The Death of Football - Des Lynam

[KingKay]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ey-are-ripping-the-heart-out-of-the-game.html

It has been intense over the years but just now I have a feeling that my affair might be running out of steam. Money is at the root cause of the discontent as it so often is in relationships.

Take Southampton. Well actually they have already been taken. Here was a highly successful club with a remarkable ability to produce fine young players who were lighting up the Premier League with their exquisite passing game, well coached and destined, it seemed, for even greater things.

Then along came the agents and the big clubs with their money and the team was destroyed.

Of course they had produced and lost great young players in the past – Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott – but now they were all going, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, Dejan Lovren, Calum Chambers, Dani Osvaldo, even the veteran Rickie Lambert with others also wanting to leave as a result of the mass exodus.

There is little club loyalty among the players and, even if there is, the agents soon talk them out of it. What is the point of an excellent academy and the production of young players only to lose them?

OK, the bank balance will be looking good but the heart has gone out of the team and many of the fans.

Also the most exciting player in English football has gone. Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore may be glad to see the back of Luis Suárez but I’m not and I daresay neither is the vast majority of Liverpool supporters.

His skill was unmatched by anyone else playing here and while I concede our footballer of the year is a bit bonkers and does stupid things, get over it. Barcelona have, to the tune of £75 million. Nobody died. If Liverpoolfinish as high in the table as last season, I shall be more than a little surprised.

Plus I have not got over the World Cup and England failing to win a match. No wonder they cannot sell a ticket for the forthcoming friendly with Norway.

Looking at the transfer news over the last weeks, there was hardly a mention of an English player as the foreign hordes and their representatives continue to invade our game and the big money available. The England manager will be lucky to field a team if it goes on like this.

Those in charge hardly fill one with confidence. Fifa and the absurd Sepp Blatter, who decided to award the World Cup in 2022 to a country with no football pedigree or heritage and where the mean temperature in summer is 40 degrees plus. Now I wonder what made them do that? They are trying to change it to a midwinter tournament with all the chaos that would ensue for domestic football.

If North Korea’s Kim Jong-un came up with the money he could probably be awarded the World Cup finals. At least his country has qualified for them in the past.

The esteemed leader might need assurance that his team would win but I am sure Mr Blatter could come to some sort of arrangement.

At home we have the chairman of the Football Association with his cut-throat gesture and strange idea of making an extra division as a feeder league and who thinks England will win the World Cup in 2022.

After forgetting for most of the summer, live football coverage will have us remembering where the Sky and BT Sport channels are. There will not be a poor game on either.

They are hyping their products to the point of nausea and only the realistic views of some of their pundits will bring us back to reality.

The teams who get relegated from the Premier League will receive massive parachute payments for three seasons, which makes it difficult for the rest of the Championship clubs to compete for players.

The Champions League will resume and will not become interesting until the knockout stages. The Europa League will continue to be boring and a strain on clubs’ playing resources.

Match of the Day is back today, of course, but it will not be quite the same without Alan Hansen, who for 20 years never donned the rose-tinted specs when discussing the game.

He will be missed.

Well that’s got one or two things off my chest. However, weak as I am, I have a strange feeling that by the middle of September football will have enticed me back and I will once more become a willing slave to the great game, with all its faults.

Amen Des! We all know the way the game is going, but will the bubble ever burst?

 

[CosmicHotspur]

Nothing new though. Most of us, especially the older ones among us who have watched football for decades and seen the changes, have known this for a long time.

 

[Gassin's finest]

God... for one horrifying moment I thought Des had passed on!

*phew*

 

[RichieS]

A poorly written rant.

 

[nightgoat]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ey-are-ripping-the-heart-out-of-the-game.html

Match of the Day is back today, of course, but it will not be quite the same without Alan Hansen, who for 20 years never donned the rose-tinted specs when discussing the game.

Erm...

 

[Dundalk_Spur]

Sorry it wasn't players or agents that ripped apart that Southampton squad, it is the new person in charge asset stripping the club as happens in business all the time.

 

[SteveH]

Nothing new though. Most of us, especially the older ones among us who have watched football for decades and seen the changes, have known this for a long time.

Totally right - just one of us old'uns have a grump - we love to do it.

I'm not saying you are a old'un cosmic

 

[markiespurs]

It certainly is a bit of a rant from old Des.

Unfortunately though, he is spot on with much of what he says.

 

[Kendall]

People have been peddling this identical rant for years now.

 

[SteveH]

People have been peddling this identical rant for years now.

It started with that greedy bastard Jimmy Hill - http://www.haynes.co.uk/football/PDFs/H5049spread3.pdf

 

[Kendall]

It started with that greedy bastard Jimmy Hill - http://www.haynes.co.uk/football/PDFs/H5049spread3.pdf

So bascially, Des's old mate from MOTD?

Wind it in Lynham you twerp.

 

[Jamturk]

Indeed Des, welcome to the party its called

When football turned from sport into business.

 

[al_pacino]

It started with that greedy bastard Jimmy Hill - http://www.haynes.co.uk/football/PDFs/H5049spread3.pdf

bit harsh. Gary Imlachs book based around his fathers career covers this and should be read. mainly because its really good.

 

[SteveH]

bit harsh. Gary Imlachs book based around his fathers career covers this and should be read. mainly because its really good.

it was a joke

 

[al_pacino]

it was a joke

I know.

 

[MyNameIsNicolaBerti]

It certainly is a bit of a rant from old Des.

Unfortunately though, he is spot on with much of what he says.

He's spot on, eh? I can't help the irony of Lynam lecturing about money, agents and FA conduct and then touting the retention of Suarez, whose retention could only have happened by way of an absurd big money contract, while also dismissing his on pitch assaults. It's seems Des's sense of morality only goes as far as for what's convenient for him as a fan and pundit.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

It started with that greedy bastard Jimmy Hill - http://www.haynes.co.uk/football/PDFs/H5049spread3.pdf

In a conversation with Cliff Jones years ago, he said exactly this and I completely agreed with him.

 

[goughie1966]

Is this the same Des Lynam that quit the BBC for a very lucrative contract with Setanta to head their football coverage?

 

[sherbornespurs]

So we're to believe that Des Lynam has chosen to jump ship because Southampton has sold a few players, a player who bites and cheats fellow professionals has left these shores, the England team are a tad sh*te (it was ever thus) and Alan Hanson has left MoTD?

If I was fed up with the game it would have been years ago when I was forced to watch football in little more than cattle sheds, got chased to and from the ground by Neanderthals, witnessed 96 fans going to a cup match never to return home or when 56 people were burnt to death in a stand you wouldn't keep pigs in.

Ok, so the atmosphere may not be as good these days, and maybe the players are over-paid and distant from the fans. But now I can travel to the game (even away games!) reasonably safely, sit and watch the game in comfort, the games are just as exciting as back in the day, the playing surfaces are fantastic and even when I'm not around on match-day I can watch the highlights within a few hours whether I'm home in Dorset or on holiday in Dubai.

Looking back, there have been plenty of seasons when a man (or woman) may want to jump off, but this season isn't one of them. Oh, and I'll miss James Alexander Gordon reading out the scores more than I'll miss Alan Hanson.