Here is a handy memo to future historians of the national sport in this country. Note the date of 13 November 2018, because with the announcement of plans for Richard Scudamore’s parting gift of £5m – £250,000 to be volunteered by each Premier League club – it marks the formal end of football’s 140-year life as the people’s game.
Not that anyone will necessarily notice the difference. The whole point about modern football, a case in point being Manchester City’s alleged infractions of the Financial Fair Play rules, is that so much money is now involved, with its provenance repeatedly proving difficult if not impossible to track down, that there is little the ordinary guy in a striped scarf or replica shirt can do except shrug and hope the global concern he happens to support buys a better centre-forward than the opposition.
Written by Paul Wilson
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/nov/14/richard-scudamore-football-premier-league under the title “Plan for £5m Scudamore gift shows football no longer the people’s game | Paul Wilson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
