In 2020, I wrote the following piece. I never published it anywhere at the time, it
was more to let off steam about what I was witnessing in my football workplace at
that time. Unfortunately, two years on, the article hasn’t aged and I still have the
same concerns which have only deepened.

LET’S STOP PLAYING GAMES AND LET’S START PLAYING FOOTBALL

Years back, when I was about to embark on my adventure as a football translator/interpreter,
someone said to me, “You don’t come here to make friends. I have no friends here,
it’s all strictly professional.” I remember thinking at the time how sad and cold that
had sounded. How could someone think like that about the people they spent
most of their time with? I don’t think this person can really say they haven’t made
any friends in the business, no matter how cut-throat it may be. But you see,
there’s the word that changes it all, “business”. When did we lose track of what
football is about? And when did we begin to forget how football clubs were
formed?

Our football club was formed by some friends in a local gym in 1906, who went on
from playing friendlies to taking it seriously and competing. Sunday games were an
event where families, friends and neighbours gathered to watch and cheer on their
city’s team, which was mostly made up of local talent. With the aim of beating your
weekend rival came the need to spend or invest money on players, equipment and
its maintenance. As times rapidly changed, so did the sport and consumer
demands; yes, I used the word consumer, because that’s what we are now.
Players, staff, and fans became numbers, and a football club became a business.

The idea of a football club being run by a community who want their city to be
represented by its sporting values and accomplishments has long been forgotten.
People no longer cooperate for the club to run as smoothly as possible because
where there is money at stake there is greed and a thirst for short-term results to
please their egos. Just like gold mining companies, they dig away to grab as much
of the jackpot as they can, with no consideration on the effects this is having on
the football landscape and on its workers. As the years go by, even the good
miners find it hard to avoid some sort of hazard that can affect their well-being.
You see, managing a football club with “gold miners” at the forefront contaminates
the working environment and changes the morphology of the game.

The business of football, as we know it today, is unsustainable. Other industries
are beginning to adopt a “Slow” philosophy which in the words of Canadian
journalist, Carl Honoré, is:

“A cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow
philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do
everything at the right speed. Savouring the hours and minutes rather than just
counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible.
It’s about quality over quantity.”

Perhaps we should be taking note and extrapolate this idea to the football industry
and the way clubs are managed.

I have no idea when the bubble is going to burst, but what has become clear in the
past decades is that a football club cannot be run by diggers. It’s time to repair the
landscape and begin to plant, and this can only be achieved by gardeners; people
who have a holistic and long-term mindset, who are not looking for personal gain,
and who are willing to set their differences aside for the greater good.

I know, this all sounds very naïve. But despite seeing and experiencing lots of
negativity, I have seen and met many genuinely good and wonderful people who
carry out great work. I hope it’s these people that find the will to carry on plodding
through the dirt, pollinating their values so that they begin to flourish and prevail
over the current trend.

As you have read, I ended the article practically calling myself naïve, others will
politely say “a romantic”, however, after reading the book ‘Radical Football’ by
Steve Fleming, especially this excerpt written by Pippa Grange, England’s
psychologist, I feel less ingenuous and alone with the idea that we have to start
changing the landscape of football; basically, I’ve found my tribe and purpose in
these pages and the work of Common Goal.