Bad football.
Bad rich men.
Bad, bad, bad.
It’s happened again, it always does. Even after a summer of European Championships that had more underdog stories and human feel-good elements to it than you could shake a tube of EPO at, the daggers have turned on football.
Football, who was sitting there minding its own business.
The Premier League has lost its soul, footballers are out of touch with reality, and divers have scorned the world of sport. So football should learn from the Olympics. Every four years. Every time.
Copy and paste every 4 years. 🙄 https://t.co/4rMSkPNJUZ
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) August 22, 2016
Gary Lineker is not lying.
The Olympics come along – even these Olympics – and football somehow cops flak for it (as if it’s not even part of the Games).
It’s a dull narrative but one that gathers depressing momentum when the celebration shots of Team GB die down.
And it is cyclical too. You bet your arse it is.
2012
The Telegraph went for a more reasoned approach.
The Sun went for a more Sun approach.
Even Joey bloody Barton weighed in.
2008
The Telegraph.
And so forth.
So what the hell should footballers learn from the Olympics?
Ticket touting? Feigning armed robberies? Doping?
What are the best elements we can take and translate to football? The judges who ignore objectivity? The associations who ignore responsibility?
Not to dope, not to lie about a robbery, not to leave disabled sport in the lurch, not to have questionable judges?
— Tony Barrett (@TonyBarrett) August 22, 2016
It seems that, for some, footballers’ biggest crime is that they earn a lot of money. And then they spend a lot of money. That’s where words like ‘cultural problems’ come up because there’s nothing else actually specific there to have a proper go at. Especially for no reason – especially when we’re supposed to be reporting on a completely different sport altogether.
What’s worse is that, for some, Olympians’ biggest achievement is that they don’t earn as much money or they don’t spend as much money or they don’t spend as much time in the spotlight.
Neither could be further off the mark.
It doesn’t matter though. It’s a narrative and it’s an agenda. Football is the bad guy, its fans are the worst and any time any other sporting event catches attention for a week or two, English newspapers go to town on their national sport.
They don’t need a reason. They don’t even need an Olympics to be proud of.
