work long hours without holiday and sick leave will be better off.
“They’ll be moving into a system where they will have fixed working hours and it won’t be passenger-based system, it’ll be a kilometres-travelled system.”
The financial pressure to make as many trips as possible is seen as one factor in the minibus taxis’ poor safety record.
Apartheid legacy
At Bellville taxi rank, about 20km from Cape Town city centre, one driver admitted it would be good to work an eight-hour day instead of the 12 to 16 hours most work.
Lack of regulation has allowed the space for a certain lawlessness to creep in – that needs to be dealt with
Kylie HattonCity of Cape Town spokeswoman
But the general belief amongst the drivers chatting by their buses and eating breakfast after the morning rush hour was that they could not trust any dictum from on high.
“We’re not interested in IRT – they want to take over our transportation,” said one driver, who had been up since 3.00am.
“They’re taking away what has belonged to us for so many years,” another said.
This ownership of the industry seems to be at the crux of problem for the City of Cape Town.
The minibus taxi industry was one of the few areas of the economy that black business was allowed to run under apartheid.
And taxi operators guard their hard-fought independence and self-regulation with pride.
Mr Mata says each route, which can have up to 50 owner-operators each with between six and 10 vehicles, is run by an association.
Vendors fear their business will also be affected by the IRT
They ensure that drivers, who get about 25% of their bus’s takings, only ply one route to avoid the fierce battles over territory that have given the industry such a bad reputation.
Strict rules also apply in the ranks so that drivers cannot jump the queue.
Yet 15 years since the end of apartheid, the relationship between the minibus taxis and the government are still fraught.
Taxi-owners complain that a government initiative to scrap older vehicles for newer, safer models by subsiding loans did not materialise for many.
This so-called recapitalisation scheme and what taxi-drivers see as harassment from the police checking permits and safety has left them even more distrustful of the authorities.
“I understand the sensitivities,” says Ms Hatton.
“But unfortunately it is an industry that has been largely unregulated – that lack of regulation has also allowed the space for a certain lawlessness to creep in as well – and that needs to be dealt with.”
“Approximately 40% of taxi drivers in the city operate without a permit,” she says.
Buses are not timetabled and only leave when full
Negotiations are ongoing between the WCNTA and transport officials to tackle such problems, but Mr Mata says they should not see this as a nod from his members to the IRT.
He says their main opposition to it stems from the fact that they have not been included at the planning stages.
“They say it’s going to happen whatever, like it or not,” Mr Mata says.
“If they can’t listen to us then it is not a democracy – it’s despotism; it’s like the last generation when they decided everything for you.”
Ms Hatton urges patience and says the IRT will be phased in slowly.
After the introduction of rapid bus link between the airport and city centre this year, a pilot project will be rolled out along the poorly serviced west coast.
You can see that it is not promises that they can fulfil
WCTA’s Mandla Mata
Only after this – in 2011 or 2012 – will other Cape Town routes will be affected.
“There is no big bang approach – there’s no attempt to put people in financial stress,” she says, adding that most of the transport industry is on board and it is only a minority who oppose the scheme.
It is difficult to come by numbers, but Mr Mata says his alliance represents about 152 routes – with more than 45,000 drivers – and their support is growing.
It has held several strikes this year bringing misery to commuters, especially those living in townships around Cape Town who rely on taxis to get to work.
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) recently called off a national strike in protest at the similar Johannesburg bus system following warnings from the government.
But Mr Mata says in the Western Cape more taxi stayaways are on the cards before the World Cup kicks off.
“They are promising a lot of promises but you can see that it is not promises that they can fulfil – they’re just blinding us.”
Barcelona Soccer Team Facts
Barcelona is a city long in love with sports, especially the Barcelona Soccer Team.
In addition to hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics, Barcelona hosted parts of the 1982 Football World Cup and has hosted the X FINA World Championship and Eurobasket. The city has two UEFA 5-star rated football stadiums: FC Barcelona's Nou Camp and the Estadi Ol?mpic Llu?s Companys.
FC Barcelona's soccer team is almost a way of life in Barcelona. The rivalry with Madrid rises almost to the point where Barcelona can be considered the Catalonia national team. FC Barca was founded on 29 November 1899 by Joan Gamper, who created the team colors of blue and claret from the Swiss canton in which he lived. Barcelona lost its first ever match with some English expatriates 0-1, but within ten years began a string of Catalan and Spanish championships lasting decades. FC Barcelona went though tough times in the rise to the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, but was able to recover and by the mid 1940s resumed its championship ways.
FC Barcelona is a sports club containing basketball, handball, hockey, ice-hockey, figure skating, indoor football, rugby, baseball, volleyball and women's football, but the jewel in the crown has always been association football, or the Barcelona Soccer Team. The Barcelona team has qualified every year for the European competition since it was founded in 1955.
The club motto is "M?s que un club" and they refer to their stadium as "Camp Nou." In English these are "More than a club" and "Our Ground." Despite a slump at the turn of the century, FC Barcelona has assembled a talented team and once again resumed winning ways. The club currently has a five-year deal with UNICEF, wearing the emblem on their jerseys and paying $1.9 million a year for the privilege.
Among the many claims to fame of the Barca team are that it has more victories than any other Association Football team in the world. They also have more wins in the Copa del Rey, the Spanish tournament, than any other team with 24 victories. There are 18 La Liga Championships, 7 Supercopa de Espana, 2 EUFA Champions League, 4 EUFA Winner's Cups, 3 Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, 1 Inter-City Fairs Cup Trophy Play-off, 2 European Super Cups, 2 Copa Latina, 4 Copa de Oro Argentina, 22 Catalan Championships, 2 Copa Martina Rossi, 4 Coupe de Pyrenees, 1 Mediteranean League, 2 Copa de Ligua, 1 Copa Barcelona, 1 Lligua Catalana, 5 Copa Catalana and one Little World Cup. It is little wonder Barcelona has embraced the Barcelona Soccer Team and reveres it as a symbol of Catalonia.
Luca Robi is the owner and co-editor of http://www.BigBarcelona.com
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