Tag: Liverpool

Make a Stand or Lose a place in Yours

Make a Stand or Lose a place in Yours

The stance taken by Liverpool fans against the incoming price hike at Anfield is justified and long overdue. Their decision to say “enough is enough” is a force for good that every football fan in the country should get behind. Loyalties may divide us for 90 minutes when teams face one another, but together we need to protect our mutual interests. Football is for the people and money is slowly taking it away from us.

For far too long, the cash in top flight football has been grotesque. More than ever before, supporters are aware how much money is flowing into the game from commercial avenues. At the same time, the cost of following a team has risen at a greater rate than these business success stories.

It’s as if the working class man has been under a spell. Dazzled by massive names from overseas gracing their town. Stadiums morphing into modern complexes that are among the best in the world. Commenting on their star striker’s new salary as if it’s a bonus section in Premier League Top Trumps.

Under the evil voodoo trick they have failed to notice the rich have been getting richer. Chairman haven’t been using the increased revenues to solely finance the players and new facilities. Everyone has been getting their slice and the common man has been asked to provide more. Agents and men sat in boardrooms are playing the part of the anti-Robin Hood.

The new stadia will remain a source of pride, until they are inaccessible on a working class wage and become filled with corporate fans. Sat there for multiple reasons – none of which are to cheer the team on. Next season they could be going to a different club; it all depends on where the best business is.

The working man instead settles in at home. He watches Sky Sports News fight his corner. They report the justified outrage at the increasing cost of the game for the guy struggling to afford a replica kit for his children. They are either experts in satire or fail to see the irony.

It is their outlandish £5.5bn bids that make this all possible. They balance the books by asking the struggling fan for over £30 a month to access their sports package. But that’s just a starter . . . how about HD, and broadband, and over 300 channels you’ll never watch?

It is greed fed by gluttony.

£77 for one game is the step too far every fan in this country has been made to shuffle toward for too long.

With the latest TV deal, every club in the Premier League could afford to make every single game free for fans at the match and still make more money than the current season. This is before we take into account the latest overseas TV deal, announced last week. That comes in at a cool £3bn.

That’s over £8bn to spread across the 20 clubs and no consideration has been given to the man at the turnstile. Instead, Premier League monsters chase the purple dragon of European success while their counterparts in the Champions League evolve without robbing those in the stands.

It’s time every fan started protests to enhance the impact of the Liverpool walkout. At the same time, everyone with a Sky Sports package should cancel it and show the TV companies their time running (ruining) our game is over.

The longer we sit in silence, the closer we get to suits sat in every last part of our beloved grounds.

And we’ll be left with a despot television empire telling us it’s still the best league in the world and worth every one of our hard-earned pounds to watch it, on their terms, stuck in our living rooms.

Pound Sterling

Pound Sterling

So after much mudslinging, with press speculation on the reasons why and possible motives, Raheem Sterling has joined Manchester City for a fee that could rise to £49M. Liverpool fans are soothing themselves with the loss of a prized asset by revelling in the amount received. Openly taunting at taking the coffers to the cleaners. To put it another way: Scousers are laughing at committing robbery. But as high as the fee sounds – and it does sound a lot – it’s the same fans that tried to convince the world £35M for Andy Carroll made sense. It wasn’t, whereas the Sterling figure won’t seem so stupid if he reaches his potential.

Therein lies the first problem. Is Sterling going to reach that “potential”? City fans have heard this term banded about a lot in recent years. Mario Balotelli was given all the chances in the world because he had lots of it. Rodwell and Sinclair were brought in as it was assumed City could fill them out into the players we all hoped they could be. Buying potential is a trip to the casino.

Sheikh Mansour is justified – on this occasion, especially – to feel he can bet on red or black a few times. In reality the chances are stacked higher in his favour than the slightly less than half a roulette spin offers. If Raheem becomes the next big young talent his value will quickly eclipse the £49M shelled out. Take Paul Pogba, another City target, the fee floating around for him currently stands at £71M. This is with the proviso he still hasn’t reached his full potential.

Transfer fees will always be a bone of contention. They continue to rise in a time when the world is facing tough austerity measures and countries like Greece face economic collapse. To make matters worse, they continue to rise from an already over-inflated base line. Yes, £49M is a lot. But it also happens to be the market value for a young promising, home-grown talent.

What I find more disturbing than the price is the treatment of a young twenty year old by members of the press, former teammates and “fans.” Stevie G, the Liverpool legend that never won a league title, not so subtlety sounded Sterling out as unprofessional and possessing a bad attitude when comparing him to the new Liverpool captain Jordan Horrenduson. Nice to know Steven helped nurture that talent under his watch.

Gerrard is obviously offended that a player would choose to leave his club for a rival. It makes the statement that the modern day professional sees Liverpool as a place less likely to collect titles. He should remind himself he once thought the same and agreed to join Chelsea, only changing his mind when the threats from fans came in.

Raheem has also faced disgusting abuse and threats to his wellbeing along with his daughter’s. He has stood tall and will see out the storm. Hopefully there’ll be an added element of protection surrounding him during this time. And perhaps a little TLC will work wonders too. I can’t begin to imagine how he feels reading such threats when his own father was murdered back when Raheem was only nine years of age.

Jamie Carragher has also been outspoken and condemned Sterling. It doesn’t come from the mouth of a neutral Sky Sports presenter. He lacks the ability of Gary Neville, who can be a Manchester United man at heart but still speak sense, of reporting the news rather than opinion as fact. He clearly wanted Sterling to stay and arrogantly assumes it will be better for Raheem if he did. Apart from the argument he would get more game time at Liverpool, it is founded on nothing more than blinkered hearsay.

It’s typical of the anti-City media to turn the transfers of the Citizens into a carnival while applauding preferred click-bait teams for their market endeavours. Memphis Depay, not exactly a snip at £25M, has been packaged as future world-beater. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t say either way. It seems only bitter former pros and bad journalists can see future events with any clarity. To top off this sentiment, SportYapper notified users today Sterling had asked for a nap during his Man City medical.

Back to the price, it also needs to be noted QPR receive a slice as part of their sell-on clause. This will have ramped it up. Add this to the home grown quota he fills, along Liverpool’s reluctance to sell, and it’s less grotesque. The price tag will hang heavy for a while. Di Maria still carries his around in a wheelbarrow. All Raheem Sterling can do is produce form on the field. With every successful game the pounds will drop away. With success he can prove this was never about cash but about football.

About winning.