Football is broken. This would appear an odd thing to assert at the end of such a thrilling Premier League season. Weren’t the big-money, big-city teams given a bloody nose by little old Leicester? The surprise champions displayed, as their likeable manager proudly boasted, heart and soul. For the past three decades, however, these virtues have been in short supply in a global entertainment industry dominated by rapacious mega-brands – or football clubs, as they were once known.
According to the co-authors of the excellent Soccernomics, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, “doing a Leicester” can only happen once every 20-plus years. Even the new football order’s biggest cheerleaders can’t deny that, since the Hillsborough tragedy, there has been a shift in the demographics of the game’s support. Ticket prices have soared. Regular attendance is something only a certain stratum of society can now afford. The working classes have, by and large, been disenfranchised from the moneyed modern game.
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