Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
BEAUTY AND
WHEN he decided to end his rte career last June, my old friend Liam Brady gave an interview to the station.
In that chat, he explained why he felt the time was right to walk away.
“Things have changed with football now. I’m not in love with the game anymore,”he said.
“I like watching it and watching the best players. But all the things that surround it are not really for me.
“The business side of it, it’s a multi-billion pound business. The ownership of clubs in England, the arrival of these countries, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. I don’t feel it’s been that good for the game, to be honest.”
I fully understand where Liam was coming from, and many will agree.
Think of what lies ahead of us. Next season, there will be an expanded Champions League.
Even more games, even greater demands on players.
At the end of that season, FIFA are inflicting a 32-team club World Cup on us.
That will put even more pressure on the top players.
We have seen a huge spike in the number of hamstring injuries in recent months.
That is a classic sign of overuse. A World Cup in Saudi Arabia is coming down the tracks too.
Arsene Wenger highlighted the toll put on players by too demanding schedules when he was managing Arsenal.
Heirarchy
Now that he’s embedded in the FIFA hierarchy, Wenger is claiming that modern medicine means a lot of worries are misplaced and that the changes afoot to the schedule will be fine.
There is renewed talk of a Super League too.
Nothing can be ruled in or out, such is the turbulence we’ve gone through in recent years.
It’s not hard to see why so many clubs outside of the Premier League elite want change.
Most of the best players and the best managers in the world have gravitated towards England because of money.
Even the traditional big clubs across Europe find it hard to compete.
The giants of Italy — like the two Milan clubs and Juventus — are miles away from where they used to be.
Barcelona are mired in debt and, outside of Harry Kane, how many marquee signings have Bayern Munich made in recent years?
Look at Ajax. They were in the Champions League semi-finals as recently as 2019. They went into Christmas 23 points off top spot in a very average Dutch league.
Real Madrid do still splash the cash but the way they pushed hard for the Super League was an indication of financial pressures, in my opinion.
Fluminese are the current holders of the Copa Libertadores — the South American equivalent of the Champions League.
A look at their squad is alarming. Goalkeeper Fabio is 43 and centre-half Felipe Melo is 40 and, in total, a staggering 11 of the first team roster are over 33.
Remember, Fluminese are Brazilian giants, and the best team in South America at the moment.
Ireland’s evan ferguson celebrates scoring his sides second goal. evan ferguson scored his first republic of Ireland goal in a 3-2 friendly victory over Latvia. Issue date: thursday November
It shows that the best players have all gone to Europe, and mostly to England. That lack of balance in the world of football is questionable and might well be unsustainable.
Curious
What of Ireland? We still don’t know who will manage the national team in 2024, but we do know that it will be a curious year.
One where the calendar is made up of friendlies and UEFA Nations League fixtures.
The Nations League does impact on seedings and possible future play-offs but it’s hard to get excited about those games.
Ireland have some good players, and a potentially great one in Evan Ferguson. Does that mean a bright future lies ahead? I wouldn’t be optimistic on that front.
I feel there is more pain to come, and one of the reasons for pessimism is the way the FAI is being run.
I don’t understand why Irish football is now effectively in the hands of two Englishmen — Jonathan Hill and Marc Canham — who have no real feel for the game in this country.
Live
Indeed, Hill hasn’t even bothered moving to live in Ireland — something you’d think should be a basic requirement of a CEO.
It is positive that the League of Ireland is increasing in popularity. The standard of football has risen, and there is a better atmosphere at some grounds than you get in often-sterile Premier League stadia.
Given the impact of Brexit, the