Football is a distraction & an escape from the real issues in our world
Football is an escape for many people. It’s probably true that football has been my own escape from reality or ‘normal’ life, whatever that may be.
That monthly routine of training and playing then knowing your wages will be paid into your back account keeps your focus narrowed so that if if you allow it, not much else outside it matters. Which is the biggest mistake you can make when it all comes to an end. Football, and the other sports in general watched in huge numbers, does that to you though. Take work and sports from the lives of those who invest the time and lives into it and you remove much of their purpose too. I’ve always found the words of the likes of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and H.G. Wells on this subject fascinating. Their belief that herd-like participation and partisan support in sports like football, both soccer and the American kind particularly, as a way of sedating the masses to distract them from the world outside them that really matters.
Globally recognised franchises and clubs owned by a few billionaires control the narrative of the billions of lives of their followers. The news created from sports adds to the distraction of the real issues in our world and has certainly contributed to the worldwide political cesspit we currently find ourselves in.
It’s no wonder that politics and the debate had around it has turned into the rows in the pub we usually have surrounding football. Sport might not be all we know, but there are definite similarities between our behaviour in the stands and they way we approach political debate, especially online. Which I am guilty of as much as others.
For a world whose aim once was to bring everyone together, we’ve drifted apart and have become as tribal as ever. Add to that the gambling epidemic inextricably linked to sport, gaming, on-demand TV like Netflix and the sedatives of cigarettes and alcohol, then you have basically got a society under control, being fed what to think via the same media moguls who control sport and politics, sleepwalking through a world they’re losing more control of. I know it’s all a bit deep for a Thursday afternoon but with me being on a break from the everyday life of football and an election coming up, I’ve been thinking less about football and more about the wider consequences of my vote. After the year I’ve had, you’d think coming back home would be a respite from the chaos but I’ve walked into Bedlam. Maybe living in Sweden has made me realise what a better society looks like. It’s by no means perfect and has it’s own problems to deal with, but when I see someone on Question Time so enraged because he might have to pay a tiny bit more tax on his £80,000 a year makes me yearn for a place that is less focused on itself and takes care of each other.
I know there will be many of you that will disagree with me, even in my family there are, but I still respect why they think the they do way, so hopefully that is returned. We’ve all been distracted away from the core values that really matter, only to be drawn into personality wars and arguments that have sidetracked us.
This all comes back to my point about how the world now works, where liars and those who show a clear disdain for anyone who doesn’t have as much money in their pocket as them can be perceived as being their champions. That’s some powerful force at work right there.
Don’t worry, I haven’t gone full David Icke just yet but the way things are going you just wonder who the actual cranks are.
I don’t know whether the dystopian visionaries were football men or not so I don’t know if their views were ever softened by the joy of Lionel Messi weaving his way in on goal or felt the community football creates through hard times and good, but I do know that sport is more than just a hamster cage to keep us occupied. But if it is really sedation on a global scale, being a Sunderland fan right now feels like they’re handing out arsenic or cyanide pills instead. See, I told you I always bring it back to Sunderland in the end.